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Black squirrels and sparrowhawks
I tried to locate some black squirrels a couple of years
back in Hertfordshire where they are apparently becoming numerous.
Despite good information I didn't find any, so thought I would
try again this year. The "black" squirrel is actually
a genetic mutation of the grey squirrel and was introduced with
the greys to this country from the US or Canada. The black squirrels
have a lot of the black pigment (melanin) so these are called
melanistic grey squirrels.They are not a separate species, they
are still grey squirrels.
When I arrived on the site - the grounds of a Church, I met a
local couple who informed me that the church caretaker had killed
nearly all of the squirrels. The squirrels used to be very confiding
and ate out of people's hands giving lots of pleasure to many
apparently. So much for Christian tolerance then! However he suggested
I persist because there were still a couple left in the churchyard
grounds. After a gloomy lunch I tried again and was rewarded with
excellent sightings of the two remaining animals which appeared
to be very intolerant of the normal greys that were also present.
A few peanuts got them to pose where I wanted them and this is
one of my shots....
Conditions were very challenging photographically
as the squirrels were in the shady side of the church in minimal
light but as it was a sunny day, the backgrounds were too bright
- a bad combination.I was forced to use a mixture of available
light at wide aperture (f3.5- f2.8 on the 300mm f2.8L IS lens)
and high Iso plus a bit of fill flash from a flashgun fitted with
a flash extender. I purposely under-exposed the flash by 1.5 stops
(by dialling in Flash exposure compensation) and this combination
enabled natural-looking pictures despite the use of flash. I will
probably go back again in the early morning in the hope of better
light next time.
I have quite a collection of grey squirrel pictures now as the
blacks complete my collection of normal (grey) and white (albino).
You can see many more shots in my image galleries on the
squirrels page.
Here is a normal grey squirrel for comparison...
And this is another rare variant of the grey, a white (albino)
grey squirrel. It totally lacks any pigment and in common with
many other albino species even the eyes lack pigment and are pink.
Another species that I have been trying to photograph recently
is sparrowhawk. These occasionally turn up in my garden and I
have watched them from my hide on several occasions but they have
an uncanny knack of staying just outside my camera range. However,
while I was repairing a greenhouse that had suffered a bit of
storm damage in the recent windy conditions, a beautiful male
bird landed on a perch by my feeders and I froze all movement
while I watched him preening for about five minutes. He was no
more than thirty feet away, which was astounding as these birds
of prey are normally hyper-spooky. Typical I thought, I didn't
have my camera with me! Anyway, I noted the time of day and the
next day conditions were similar so I got into the hide and waited
with my 500mm f4 lens mounted on the 1DmkIV. At last I was rewarded
with frame-filling shots I had been trying for for three years.
I was willing the bird to turn to face me, but he never did. This
is as close to a full frontal as I was treated to....
Also a little over-the-shoulder number...
I love birds of prey and the sight of a male sparrowhawk
perched so close was just wonderful, but his presence is now a
mixed blessing as the other birds are all on maximum alert all
the time and do not settle to feed. Instead they dart in to the
feeders, grab some food and dart out again at high speed, making
photographing them a frustrating experience.
The year's plans and
predators in Bavaria
Firstly let me just wish everyone a very happy and prosperous
New Year ! The Ophrys Photography website is now about to begin
its seventh year. Is it really that long ?
This is the time of year that I start booking up trips and planning
some projects for the year ahead.
In the UK I hope that I will be doing some stuff with foxes and
I have arranged a very special trip to Alaska later in the year
with the well- known UK wildlife photographer, Chris Weston. We
will have privileged access to some wonderful wilderness areas
of Katmai that are normally off-limits thanks to Chris Morgan
- a bear biologist who will be accompanying us. Both ChrisM and
Chris W are extremely experienced and have written books on bears,
so I feel confident that I will remain safe while being extremely
close up and personal while the bears fish for salmon.I have been
instructed to bring my wide angle lens for the closeups - gulp.
Before any of this I am going to try for the Aurora Borealis (Northern
lights) in Iceland. This is a bit of a change for me as I don't
usually do "landscapes" as such but I have always wanted
to see the Northern Lights as it must be one of nature's greatest
spectacles and many people find it to be a really spiritual experience.
I have kitted myself out with some new cold weather gear as I
expect to be standing around for hours on snow at minus goodness-knows-what
temperature at night in Iceland. I am currently genning up on
requirements for aurora photography and will report back with
recommendations when I feel confident in camera settings etc myself.
Anyway, I am rather getting ahead of myself as I never put anything
in this blog about my last trip to Bavaria. This is when I got
to know Chris Weston and we subsequently arranged to go to Katmai
in 2012.
Chris runs a short workshop that he calls "Europe's Great
Predators" and includes bears wolves and lynx in the Bavarian
Forest National Park in Germany. I managed to get some nice images
of theses difficult species in late autumn colour in November.
Here are a few highlights:
Wolves gathering in beech forest
Meat is put out for the wolves every other day and they gather
in readiness near a viewing platform which provides good photo
opportunities. They remain largely invisible at all other times.
Wolf close up
Brown bear courtship
Resting up.
Lynx
There are also other animals in the forest including these wild
boar
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