Weekend June 2017 – Yorkshire and Lincolnshire

We travelled to Yorkshire and stayed at Hunmanby for two nights on 23 and 24 June 2017. We had gone particularly to see the seabirds on the cliffs at Bempton and to photograph them on the nest. We have been several times before but generally either in May or later on in August. This time we chose late June especially so that we would find the baby gannets still on the rock face but fledging and also whilst the Puffins were still in sit around their burrows on the upper parts of the cliffs. They are the first of the varied species to leave the cliffs and go back to sea in July and generally when we have been before in August they have already left.
After Bempton - we drove into the forest on the Southern edge of the North Yorkshire moors to investigate the raptor view point that has been developed there. Even with a full postcode and a sat nav – this isn’t easy to find. However, it is worth persevering and the walk from the little car park to a view point overlooking a very quiet dale and forest is very pleasant in itself.

 We talked with two well equipped birdwatchers who independent of each other confirmed a sighting of a Honey Buzzard about an hour before we arrived. Whilst there another birdwatcher caught view of a Goshawk but just for a second or two and with such a large panorama we failed to pick this bird up before it disappeared from view. We will go back but armed next time with a telescope as well as our binoculars. What is not to like in spending a quiet hour in a beautiful and remote area with wonderful views despite not seeing anything special!
The next day we drove home via the little and attractive market town of Louth in Lincolnshire.Our goal this time was to photograph the Peregrine falcons which have nested on the beautiful and large parish church there.

 We hoped – once again – that in late June the young would be almost fully grown but not yet flying making photography perhaps easier. This time our plan paid off and I took some nice shots of both parent birds and their young.

Weekend trip to The Forest of Dean

Weekend trip to The Forest of Dean

 We went for a weekend at the very end of April to the Forest of Dean. We had hopes of seeing a goshak from the viewing platform theyhave set up there. We did see buzzards over the tree canopy but sadly none of the elusive Goshawks which Richard alone has seen in the New Forest historically.
We did get the chance however to photograph the beautiful Mandarin Ducks which have set up a small feral colony on the lakes there. This us such a pretty bird. As we walked round the lake in the Spring sunshine – I have got some excellent close up shots of a Raven. These magnificent birds seem to be getting more common and widespread over the last ten years or so.

Trip to the Camargue – March 2017 .

We went on a weekend trip to stay in Arles and go bird watching as Spring just started in the South of France. We stayed in a beautifully converted ancient Inn in the old town of Arles and very close to the Roman amphitheatre. It was nice too to see the links to the wonderful paintings that van Gogh produced here before his mental health truly broke down.
So this trip was not just about bird watching but also about the many other attractions too.
In terms of nature – we had two very specific goals – both designed to provide Alla with great opportunities to hone her skills as an inexperienced but fast learning wildlife photographer with a great eye for composition born from her experience as a talented artist and painter.
These were respectively to try to capture images of an Eagle Owl from a reliable site where a pair have regularly been seen at dusk as the evening light begins to fail on an outcrop of rock. We duly took up position - but as night began to overtake dusk – we gave up after two hours having drawn a blank. However – the evening was far from a waste of time. When do any of us just sit – as we did that early and balmy Spring evening – entirely quiet but comfortable on a broken bough of a tree in an abandoned and overgrown olive grove and intensely concentrate on all that happens around you for a couple of hours. It was a wonderful time to observe so minutely the way the evening drew in over the olive grove and surrounding rock formations and how the light changed. It was very close to meditation somehow and intensely relaxing.
Our other goal was to photograph the Greater Flamingos that populate the Camargue.
To get the best possible shots we chose not the heart of the Camargue but rather the industrial wasteland  close by Port Louis at the very mouth of the Rhone delta region. This partially derelict abandoned land reminded me of bird watching at Teesmouth  close by the closed steel works at Redcar and the wading birds that throng to the mudflats of the River Tees estuary.
The benefit of going to Port Louis was that the tarmac roads still exist to get really close to the birds and this made an ideal platform to take some excellent shots in lovely Spring sunshine.
A fabulous time in every sense!