Swan feed, at the WWT Welney

This weekend, I was back in Cambridgeshire visiting family.  While I was there, I took a trip to the Wildfowl & Wetlands Trust at Welney to experience one of their winter swan feeds.

Each winter thousands of swans and migratory ducks flock to the Ouse washes from their breeding grounds in Iceland and Arctic Russia for winter.  To help them out, the WWT provides daily feeds to boost their own foraging and it's quite a spectacle.

At the last count, taken on the 18th December, there were; 1075 Bewick swans and 2427 Whooper swans, not to mention nearly 8000 Widgeon, over 1000 Mallard, over 500 Teal, nearly 500 Pochard and over 300 Tufted Ducks, amongst many other species of water fowl.

We arrived around 30 mutes before the feed and were met with a large amount of Whoopers and a few Mallard mixing with the Pochards, Mallards and Teals in front of the observatory.

There were a large amount of young swans, which is one of the beautiful things about the experience; the family groups of swans returning to Welney with their new brood of signets.

After a brief introduction by one of Welney's wardens, giving some background as to why there are so many swans and waterfowl returning to the reserve, the feed started.  And, in all honesty, the birds went a little crazy.

Thousands of birds appeared in front of the observatory taking full advantage of the free food and, with it, out went any pleasantries and manners.  If any birds got too close, they soon knew about it.



The water was soon turned to a jacuzzi as ducks, swans, pochards and teal all fought to get at the feed.

While the swans had the advantage of their long necks, the other fowl has to make do with furiously kicking their legs to get at the rapidly sinking pellets.

Once all of the feed had sunk to the bottom, it was left to the swans to pick up the leftovers.

It was a great experience and I will definitely be returning in the new year.  Hopefully when the waters which covered the Ouse wash had receded somewhat.

A cold, grey day at the wetlands centre

Last weekend I spent a couple of hours at the Wildfowl & Wetlands centre, secretly hoping to capture that once in a lifetime shot of the recently returned Bittern. Sadly, on that day, it was not to be.



I was also hoping to see some of the birds currently migrating over London. Again, this was not meant to be.



Still, it's always nice to wander around the centre, even on an over-cast and slightly drizzly day.

There were still plenty of wildfowl around to see and snap.



There will be other days, better light and more birds.



Still, I'm happy with the few shots I did get.

Technical Wildlife Photography Workshop, with Mark Carwardine

This Saturday I attended a Technical Wildlife Photography Workshop, at the Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust in Barnes, with Mark Carwardine. Having had an interest in wildlife photography for some time and nature documentaries pretty much since the advent of the Discovery Channel on Sky, I was very aware of Mark's work. The opportunity to meet and learn directly from him was an incredible. His photos are amazing and that level of photography is very much where I aspire to.



The aim of the course, as the course suggests, was aimed at the more technical aspects of wildlife photography once you have taken the shot. This includes how to choose your best shots and the work-flow necessary to touch up and make the very best out of the images you have captured.



To start, Mark walked us through his standard work-flow, giving us practical advice on what software he used and how he used it. Although I already had a work-flow for my images in place, I have to admit that it has changed slightly and I'm very pleased with the results so far from doing so.

Mark continued, explaining his standard camera set-up and why he set it up this way. I was pleased to hear that this is very much the same as I set up mine. Once you have the set up, you just need to practice with your camera so that changing functions and settings becomes second nature, meaning you won't miss that once in a lifetime shot because you're busy changing the focussing point.



Following lunch, it was time for a practical session. It was great to go out in a group and have the advice of Mark as we were snapping away in the sun, although I must admit I did feel slightly pressurised to take a good shot.



While outside, we were able to meet up with Laurence Arnold, one of the reserves volunteers and, as we were told, a self confessed reptile addict. He was able to take us to a few places in the reserve not usually seen by the visitors and he was able to show us Slow Worms...



... and a Grass Snake.



Once back in the classroom, the subjects covered were entering a competition and giving yourself the best chance of doing well in it, and signing up to and selling your images through a stock agency. These were of great interest to me as I would sincerely love to be able to make a living from my nature photography. There's lots to look at but with Mark's advice I am at least on the right track.

Wetlands Centre - Chasing Hawkers and Moorhens

Last weekend I decided to get out of the house to take some photos and I suddenly realised how lucky I was being in the location I am in terms of nature reserves.  The WWT centre around the corner, and at least two nature reserves, Barnes common and the Leg of Mutton, as well as Richmond Park to name but a few areas. One of the major advantages of starting at the WWT centre, as I did on this occasion, is that you can pretty much guarantee there will be photo opportunities. Also, the ability to see what had been attracted to the site over the past few days, by looking at their wildlife sightings page on their website website and taking a look at their twitter stream, are a great help in planning a visit.

I arrived and managed to tag along with one of the warden walks. This allowed me to see one of the smallest and probably most photographed invertebrates at the centre over the past few weeks; a Wasp Spider. Introduced to this country from the continent, it is usually confined to the south coast but, due in large part to global warming, their range is slowly extending north and they have been spotted as far as Cambridge. Sporting natures warning colours, black and yellow, they are not poisonous, although I've read that they can bite. They are very beautiful to look at though.

From there, I decided to leave the warden and the group to it and head towards the wildside, admittedly my favourite area of the centre. On the way it was lovely to see the many of the wild flowers still in bloom near the RBC rain garden.





On my way towards the wildside, I spotted a Moorhen finishing the lunch it had obviously bought from the cafe. "This cuppa support conservation..." - yes, it certainly looks like it!



After a spot of lunch for me, I finally got to the wildside. I decided to walk around to where I'd seen the Kingfisher a couple of weeks earlier but the island had been given a pretty close hair cut, so there was no where the Kingfisher could perch, even if it did decide to visit. However, I did get a nice shot of a Moorhen, reflected in the water.



I also spotted one (ok, two) of the newest editions to the wetlands centre; newly born Little Grebes. Judging from their size, I would say they were only about a week old and Mum and Dad were, understandibly, very protective of them, hiding them under their wings on their back.



I noted there were a couple of large Migrant Hawkers patrolling the edge of the pond and proceeded to spend the next hour or so attempting to get a photo of one in flight, completely in vain I might add. However, as I continued my walk, I spotted another which seemed all to keen to have it's photo taken, hovering right in front of me, giving me plenty of time to check camera settings, etc, before taking these photos.









This was obviously the spot to find animals who wanted to have their photo taken, as a Moorhen posed gracefully for me as well.



I went into the wildside hide and managed to get a nice photo of some Mallards flying over.



Finally, on my way to the exit, a couple of baby lizards were pointed out to me. Thanks to the guy who drew my attention to them.



From the Wetlands centre, I decided to have a walk to the Leg of Mutton nature reserve on my way home. To be honest, there was not a lot to see, due mainly to the fact I didn't have a lot of time to spend looking. Another Migrant Hawker decided it wanted to have its photo taken, so I gladly obliged.



Also, I think it's safe to say, there are plenty of Cormorants who call the Leg of Mutton home. I spotted eight on this pontoon alone and there were many more to be seen on the others around the reservoir.



It was also nice to see the Swan signets I'd seen earlier in the year all grown up. Six in total, all still in their juvenile plumage but looking to be doing very well.



Finally, I spotted a group of Long-tailed Tits flying from tree to tree just before I left the reserve. A nice day, lots of walking, but well worth the effort.

Nature at its finest, and harshest

After a day of watching rugby and post-match "refreshments", Kelly and I decided that Sunday should include a serene walk around the wetlands centre.

Between the rain showers, it was actually quite a nice day. There were the usual moorhens and coots milling around and, as walked over to the reservoir lagoon, we spotted a couple of Great-Crested Grebe's.



They were looking for fish and having a bit of a dive but no fish, that we saw, were caught.



While trying to spot a bird that was singing away in a tree, I happened to look up and saw a juvenille Blue Tit watching me.



From something so cute, Kelly then spotted the crueller side of nature; a Common Wasp trapped in a Green Orb-weaver spider's web.  We watched, as the spider slowly gained confidence to approach its monsterously large prospective meal, and start to bind it's legs together.  It's not hard to guess what the final outcome was but I think it's safe to say that the meal will last this little spider quite a few days.

To finish our visit, we went back to watching the cuter side of nature, with some baby Whistling Ducks.

A slow, boring day, with nothing to see, but then...

This Sunday, I decided to have a wander around the Wetlands Centre. The sun was out and I was interested to see if anything else was too.

In a word, no. The most I could see was a couple of large Hawkers patrolling their territory, which I attempted to get a shot of. This is the best one I managed to get, which still isn't that great.

My girlfriend, Kelly, came to meet me and, at this point, I was pretty much ready to give up on the photos and settle for a cool beer.

I mentioned to Kelly that there had been a Kingfisher spotted at the wildside area of the centre earlier that morning, which she was very keen to find, as I was. So, rather than wandering around aimlessly in the hope that we stumble across it, we started to have a walk around the ponds to see if we could find the Heron we'd seen flying in a few minutes earlier. After a few minutes Kelly announced, "I think I've just seen something". What, exactly, she didn't say but then we both saw it; a flash of blue. A flash caught out of the corner of my eye was all it was but we were both convinced it was the Kingfisher, which was soon confirmed by a couple of bird watchers who said it had been flying around for a little while.

Alas, it had flown off and I, for one, was gutted. So close to seeing my first Kingfisher properly and the only photo I had managed to get was a blurry shot containing a jumble of unfocussed greenery with no blue whatsoever.  The bird watchers had wandered off to the other side of the pond and I thought the chance was over.

But then I was waved over to the other side of the pond and, when I got there, I was greeted with this.

An absolutely beautiful, bright blue, male Kingfisher. I watched it for a few minutes through a combination of my camera and my binoculars but, to be honest, it was a bit far away. So I decided to try to get closer, which meant climbing through the trees and undergrowth which wasn't ideal in shorts and t-shirt. It was definitely worth it though; I ended up about 2 metres from where he was perched.

And then, after about an hour or so, he flew off. That was ok though as I was perfectly happy with the time I'd spent watching a Kingfisher in the sun which was a nice 30th birthday present. He didn't catch any fish that we saw but then there will be other days to see that.

And anyway, it was time for a refreshing cider in the Red Lion pub garden, where a Robin stopped by to say hello.