Photos

One of my favourite birds, if not my favourite! So beautiful to see in person, the flash of blue as they speed past low over the water makes you wonder what you just saw. Their little cheep cheep call gives them away, as their bright orange and blue plumage is surprisingly hard to spot amongst the reeds and trees.

Brilliant little starling sized, berry gobblers that visit us most winters. Often only visiting in small numbers and starting in the north of Scotland, we don't get too many chances to see them outside of the very north of England. Every so often there will be an irruption year, where we can get thousands of waxwings working their way down the UK over winter, which gives us more chances to see them in their favoured berry tree decorated supermarket carparks. With little fear of people, beautiful plumage and a gentle trilling call they are hard not to love.

Really special to see in the wild, a true treat to be able to watch them doing their thing. There are 5 species of owl that breed in the UK and I have successfully photographed all of them. Over time I hope to improve the images of each species, which is proving very difficult due to them being nutoriously nocturnal!

Birds of prey, my aim is to photo each of species we find here in the wild! Some will require specific trips up to remote parts of Scotland, others will need a lot of luck. We have a couple species that only visit us when they get lost on their usual migration, they will be the ones where being in the right place at the right time is key.

This album is a mix of good shots of various species, some less good shots of rarer species to find in the UK or just ones I like! 

A mix of wild non-avian native species I've found on my vaiours wildlife walks, from insects to mammals. Hoping to add some of our native reptiles to this album one day, but they have proven harder to find.

Skomer Island! An island off of the Pembrokeshire coast that is a haven for sea birds. With over half the worlds population of manx shearwaters nesting in burrows on it, it is globally important. Not only manxies call it home though, with 40,000+ puffins using it as their breeding grounds, choughs, peregrines, short-eared owls and many more. 

The puffins are definitely the main crowd pleaser, with them being on a remote island that has no land predators they are very confident around people. Walking across the paths and some even curiously pecking at your shoes. They arrive each April and will stay until the end of July or early August. Their little pufflings usually fledge in July, the exact time in July varies a lot depending on when the adults start nesting and the availability of food. Outside of breeding season all puffins spend their time entirely at sea, resting by floating on the surface and finding food by swimming down to grab fish.

The manx shearwaters on the island that heavily outnumber the puffins are hardly seen during the day as they are either out at sea fishing, only returning at dusk, or sleeping/incubating eggs in their burrows. A trip to Skomer at dusk can reward you with thousands of them switching over from being at sea and coming into the island.

Still technically wild, but these squirrels in our garden have become used to the steady supply of nuts I'll put out for them. Over the coruse of a few months I trained them to use a squirrel feeder, put that high up and created a ramp for them to access it. I then moved the ramp further away from the feeder so they had to jump to it. At first I attempted to hide in the garden, but this took a lot of patience as they often spent a while burying the nuts between visits. It then became routine to setup the camera on a tripod and remotely trigger the shutter whilst working from the backdoor watching!

Though contained in the park, these deer are classed as wild. There are plenty roaming Richmond and Bushy park so it was easy to catch up with them. My first visit was during peak rutting (mating) season, which was great to see, if a little scary! The males are full of testosterone and actively battling with others over females, often roaring, charging and evening ramming each other. Making sure you were not standing between two males or particularly close to an agitated one was key.

The first few days of much colder weather in September/October triggers the most activity from the red deer. Crisp early mornings can make their bellowing breath visible as well as more tension between the males. As the red deer start to cool down, the fallow deer start up, rutting as well, but on a smaller scale as they are not quite a big beasts.

Staying in a similar area of Mallorca to where we visited lasted year, I could revisit some of the rewarding spots, such as S'Albufera and explore others. One walk in Son Real rewarded me with 13 Hoopoes and another day we saw 48 Hermann's tortoises in a single walk!

The bee-eaters had also returned to the same place, showing off their beautiful colours again.

Visiting Gibraltar in spring or autumn can provide a true spectacle, as during these periods thousands of birds migrate through. Heading between breeding grounds in Europe and wintering grounds in Africa. Our visit was during one of the peak periods for black kites and short-toed snake eagles, sadly the winds weren't helping as the majority passed by Gibraltar and opted for heading further west into Spain. On our first day however we did get lucky with some passing over, and there was still plenty of wildlife to see the rest of the visit.

The algarve is a great place for birdlife with a mix of migration routes between Europe to Africa, as well as their warm climate all year round. The main species I wanted to get a good set of photos of was the Hoopoe, which I saw a few times over the Algarve but one of their many golf courses proved the most successful for taking photos of them.

A family friendly holiday destination that also has plenty to see wildlife-wise. The best spectacle I witnessed whilst there was a breeding colony of bee-eaters. These colourful insectivores hunt wasps, bees, moths and many others. 

A collection of shots taken of my own and others pets. Much easier to photograph animals that mostly listen to your direction!

A small falconry centre not far from home, I visited previously to see what it was like and was greeted by the owner who was very knowledgable and clearly cared for her animals. It was an easy decision to book a photograpghy session after visiting and I'm very glad I did, it was a great experience and I'll likely be back for another!

A great collection of birds from all over the world, with amazing flying displays that proved an except for photography! Packed full of information and humor the flying displays made the day, I thoroughly enjoyed my visit.

The weather wasn't on our side during our visit, but that didn't spoil it. A privilege to see polar bears up close, definitely the main draw for visiting the Yorkshire Wildlife Park.

A key tourist attraction for Amsterdam in spring time, Keukenhof tulip festival is a gorgeous display of 80 different types of tulip. Each year they plant over 2 million bulbs to ensure that throughout the whole 2 months it is open there are tulips in flower.

With such picturesque canals, bridges and buildings, it would have been a shame not trying to do some street photography whilst visiting Amsterdam. It was incredibly busy when we visited as the Kings Day celebrations were taking place, joining the 800 thousand strong population is over 1 million party goers coming to enjoy the festivities. Orange is the colour to wear and lots of usual minor laws, like drinking on the streets, are let slid for the day.

During a visit to Kew gardens with family I tried to take close up shots of the wonderful display of flora they have. It was a very dark day so became quite a challenge at times and a steep learning curve for focus stacking techniques.

All photos taken at the Silverstone grand prix 2023. We were lucky enough to have seats in the stands near the finish line, so a great view of all the races. Thoroughly enjoyed the day and managed to get some shots which I was happy with given it was my first attempt at vehicle photography.