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OPHRYS
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Image(s) of the month 2007
|
| December -
Sanderlings sharing a seafood lunch and African harrier-hawk with golden bat. |
| These wonderful little birds scuttle around on the seashore
like clockwork mice - trying to find unopened cockle shells as the tide washes them in. This pair on the north Kent coast agreed to share their lunch without a squabble developing. The late afternoon winter sunshine was casting a lovely peachy glow - much appreciated by the photographer. |
| Another one from Kenya - This time of an African harrier-hawk , proudly displaying it's lunch (a golden coloured bat ) that it had hooked out of a hole in a tree just moments before. |
November - Red
deer stag |
| The red deer rutt began in early October this year, and this magnificent stag allowed a close approach for this frame-filling shot. |
October - Giraffes
at sunset and Vervet monkey in acacia |
| Two images this month ! A brief visit to Kenya yielded some wonderful photo opportunities. These reticulated giraffes appeared just as the sun was setting, so I asked the jeep driver to hurtle down a dusty track into a postion against the light. "But the light is all wrong" he complained - please just do it I said ! This is the result . |
| This vervet monkey was photographed in Samburu Kenya.It was sitting in a very dark location in a spiny acacia tree. Shortly after taking this shot, the monkey hurtled down the tree and collected his modelling fee by helping himself to my sandwiches! I have a lot of pictures to sort through from this short trip - which will start to appear as I clear the image backlog. |
September -
Hare in the meadow |
| A commando-style crawl in totally open grass and a 30 minute wait was rewarded by this hare that actually ended up too close for my 500mm lens - this was despite not wearing any camo-gear either! |
August - Brown
Bear |
I had a fantastic couple of evenings photographing wild brown bears
on the Finnish/Russian
border. This magnificent bear was photographed at about 11pm as the
summer nights are
still quite light this far north. I felt very vulnerable in my tiny
plywood hide at eye-level with
the bears just a few feet away from my lens !
July - Bashful
hare |
I have found a great place for hares which I intend to revisit regularly.
They seem quite
accomodating when using a car as a hide, but this picture was taken
using a bag-hide.
This male came so close to me that I ended up having to take head-and-shoulders
shots
as I couldn't get him all in the frame with my 500mm lens.
June - Glanville
fritillary on thrift flower |
This month's image is of a butterfly that is rare in Britain called
the Glanville fritillary.
It is found almost exclusively on the Isle of Wight, but there are
a couple of sites on
the mainland opposite the IOW where it can also be found. The weather
was bright but
very windy on the day this picture was taken which created a big challenge
to get a sharp
image! This picture was taken with a bit of fill-flash to add a bit
of zip to the colours.
May - European
Souslik |
Never heard of a souslik ? Well neither had I until I visited Romania
in late April. These cute little
ground squirrels are the equivalent of American prairie dogs or African
meerkats. They live in
holes in the ground and feed on grass seeds.I had to wait for some
time until I could get one to
stand upright for me. In fact it took a booted eagle to fly overhead
to get all the little fellows
standing up - after which they promptly squeeked loudly as they made
a dash for their burrows !
April - Herring
gull |
This month's image is of a herring gull- a common bird, but still
very beautiful and elegant
in flight - as captured here, coming into land on a rooftop in Folkestone
harbour in Kent.
March - Northern
hawkowl catching a vole in the snow |
A trip to Finland in late February brought this opportunity to
photograph a Northern Hawkowl catching a vole in the snow.
February - Goldfinch
in the snow |
A brief spell of snow provided a nice photo-opportunity-
such as this goldfinch which posed on a spiky gorse bush
January - Kingfisher
abstract |
Something a bit different this month. I don't tend to do much in the
way of
abstract usually, but I enjoyed doing this close-up image of a kingfisher
which demonstrates the beautiful colours and feather detail on this
bird.