HOWARD'S BIRDSPOT: February 2012

Sunday, 5 February 2012

Treecreeper taken at Far Ings. Old Shot from Oct. Revisited.

A favourite shot from last year. I have never managed to capture detail before like this on a treecreeper. The light is perfect and the detail shows much better than on any other creeper shot I have. Also the bird landed very close which helps with small birds. Using a 500mm even at it's minimum focus distance still requires a crop of the shot because the subject is so small.

Friday, 3 February 2012

Far Ings and local. 3.2.12.

Plenty to see out and about today. Walked around the local wood and then headed to Far Ings and an hour in Ness hide. It was a cold day with good light. It was also that sort of day when you see things but never get a clean shot. Still I enjoyed today and thats what it's about. You can't expect to get perfect wildlfe shots to order. So from the top are Robin, Blue tit and Blackbird. Coots on Ice, Another record of my local resident roosting Tawny Owl, Bullfinch and a record shot of a Great Spotted Woodpecker. Plus a shot of the Humber Bridge from the humber forshore from the old cement works.

Wednesday, 1 February 2012

Teal and Goldeneye at Far Ings 1.2.12.

Quiet and cold at Far Ings this morning. A couple of hours in Ness hide yeilding nothing but the resident ducks,. Still the light was very good at times. Shame nothing less common showed up today.

HOWARD'S BIRDSPOT

Hello and welcome to my blog. Firstly, I am not a professional photographer or a bird or wildlife expert. Most of what I have learned about photography and wildlife or birds is self taught from books or what I have learned from friends and wildlife photographers and birders. I owe a lot of my sucess to friends and photographers for their guidance. I am still learning and have many subjects I still want to photograph. I am very passionate about birding and bird photography. All of my subjects are wild birds or wildlife in the wild. I do not photograph captive birds or wildlife in a staged setting. It's just not my thing. I get no satisfaction from photographing captive sujects. That's not being disrespectful to those who do, I'm just not comfortable with it, and would rather go without pictures of rare subjects than take photos of captive ones. I do however respect the work of captive breeding programs and caring for injured birds and wildlfe. I belong to the local bird study group which records breeding birds on my local reserve. This has helped me to gain increased results in locating species to photograph from an increased knoledge of birdsong and bird behaviour. I have enjoyed increasing sucsess with my work in having work published in books and magazines including birdwatching magazine, in national newspapers and countless web features and articles. I was also the winner of the 2011 wildlifextra.com national photography competition "birds" category. leading to the publishing of the winning picture in the competitions book. The same picture is liscensced for sale by Getty Images through the Wildlfe and wetland trust, who featured my photo in a published article. My photo's have featured many times on flickr explore. I have also had pictures feature on the BBC springwatch red button site on television and have received the Springwatch photo of the day award. I've also had them used during the BBC and ITV weather forecasts and on the BBC Earth and BBC Nature websites. I also featured in a BBCTV look north feature shown on BBC 1 about my competition win and my love of photography on the Far Ings Nature Reserve. Thank you for visiting, and I hope you enjoy viewing my pictures. Please feel free to contact me with regard to using any of my images. I rarely refuse, but do like to know where my images are being used. I don't sell my images in print format due to the fact that I don't have the time at the moment as I am in full time employment. If you have any questions regarding my photography please contact me via email.