Travelling Light – Photographing Light
I’ll been watching a pair of Nuthatchs all spring – they started nesting in a tit box months ago and now appear to be raising an unknown number of young ones. The Nuthatch is actually not that common a bird here in this part of West Yorkshire and not seen at all most years (at least by me).
Continue reading “Nuthatch”
The Huddersfield Narrow Canal is an inland waterway in northern England. It runs just under 20 miles (32 km) from Lock 1E at the rear of the University of Huddersfield campus, near Aspley Basin in Huddersfield, to the junction with the Ashton Canal at Whitelands Basin in Ashton-under-Lyne. It crosses the Pennines by means of 74 locks and the Standedge Tunnel.
Continue reading “The Huddersfield Narrow Canal”
I didn’t buy the Sony A7Riv for wildlife but the wildlife at Dove Stone Reservoir didn’t care and this little chap kept photobombing me ! Clearly well used to people he was determined to get in on the show so it would have been rude not to frame up a few shots of him (could be a her of course as no sexual dimorphism in Robins).
Continue reading “Photobombed”
An important aspect of my photographic interest is wildlife, an interest that requires long lenses and good field craft. The field craft I am ok with but my relationship with long lenses is a long story.
Stepping back a few years my go to wildlife kit was the Canon EOS 7d mk ii and the venerable Canon 500mm f4 big white. On the Canon APS C crop body this gave me an effective focal length of 800mm a good focal length for birding and coupled with the Canon 100-400mm zoom on a Canon 5d mk iii a good all around wildlife kit, all be it with one major problem, well actually 2 major problems, size and weight (those 4 items alone weighing in at 6.43kg).
Continue reading “£6,499 too far”
The Pandemic drags on and opportunities to get out and about to photograph the wildlife have been few and far between. A brief foray to Suffolk & Norfolk yielded little with many of the popular sites overwhelmed with holiday makers that should have been abroad staycationing instead – so just a couple of images – hopefully autumn and winter will bring a little more activity and perhaps a little more enthusiasm on my part.
Continue reading “A Quiet Summer”By way of a postscript a few days after we left Sri Lanka and transited with Emirates through Dubai, Dubai Airport was closed to transit passengers and whilst we probably could still have got home on a direct flight we think in retrospect we did the right thing.
14 March 2020
A twist in the tail today which unfortunately meant a premature end to our Sri Lankan trip.
13 March 2020
This morning we returned to our preferred Yala Block 5. It was a little quieter today perhaps due to the extreme heat which really does make a large part of the day fairly sterile when it comes to birding and no doubt the Leopards were also avoiding the heat and thus also us unfortunately.
12 March 2020
We were a little uncertain whether to bother with Yala Block 1 but given that we had plenty of time we thought we would, so at dawn we joined the long queue of jeeps waiting to enter the park, not a promising sign from our perspective but time would tell.
11 March 2020
Bundala National Park today. Bundala is an internationally important wetland area, it was the first RAMSAR designated site in Sri Lanka.
As usual we were at the gate before dawn.
10 March 2020
A day in Yala. Yala National Park is the second largest but far away most visited national park in Sri Lanka. The park is split into a number of blocks some of which can be visted and some which cannot. The vast majority of visitors to the park take a safari in Block 1, the coastal part of the park, the reason being that you supposedly stand the best chance of seeing Leopard which, for most people, appears to be all that they are interested in. The result of this is that Block 1 is frankly over-run with jeeps which does tend to somewhat spoil the experience.
Continue reading “Yala Block 5 (Lunugamvehera National Park)”
9 March 2020
On the road again today heading south to our base in Tissamaharama gateway to the likes of Yala and Bundala National Parks.
8 March 2020
An early start this morning so as to be at the entrance to the park not long after dawn and to catch sight of the endemic Sri Lanka Woodpigeon at its well kown roosting site, before they flew for the day, this being the only real chance to see this species on the trip.
7 March 2020
Next on the itinerary was the highland town of Nuwara Eliya and from there a trip to the Horton Plains National Park.
7 March 2020
This morning, before dawn, we headed off into the hills to the north of Kitulgala.
6 March 2020
The birding on day 2 of our Kitulgala stay was pretty slow but it was more than made up for in a photographic sense by the fantastic lizards that we came across and they really do make the most fantastic photographic subjects, not least because unlike the birds they don’t keep flying away ! Continue reading “Kitulgala – Day 2 (Reptiles)”
6 March 2020
Our first full day at Kitulgala and up at the crack of dawn for some endemic owl hunting.
5 March 2020
A long, hot and winding drive south today in preparation for a few days at one of Sri Lanka’s birding hotspots the wet zone forest at Kitulgala.
4 March 2020
Birding around Kandy means the Royal Botanical Gardens and the Udawatta Kelle Sanctuary – we visited the gardens in the morning and the sanctuary in the afternoon.
2 March 2020
After a hectic couple of weeks we decided to have a fairly lazy day with just some early morning and late afternoon birding around Habarana.
