Wednesday 11 February 2015

More Tits

Well I've been itching to get out with the camera all week, but unfortunately a combination of work commitments and truly awful light conditions have laid to rest any plans I may have had to get out there and satisfy my desire.
                                                                                                                                       
 
I'm pleased to report that all as not been lost though and I've spent the last couple of evenings processing some photographs which have remained overlooked for the last few years.
I've actually got an archive of unprocessed shots running into the tens of thousands and its actually been a pleasure looking and sorting through some of those.
 
Today I'm going to carry on from where I left off at the last post and present you with some portraits of a few different varieties of Tit.
All these images were taken in the Derbyshire Peak District on a lovely late winters day in March 2010...
 
 
 

                                                                         Blue Tit


 
 
Coal Tit
 
 
Great Tit

Sunday 8 February 2015

Back With A Renewed Passion



Its been a while to say the least since my last post...Over 4 years in fact!
The reason for this I guess is because I became a little disillusioned with the wildlife genre of photography and needed a fresh challenge.

For the last few years my photography has been infrequent and limited to street and urban type stuff, but recently the call of the wild has become overwhelming and the urge to go back to what I love and know best has gotten the better of me.

Yesterday I took a walk to a local wildlife haven and for the first time in ages I was armed with my trusty Nikon and 500mm lens.
My God, I've missed it! I cant explain how much I've missed it.
It was a bitterly cold morning and my fingers were frozen to the bone before I was finished, but I'm so glad that I made those tentative first steps back to be with nature.
The sights, smells and just the sheer utter tranquillity of wild places is something I don't want to be any long time away from again...My passion is renewed and I feel I have to make up for lost time.

Anyway...The photography!

To say I was a little ring rusty would be a massive understatement and it took me a good couple of hours to get my eye in and take anything like a half decent image.
The first shots I fired were of a Treecreeper spiraling up a tree in very bad light and the results were I'm afraid disappointing.
My next encounter was with a fleeting one with a Dipper feeding in the river and again I have nothing to show from that.
Finally while heading back to my car (frozen!) I spotted a small flock of Great Tits in a farmers field.
I spent a little time observing their behaviour which consisted of chasing each other and occasionally landing on a barbed wire fence; So really it was just a case of setting the camera on the tripod and waiting.
I managed to get a sequence of fairly pleasing portraits of these tiny birds and all in all I'm very happy with my first day back shooting wildlife.




                                                                      Great Tit