Male sparrowhawk from my garden hide

Although I have seen sparrowhawks on several occasions from my garden hide, I have only managed to grab the occasional hurried picture of one before it flies off. This beautiful male stayed for a few minutes and even preened itself before resuming to hunt small birds.

- Image taken with Canon 1D mkIV plus 500mm f4L IS lens. 1/1600 sec F5.6, ISO 400 , no exposure compensation. Wimberley tripod bolted to shelf in garden hide.

Male sparrowhawk on perch

This is another view of the sparrowhawk. Its presence is a mixed blessing as it has been attracted to the small birds which are feeding on my bird feeders. Once the hawk appears the tits, finches and blackbirds mob it, giving out distinctive alarm calls. Once the hawk has visited there are no other birds to photograph for at least half an hour.

- Image taken with Canon 1D mkIV plus 500mm f4L IS lens. 1/800 sec F6.3, ISO 400 , no exposure compensation. Wimberley head bolted to shelf in hide.

Black squirrel

This is a melanic form of the grey squirrel. In parts of Hertfordshire such as Letchworth and Hitchin these are becoming more numerous than the normal greys. The blacks are said to have more testosterone than the greys and are more aggressive. The two blacks that I located certainly spent a lot of time chasing the greys around the trees.

- Image taken with Canon 1D mkIV plus 300mm f2.8L IS lens. 1/320 sec at F3.2, ISO 1000 , no exposure compensation. Fill flash set to underexpose by 1.7 stops with flash extender, Handheld.

Brown bear

Last November I visited a national park in Bavaria with Chris Weston. We had great opportunities to photograph brown bear, lynx and European wolf. The first bear above is not a frame-filler but a nice natural shot with the bear sleeping in the mouth of its den. What Andy Rouse would call a "living landscape". I enjoy taking these kind of shots but they are difficult to portray in the limited space available on a website. It would make a great canvas though.

- Image taken with Canon 1D mkIV plus 70-200f2.8 L IS mkII lens,. 1/125 sec f4, ISO 2000 , -2/3 exposure compensation. Tripod.

Brown bear in deep contemplation (or maybe just nodding off to sleep)

The next picture is a more conventional "Image of the month" kind of shot with a close up of another brown bear. I love the way that the bear is showing the pads of its feet in this image as it dozed on this mossy rock.

- Image taken with Canon 1D mkIV plus 70-200 f2.8L IS mkII lens. 1/125 sec F4,
ISO 2000 , -2/3 exposure compensation. Tripod.

The wolf and the crow

The wolves were in beautiful condition and their coats matched the fallen beech leaves perfectly. I thought that the crow on the ground added a litle something to the shot.

- Image taken with Canon 1D mkIV plus 300mm f2.8L IS lens. 1/1250 sec F4, ISO 800 , no exposure compensation. Handheld.

Wolf in motion

I included this second image as I don't often do motion blur or panned shots. This was the only shot in the series that I was actually satisfied with. I intentionally dialled in a low ISO and middling aperture to achieve shutterspeeds around the 1/20 - 1/125 sec range. This image was shot at 1/60th sec and when combined with a smooth pan focussed on the wolf's head, achieved what I was after - which was an in-focus head with a nice bit of motion blur for the everything else which gives a sense of movement. Technically this all proved to be quite difficult to achieve.

- Image taken with Canon 1D mkIV plus 300mm f2.8L IS lens. 1/60 sec F8, ISO 200 , no exposure compensation. Handheld.

Wolf snarl

I couldn't resist putting in just one more wolf shot as he is looking decidedly "wolfy" - just in case you thought I had been taking pics of German Shepherds down the local park !

- Image taken with Canon 1D mkIV plus 300mm f2.8L IS lens plus 2x extender (600mm). 1/400 sec F5.6, ISO 640 , no exposure compensation, tripod.