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.

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 particallularly close to an agitated one was key.

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.

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.