1) I was on a purely photographic trip and could take my time

2) I have a much better camera and the lens has seen an update too

3) I am a better photographer 

The birds are extremely tolerant of people as the site is well visited. Too well visited in my opinion, there were times when I struggled to get a shot without people in the background! The tactic here is to first observe what the birds are doing, and then set up somewhere close to a favoured perch and see what happens. There are many pairs, however you do need to find the right one that will let you get especially close. Once the birds were identified, find your position and set the height on the monopd for a pleasing background. And then the waiting game begins. As with the Paddyfield Warblers I used the 800mm and Canon 1DX body.

There are a few more images in the gallery.

This trip was different - there were no new birds, only a desire to get better images of a few key species. My last trip to this area had been a birding trip in 2012, this aimed to build on that list of birds with decent images. Paddyfield Warbler was one of target species, and so on my second morning in Bulgaria I was up for first light and standing at a large reedbed on the Black Sea coast. The Warblers were all around, singing, trying to make themselves heard over the guttural chatter of Great Reed Warblers. The light was heavenly, the reedbed faces east and you can have the soft morning light precisely behind you. There were lots of birds, however one was frequenting a very small stand of reeds set slightly apart from the main area. As well as having less of an area to concentrate on it also allowed some potential for a clean background or of the bird on an isolated stem - the kind of image I really wanted. Rarely is anything perfect in wildlife photography, and this morning's trial was a stiff breeze which caused the camera to repeatedly lose focus on the bird as reeds came in front, or indeed the bird itself was swinging wildly on a stem and simply would not stay still. What I was after of course was a bird on a clean stem with nothing else at all!

My kit this morning was a Canon 1DX, a new camera body that I only purchased about three months ago as I needed something with high ISO capability for the dark rainforests of Costa Rica (more on this later!). Mounted on this was my 800mm lens, perfect for small subjects like Warblers. As usual I had this on my Gitzo monopod, the freedom of movement that this allows versus the more traditional tripod set-up proves its worth time and again in my style of bird photography. As the bird moved around in a small patch of reeds, I could move with it extremely easily in comparison with somebody with a tripod. The lens is mounted directly onto the top of the monopod using the integrated lens foot, there is no head. Instead I leave the lens loose in the collar, and by swaying the monopod away from 90 degrees whilst rotating the lens to compensate I can cover a fair area without needing to move. I can also switch rapidly between vertical and landscape compositions. 

Anyway,  my choice of kit was perfect for the application and using 800 ISO meant I could stop the lens down to f7.1 or f8 for a bit more depth of field and retain decent shutter speeds in the range of 1/1600s. The closer you are to the subject the shallower your depth of field, leaving the lens wide open at f5.6 risked a sharp head and a soft body, as it is I have barely got away with it. Compromises, compromises. 

Here are a few of the resulting images from the session. Note that almost all of them have had some degree of photoshop work to clear out distracting elements. I took many frames, and in all of them I had in my mind how complex the separation of the bird would be in post-processing. I only took a shot when I felt that the areas of clear space on the frame would make it worthwhile. For some images I nearly managed it, for others the bird was in the clear but various stems interposed. Some people find editing images in this way acceptable, others do not. As you can probably guess, I don't have an issue with it, but bear in mind that some spheres of photography - particularly competitions - do not allow anything other than the most minor dust removal as it otherwise becomes impossible to draw a line.

It has been a very long time since I posted anything here. Mainly I feel that it has been a very long time since I have taken anything worthwhile. All that changed on a quick visit to Cyprus over the first bank holiday weekend. The target bird was Cyprus Pied Wheatear, a monochromatic bird of arid environments, and one in my experience that you can get relatively close to if you persevere. They arrive back in Cyprus in March, unfortunately after the wintering Finsch’s Wheatear have departed so you can never see both on one trip, and in mid-April are firmly on territory. Whilst they are no doubt at many spots on the island, my favourite place to see them is Cape Greco, as in addition to being able to photos against the more typical sandy backdrops, there are areas where you can get them against the pure blue of the Mediterraenean Sea.

I only had two mornings (which is when the light is best and the birds are at their most active and conspicuous) so I needed to work quickly. At the first site I tried on the peninsula I found a pair of birds straight away. With the benefit of hindsight I spent far too long trying to get shots of these birds when they were simply not playing ball. This is often the trouble with more than one bird – they feed off each other’s anxiety almost, but I am so rusty at the moment that I failed to recognize this and wasted a lot of time on what was never going to be a successful outcome. I could get close to one of the birds, but not both together, and whenever they were separated they liked to join up. One had far less tolerance and this affected the other bird too. I eventually gave up after about 90 minutes, but I had wasted the best light of the day.

At the next site I tried I struck gold immediately. A lone bird that was staking out a relatively small territory and had not yet paired up – yes! Now it does depend on the personality of the individual, but in some cases you get birds that are far more tolerant of a close approach than others. Despite the physical size of SLR telephoto lenses, for small birds like Wheatears you do need to be pretty close to them for a decent photographic result. This is one of the main reasons for conflict between photographers and birders in my opinion, the latter don’t understand that a camera does not magnify in any way to the same extent as a spotting scope, and for many photographers an image taken at the same range as somebody using a 50x zoom simply isn’t worth taking. The counter argument is that the person using the scope will very likely not disturb the bird, whereas the person with the camera runs much more of a risk. With care this can be minimized, or avoided altogether, and I certainly left this bird exactly as I found it, singing away from atop its favourite perch, in this case a yellow sign – the highest vantage point in this particular landscape. As the light was getting harsh, I only took a few photos at this point, I was mainly watching the bird and planning for the following morning as I felt sure it would still be here.

Just after dawn the next morning I was back on site, and the bird was indeed still present. Now I don’t want a yellow sign in my photos, so before I started in earnest I went on a scouting mission for pleasing rocks. I have found this to be an excellent tactic in creating natural-looking images of birds whilst still allowing those birds to remain in their favourite places. I simply placed rocks on top of all the Wheatear’s non-natural perches and retreated. In this instance the bird did not even hesitate and was perching on ‘my’ perch on his perch within a couple of minutes. It was still the best vantage point, and from a Wheatear’s point of view there was nothing suspicious about a rock. Frankly I probably could have placed a tin of beans on the sign and it would likely have perched on it. To get the biggest photos I could, that is to say as many pixels as possible on the bird, I took the longest lens I own with me and added a teleconverter to it. No bird (well, there are a number of exceptions I can recall) will let you walk right up to it, so the longer you lens the ‘closer’ you can get without spooking it. I found that I could almost fill the frame on this bird and it would just sit there as I was still outside of its perceived danger zone. If I had taken, say, a 400mm lens I probably would have flushed it repeatedly. As it was it only flew from me a few times when I pushed my luck, and even then it just went to a different perch that I had also pre-loaded with rocks.

The following are all taken with Canon’s 800mm f5.6 lens, frequently with the 1.4x teleconverter. This gives a minimum of f8 and restricted me to a single central focus point, but with a focal length of 1120mm. Add to this the natural cropping factor of my now ancient 1D mk 4 and I had a staggering amount of zoom. This allowed me to get the bird extremely large in the frame whilst staying back - ultimately the less you flush a bird the more time you can spend taking photos of it. I used my monopod as support, something I have not done for a while – essential with this set up. By adjusting the height of the monopod I could change the background – sea, sky, a distant bush, or simply the sandy coloured rocky ground. So the following represent probably the best from that morning’s wonderful session with an incredibly cooperative bird – I hope you enjoy them as much as I reveled in taking them. The last thing I did before I left? Removed all the rocks. Before I was back in the car the bird was back on the metal edge of the yellow sign.

As an aside a dear friend of mine, now sadly departed, used to call Pelicans Pelihonks. He was not much of a birder to be fair, and his ID skills were somewhat lacking, but during a long trip we took together up and down the East coast of Australia many years ago I gradually got him to at least start looking at them. Predator Budgie was his generic term for any bird of prey, but it is Pelihonk that has somehow stuck with me for nearly two decades - so much so that whenever I see a Pelican of any species I am immediately reminded of him. So here's to Pelihonks and great guy who went too soon.

All of the images above were taken on an uncharacteristically murky day on the Gulf Coast. On my final morning however the sun came out which made a huge difference. I probably already mentioned it but I was so unused to the brightness that it took me a long time to control my whites. Not that there is much white on a Brown Pelican, but on adults the neck can bleach out - as can be seen on a couple of these images. Not enough to worry me, but then bright whites seldom do!

The American form of Sandwich Tern, known by some authorities as Cabot's Tern, is a breeder on the atlantic coasts of the USA, and 90% of its population winters in the Gulf. Although the european version has made it across, the overwhelmingly likelihood is Cabot's - and they can be separated by better birders than I on a more robust bill structure and on moult timing at certain times of year. Sound tough? You bet, but below are two images of Cabot's from St Pete Beach.

Below are two images of Forster's Tern, which is a much smaller bird. I wasn't certain I'd ever seen one before as I didn't know what it was when it landed in amongst the throng. It didn't stay for very long unfortunately and I would very much have liked longer with it as it seemed very characterful. I'm racking up a good list of terns now, what with all the species in Dubai last year and then various odd birds on my travels, including a Black-naped Tern from Thailand identified from a nearly 20 year old 35mm slide!

I spent a bit of time photographing their antics, but mostly they just loafed rather than doing anything particularly interesting. They're large birds though, large enough that you don't need to use much focal length - I found a bare 500mm lens too much a lot of the time, but unfortunately I don't have anything else. Is it time to repurchase a 300mm f2.8, or could I get away with that new 100-400mm I wonder. I recently cut back on a few lenses, selling three that I have not missed one little bit. You can of course never have the perfect kit bag....

Here are a couple of the Hungarian Parliament building on the Danube at Budapest, as well as one of Valletta in Malta. Well lit impressive buildings are the ideal subjects for these types of images. Just bird photos? Well, nearly! The Danube photos are 6 second exposures at f11 and f13, and the one from Malta is at 5 seconds at f11, all using ISO 50. The reason for the long exposures was to soften the water but it also seems to make the blues more intense.

This final image is possibly my favourite, with the added people element. In the original photo the couple were much lower in the frame, and in order to use the photo for the title of my trip report I simply removed the middle slice of the frame to bring the people up. The right hand side of the image had to come up further than the left obviously as the lowest bird is below their level. I really like the result, even though there has been some manipulation - bet you couldn't tell though!

I would definitely recommend Florida as a bird photography location, especially for a beginner or for somebody (like me!) who is stretched for time. Whilst I'd love to be somewhere like this for two weeks, the birds are so tame and plentiful that you can make many more images in the time you do have available as the opportunities are more or less constant. In the UK, especially the south of England where I live, you often have to wait a long time for a suitable opportunity to present itself and when it does it rarely lasts very long. Birds are also much more wary I find, but in Florida it's a dream. A beginner in the UK would easily get frustrated - indeed I frequently get frustrated and many is the time when I return home with nothing to show for my efforts - but on the Gulf Coast beaches you can walk right up to birds and they barely move. Anyway, highly recommended.

So do I have a favourite Sanderling image from the trip? Of course I do! One of my favourite poses to photograph is the 'over-the-shoulder' one, with a bird facing away yet twisting its head around to face the camera. Whilst this works best in my opinion on passerines, it can also work on waders too, and one image from the various sessions I had with these birds stood out for me for that reason. The bird is ticked up, beak buried in its feathers as it roosts on the sand, but birds rarely fully go to sleep and every so often it would open one eye to check out what was going on before settling back down. It was simply a question of waiting for the moment to coincide with an OK background (which kept changing due to the water). 

Techie details: Canon EOS 5D MkIII with 500 f4L lens + 1.4x converter, tripod mounted at 1/800s, f5.6, ISO 800. Shot through glass in a hide where you had to wee in a bucket.

Head Angle - a slight turn in is always to my mind preferable. Compare the following two images that were more or less in sequence. The first is mostly parallel to the camera, whereas the second has the bird turning in slightly. I know what I like best, but to capture that often means just holding down the trigger actually. Back home you can select that one frame that has the pleasing angle, and then get rid of the rest - birds move quickly and digital is more or less free!

DDistractions - compare these two. The first has a bit of weed or something on the shoreline a few feet back that is right between the feet. It won't clone out easily - far simpler to wait to take the photo until the bird has taken a few more steps. Alternatively if you can move even a tiny bit without scaring the bird, depending how far back the offending item is you could get rid of it or make it a lot easier to clone away. In both of these images I actually find the darker lumps distracting no matter where they are positioned, and if I had more time on my hands I would get rid of all of it! The reason I have not bothered up until this point is that both images are very slightly over-exposed.....

But not as badly as this one! This is what happens when you blast away and don't check your histogram frequently enough. There are many things not to like about this image, the awkward leg angle being just one of them, but why worry too much about that when the whites are utterly fried and unrecoverable. I am talking of course about the area below the bill and then the lower chest. This was on the final morning of my second Florida trip when I finally had some decent light and I think got over-excited!

The next image is also completely blown, but the main subject is OK. The Egret in the background is fried, but I was exposing for a darker bird. This is a case of what might have been I think I like the symmetry, with the subject walking one way and the background going the other way, but in addition to blowing the Egret to bits I've also chopped the top of its head off. If only I had increased my shutter speed and raised the camera a fraction - easy to say now, less easy to do on the spot, but by calling it out I've given myself more of a chance next time. That's not to say I won't blow it again, but the thought will be there.

What about this one? Anything problematic here? I binned it, but it's not immediately obvious as to why. It survived quite a few passes before I spotted it and decided there was an issue.....

And finally a few shots that I prefer above all the others shown in this post, though none are perfect. The first is a bird smaller in the frame, but with parallel lines of water giving some structure. In the second I like the out of focus shells and pebbles, and the ripples in the water. I also like the way these fade to nothing and then become the background. My only critique really is that the bird is a little tight in the frame. The third is a fraction too bright, but not distractingly so. I like the pose.

For me though the pick of the bunch is this one. Why? The light. Do I want a head turn as per the second image in this blog post. Yes I do, but I'll take it!

The first to thing mention was the weather - not good in some ways, ideal in others. Part of the attraction in Florida is the wonderful light, and during my earlier trip I had a succession of wonderful mornings. Not so this time though! On arrival in the St Petersburg area I was met with a stiff breeze and grey cloud cover creating a dull situation. I was able to just about retain my standard 800 ISO, but the images just don't have the vibrancy of the last trip. I was able to lift them a bit in post-processing, but it was a bit disappointing. Ultimately however it meant that instead of having to pack up at 10am when even at this time of year the light is simply too harsh, I was able to photography birds all day long. On my final day at Fort Desoto, the weather perked up considerably - the wind died down and I got the beautiful light I had wanted. Irritatingly I actually then blew a lot of images on this final morning, including completely nerfing a fly-by white-morph Reddish Egret - sharp as you like but blown to smithereens! I gave myself a good talking to and pulled it together for the final hour or so, but a whole series of images went in the bin. Sure enough, by 10am the light was as good as hopeless and so I stopped and went birding elsewhere. You have to know when there's no point continuing, and in Florida it is difficult to call a halt to proceedings. Not only was I keen to make up for the lost time when I forgot to check my settings, but the birds were still all there, all parading around. But you have to call it quits in this situation.

Part of the problem as I see it was the difficulty of seeing the screen when I was so low to the ground I could barely see through the view-finder. Ironically enough, if I was stood up behind a full length tripod I would likely have noticed far more quickly that I wasn't shooting right, but when you're in the sand straining to twist your neck in ways that hurt a bit, you can lose sight of the basics. An important lesson, a shame I had to learn it (again!) in such perfect conditions. Some of my images from that morning are of course fine, others were salvageable, so it's not as if I came home empty handed. I'll share some of both the good and the bad in a later post. 

Enough of my travails however, here are a series of frames of American Oystercatcher which was a top target for this trip having been missed last time. This bird only came onto the beach at St Petersburg very late on once human activity had largely died down, and on one of the dull days. However its arrival coincided with the sun beginning to drop behind and somewhat below the pervasive layer of cloud that had screened it all day. I estimate the light improved by up to a stop and a half almost instantly, and before I knew it I was back to shooting at 1/2500s. However this being the Gulf coast the sun sets over the sea, which means if you want to be between the sun and the bird feeding on the surf you have to be IN the sea! I wasn't really up for that just before packing up, so had to wait for decent head turns. The following images were taken when the bird was slightly further up the beach, and have various out of focus bits of either buildings or foliage as backgrounds for a bit of contrast. I was right on the sun angle here, but I quickly realised I was preventing the bird from feeding by forcing it up the beach in order to get my angle and avoid getting wet. I retreated to one side and allowed it to come back down to the surf line.

In terms of what I mean my needing that extra smidgeon of light, compare the following two images. The first has the bird facing almost directly away from the sun, whereas the second has a slight head turn that lights up that fantastic eye a treat. In my opinion this saves images where a lot of the bird is poorly lit, as you are immediately attracted to the eye and the beak. Despite the action, really that first image has nothing going for it at all with only the mantle lit.

I probably spent about twenty minutes with this bird as the sun gradually got lower and lower, albeit without creating any sort of sunset whatsoever! Still, it was good to study it in such detail and finally get something on the CF card. Almost all the images are taken with the bare 500mm lens at f4, which indicates that the bird was pretty close. Shutter speed was as mentioned a constant 1/2500s, and some of the earlier images in the series actually see the camera set at f8 or f6.3 - there must have been a brief blaze of light!

As a postscript to my final day and the lovely morning light it brought, just as I was leaving an American photographer turned up in massive SUV and asked if there was anything about. He then proceeded to tell me about all his brand new kit for about ten minutes (everything newer than mine, everything larger!), and then headed off to the beach to take a series of likely worthless images in the blazing sun, shadows all over the place and simply uncontrollable whites!

To be honest though I did find it rather busy on the beach, with any number of people with the bird. I expected no less,  this is the Norfolk coast in autumn. To anyone who thinks people were crowding it, well yes they were but it didn’t alter the bird’s behavior at all and that’s the key thing. But it did alter mine as there were at times so many people that I couldn’t get the angles I wanted without getting somebody’s leg! I think it’s just a feature of birding almost anywhere in the south-east these days, it’s an increasingly popular hobby, information is everywhere and lots of people chase the news and want the best views they can get – especially those who have not seen a Snow Bunting before! Mind you, it might not just be the south-east – I saw a photo of a Little Bunting up at Spurn that was completely surrounded by at least a hundred people who were all there dipping bigger and better birds, and pager messages from there the previous day were explicitly asking that birders give tired migrants like the Pied Wheatear space to feed and rest and not pursue it around the rocks. And I’ve been on Shetland before where within half an hour of a Buff-bellied Pipit being found a number of minibuses with tour groups had turned up and there were probably 50 people on the beach looking at it. Every situation is different of course, and this Snow Bunting was just one of those silly birds you get from time to time  rather than an exhausted migrant, but all in all and satisfying as the bird was I felt a little uncomfortable being one of a crowd around it. I’d much rather it was just me and the bird, whether or not I have a camera, and no sight of the green horde anywhere! This is one of the reasons I now twitch less and travel more, as many of the places I go I’m the only person there. What I really need to do is seek out places in the UK that have nobody there – no birders, no joggers, no dog-walkers, no cyclists, no football players, nobody flying model airplane, no kids, no nobody. On this crowded island on which we live this is easier said than done of course, and bearing in mind that I live in London for now I may just need to accept that when I go out birding or on a photographic mission, for the most part I’m going to be just one of many. 

The above photo is an American Herring Gull, which I found eating a rancid fish on Sandibel Island, right in the middle of a sea of beach-goers. The background was such that I couldn't get a position where I could get the whole bird so went for a tight head crop instead. Below is a Lesser Black-backed Gull, something of a surprise but which I learned is pretty regular here.

Below are a couple of Royal Terns, with the whites right on the limit. I've tried to bring them down but the first image was having none of it!

The following images are of Great Blue Heron, one of which recently turned up on Scilly. After having seen countless in Florida it was difficult to motivate myself for that particular trip! Always good value for close study, these were perhaps less approachable than the others, but being so massive that is less of a problem.

Next, American White Ibis. I didn't manage to get up close and personal with a full blood-red adult, but these are still pretty smart. 

Finally, two white Egrets, Snowy and Great White (known in the US simply as Great Egret - a [precocious] young birder I met in Central Park later in the trip was at pains to tell me how Great White Heron was a bird but Great White Egret was not...)

Here are a few images. For me the favourite is definitely the first one though, the clarity of the birds and the complete absence of any background whatsoever are exactly what I am looking for. When you get low and the geography is on your side, you can blend the foreground into the background such that you cannot tell where one ends and the other begins. No horizon in other words.

Yesterday (500mm)

This morning

This afternoon

Laughing Dove - this was taken from the breakfast table at the hotel in Al Ain. The birds returned frequently to the top of a building opposite the terrace. Between mouthfuls of mango juice I blasted a sequence off, of which this was the sharpest. This species, along with Collared Dove, reached almost plague-like proportions in some places.

Chukar Partridge - this was a species I couldn't get remotely close to in Cyprus when it was a lifer for me, but this individual on the Jebel Hafeet was just plain daft and sat there while I papped it. Fine by me!

Socotra Cormorant - all the literature I read suggested you could only hope to see these flying offshore from a certain location on the west side of the country that we never ended up going to even though it had been on our itinerary. So I was quite surprised to see this one waddling along the beach at Fujairah. Sadly when we went back on our third visit we saw a dead one which was very likely to have been this bird.

Arabian Babbler - didn't see too many of these, and they tended to move swiftly on in small groups. These were out of the car window at a roadside stop at Hamraniyah fields, a dusty agricultural area. 

White-eared Bulbul - as with other members of the family very vocal indeed and a pleasure to hear. They're a sound of the tropics for me, or at least places that are very un-European. Generally all over the place, and a really good-looking little bird. These two images are from the Green Mubazzarah Park near Al Ain, where they were feasting on what looked to be an Oreo cookie leftover. I lay down on the grass, covering myself in crap in the process - the amount of litter was sensational after a weekend that included a public holiday. In the interests of full disclosure I have cloned out the cookie....

Desert Lark - also at the same park, where they too subsist on what messy humans have left behind. Grass makes a funny background for this species!!

White Wagtail - another very common species found in greener areas. We never came across the Masked Wagtail, a shame as they look stunning. This individual crossed my path as I was wriggling on my stomach towards the White-tailed Plover. 

Hoopoe - not quite as close as the birds on Tenerife, but who doesn't like a Hoopoe! Still have not managed to catch one with the crest raised - definitely on my to-do list.

Tawny Pipit - huge numbers of this species too, but also next to impossible to approach for some reason, even if locations that see a lot of human traffic. This is still the best image of this species I've ever taken though!

Citrine Wagtail - common in the right habitat, and very much attracted to water. This is unfortunately an uber-crop.

Marsh Harrier - a fly-by somewhere along the line.

The other species, far less common, was White-tailed Plover, the same species of Rainham and Dungeness fame. We saw this at just two places, a brief flyover at Al Wabtha, and then perhaps a dozen birds at Dubai Pivots. These latter were the subject of a slow 50m belly-crawl which ended up being remarkably successful. I probably crossed half a field which took ages, but my luck was in. With frequent pauses to assess the bird's reaction, I must have got to within 15m, and the light was stunning. Possibly one of the best moments of the trip, very little gives me more satisfaction than having to work really hard at an image and have it come off. And when will I next see one of these?

Hooded Wheatear

Seen in a variety places, but the best place was at Jebel Hafeet. The only issue was the lack of decent perches, but I didn't have any time to set things up. A day up there by myself and I reckon I'd sort something out. Still, a great bird to see after a frustrating experience in Cyprus last year.

Hume's Wheatear

Only seen on Jebel Hafeet, with the same issues as the Hooded. Look how compact, sturdy and bull-necked this bird is compared to the Hooded and the Variable that follow. I experimented with putting a rock on the railings in the hope that the bird might perch up on it, but it didn't. Again, more time needed!

Red-tailed Wheatear

A much-hoped for species, and I saw a few very well indeed, but the photos just were not there as the species tended to flush at some distance.

Variable Wheatear

Didn't see very many of these birds at, and again simply could not get near the one bird we did find in a suitable location. That said we barely gave it five minutes as there were Gulls to see....

Desert Wheatear

Probably the most frequently encountered Wheatear seen in almost all areas we visited. Yet again incredibly difficult to get up close to, proving perhaps that the stupidly tame vagrants we get in the UK really are wired a bit funny. Always good to see a male Desert Wheatear under any circumstances though, unbeatable birds. I've taken better though.

Isabelline Wheatear

A couple of grab shots of a bird near Al Ain whilst the guys waited in the car. This was the only occasion we saw this species, and I remain eternally grateful for the superb UK vagrant in Pembrokeshire a couple of years ago.

As I mentioned earlier, the action was non-stop, and concentrating on a single bird was nigh on impossible. They would wheel around and around, occasionally dropping into the surf to pick up a small fish that had escaped the nets. However with an onshore wind all the birds were dipping facing out to sea which was less than ideal, but hopefully the below gives an idea of what was going on. I used the 500mm both with and without the converter, typically without at the height of the net action when the birds would come a lot closer, swirling round my head and picking off the fish from almost around my feet. When the birds moved a bit further out I popped on the 1.4x converter to get in a bit. As usual, the camera was frequently used in portrait format for the banking shots. I have to say I'm beginning to lose my fear of flight photography, and quite a few of these came out pretty nicely - hard work on the upper arms though!

Swift Tern

Lesser Crested Tern

White-cheeked Tern

Whiskered Tern

First up an adult Heuglin's Gull in flight and then on the beach. If I have screwed any of these up please let me know.

And now a first winter bird, as for some reason I seem to have missed out any other age groups - I think I was spending more time with the far more elegant Terns. I'll cover these in the next post as they were amazing and deserve one of their own.

And I think this is the only image of Steppe Gull that I have.....

First visit

A bit of sunshine every now and again, with the Grebe sometimes swimming into clear water. I was perhaps 20cm above the waterline, but one false move would have seen me several feet below it! These images are very much hit and hope, the angle of the view finder means that you can't see into it properly, so you set up your exposure before you start, and then try and keep the centre point on the head of the bird which is very difficult indeed, and many images were hopefully out of focus. The beauty of digital is that these are free!

Second visit

Terrible light throughout, so to gain a bit of speed I've underexposed each image by around a stop, and then brought them back up again afterwards, which also involved a lot of mucking about with white balance and the dropper tool. Much higher up on the bank, but the effect of the telephoto disguises it a bit. How I managed the clear reflective image at the very end I have no idea, definitely against the run of play!

Last year I cheated and chose more than 12 images, this year there is no such skullduggery - one per month and that's it. Very difficult, and there's easily a "B" side. Maybe I'll do a post of second bests at some point, but for now here are the ones that have personally given me the most satisfaction, and bring back some of the best memories. At its heart, photography is a very personal hobby.

January - Black Wheatear

I treated myself to a two day trip to Morocco in early January, and whilst I took many lovely photos, the memory of this Black Wheatear remains to this day. I took an uncharted road into the middle of nowhere specifically looking for Black Wheatear, and after some massive rental car abuse spied this beauty up on a ridgeline. I sought the permission of the farmer to cross his fields and climb up to it, and was rewarded with a monumental view, a pair of Black Wheatears, and a Southern Grey Shrike that must not have seen a human before. The whole thing was staggering, and though this sounds pathetic, I felt wonderfully alive and grateful to be so. This is what birding should be about. The image I have chosen is deliberately a smaller bird in a larger frame, reflecting my small stature in an immense landscape.

February - Red-rumped Wheatear

I have massive soft spot for Wheatears, and my second trip to Morocco in February was always likely to see me trying to get an image. This species was close to the top of my targets, and was taken in the stony plains south of Guelmin - a fair old trek from Marrakech. The desert birding was out of this world, but I remember this image as the RR Wheatears were singularly difficult to get close to, always several steps ahead. To get this I jumped into a dry stream bed and crawled along it until I had reached where I had thought I has last seen the bird perched. I popped up and there is was. A cocky look back over his shoulder and he was off to out of range again. This is a vertical crop, and quite a hard one at that, but it came out very nicely and is probably my favourite image of the year.

March - Cyprus Wheatear

Can anyone detect a theme? I adore Wheatears, and this was a trip solely to see this particular species. I had researched a couple of locations so thoroughly that when I finally arrived I felt like I had been there before. The birds were back from their winter quarters, and I found several very obliging posers. Once I had worked out the favourite perches it was a matter of waiting. This stem wasn't actually a favourite perch, those seemed to be rocks or bushes, but this nearby and was used as an intermediate stop-off. I love the simplicity of this photo, and I deliberately stood tall so as get the blue blackground. It's the sea.

April - Nuthatch

Although Nuthatch is becoming more common locally, I have never managed a decent photo of one. This photo is a complete set-up, where I purposely planted a mossy stick between two trunks that the bird was feeding on. I set myself at a height where a patch of grass would provide a plain green background and waited. My joy when after a couple of circuits it bounced onto it was almost indescribable. When I left I took the perch with me, but I've not used it again so far.

May - American Robin

May was not a great month for me photographically, as half the month was spent abroad on trips which did not have birding as a primary aim. I took this photo at Niagara Falls in Canada, where the birds are very used to human traffic. I had intended to leave my lens in the car, but saw this bird perched up with light spray from the falls drifting over it. I begged forgiveness from the family and nipped back to put the 500mm on. A couple of shots only, handheld, and I rejoined the family for a fabulous day of out and out tourism with birds far from my mind.

June - Red-throated Diver

I spent a brilliant three days in Iceland just after the summer solstice. The photographic opportunities were incredible, and I got literally hundreds of incredibly clean portraits of things like Golden Plover, Harlequin Duck, Barrow's Goldeneye and Red-necked Phalaropes. It was mind-blowing, and I was in paradise, able to take my favourite style of image at almost every opportunity. But when I look back at all those great birds, it's this particular setting that I keep coming back to. It's not a clean image, it has a stem right through the eye, you can barely see the bird at all, but it sums up the landscape and the wildlife within it. We found this bird on a tiny lake, and set up some scrim netting in the dark the previous night. The following morning, once the other half of the pair has flown off to fish, we crept down one at a time, hopefully keeping the netting between us and the bird. I don't think it worked in the slightest, and the bird knew exactly where we were, but it didn't move. When the second bird returned with a fish we concentrated on that in the clear water, but for some reason I took this one - not the kind of photo I'd normally take but I really like it for the memory of the place.

July - Caspian Tern

Another trip, this time a city break in Helsinki. But I took my wildlife lens! The plane landed at about midnight, and rather than stay in a hotel I got off the bus in the north of the city and walked to a vast reed bed where I spent the night. I won't pretend it was the most comfortable night I've ever spent, but the sounds and the mists were spectacular, and it meant that in the morning I was in the prime position to watch this Caspian Tern having its first fishing expedition of the day. The scene was breath-takingly beautiful and I was the only person to experience it. Soft mists swirling up from the water as the sun rose, with this majestic bird stealing the show. I actually get quite emotional when I see this image, the early morning was absolutely perfect. 

August - Sparrowhawk

An unproductive month for the camera for some reason; my favourite images are all of the kids on holiday in the Hebrides. So I'm scraping the barrel here rather, but this image brings back great memories of what was a great birding trip to Falsterbo in Sweden as the southbound migration really kicked in. I took my camera, but it played second fiddle to the spectacle of migrating raptors and passerines. This Sparrowhawk was one of many that passed along the golf course and out over the sea, pausing sometimes for a speculative grab at a Tree Pipit or Yellow Wagtail. It was one of the most incredible wildlife spectacles I'd ever seen, the sheer numbers of birds made anything in the UK seem a pittance in comparison. You cannot fail to have noticed that a great many of my favourite photos above are not from the UK and there's a reason for that, there are simply more birds abroad, in some cases staggeringly more.

September - Fulmar

I took this on the cliffs at Sumburgh on Shetland, one of my favourite birding locations. I try and get there annually, even if for only a few days. As usual it was superb, and though I didn't score the big one this time, I saw more decent quality birds in four days than you would think possible! I think I was dipping a Red-flanked Bluetail when I took this - having a camera means that there is always something to fall back on if the first order of business has buggered off! Despite what you may think, I remain very much a birder.

October - Jay

I had noticed the local Jays storing sweet chestnuts at a certain location on the patch, and I made sure to make some time for them. I took none of the right equipment but still got something that made me pretty happy. I vowed to go back the following day with a bigger lens and a tripod, but I never did. Really these brilliant birds deserved three of four sessions, but my life is so hectic that I never got round to it. I need to slow it down to make the best of these opportunities, the autumn colours are lovely and I expect I could have done a lot better.

November - Desert Wheatear

Well, it has been several months since I chose a Wheatear photo, and this one is pleasingly much closer to home, taken at Reculver in Kent. It was one of several that arrived on the east coast, and I made sure to get down there as they are always very friendly. The bird was finding heaps of flies in the shingle, and allowed a very close approach. I waited until it had moved to another of it's perches and then lay down on the beach and waited until it came back. The morning session wasn't that great as the light was poor, but in the afternoon the weather cleared up and I benefited from some late sunshine. 

December - Stonechat

A final visit to Morocco, and the shortest yet at basically a day and a half. I packed a lot in though, and this photo was taken at the Oued Massa south of Agadir. Floods that followed heavy rain had devasted the landscape, and to get to this bird was a mission in itself and required great poise and balance to avoid falling into newly formed streams. This beauty was waiting on the other side however, and made it all worthwhile.

The next images are of different birds, but the same tactic - drive along a road until you find a bird on a bush or otherwise pleasing perch. Most birds were probably on the overhead wires, so we probably missed out most of them. However the species does so well in Morocco that they're very frequently encountered, and if you don't like the set-up, or don't fancy your chances, you just move on to the next one.

So this bird here is interesting, as it doesn't show much white in the wing, but does have a fairly broad white supercilium - could it in fact be a stray "elegans" based on this feature? The final photo is of a completely different bird, but also exhibits a massively extensive white super. As before though, the white in the wing is limited.

To my knowledge I've not photographed "algeriensis", but did catch up with "elegans" in Morocco earlier this year. Take a look at the difference, I have to say I am confused as my inland Moroccan bird has to my mind significantly less iof a white supercilium than either of the birds on Tenerife. The final photo is of a different bird in the same area of Morocco, also exhibiting barely any white above the mask. Confused? I am!

Later on in the trip, I think on my final morning, I had a number of birds in much better light. Whilst the images above were taken at 1/250s (as usual just a monopod for ultimate flexibility), those below benefited from upwards of 1/2500s! Much better, but then of course you have harsh light to contend with. Never happy, that's the motto of most bird photographers I know....

Tactic was to roll up to the bird in the car, and then take photos out of the window. This proved unsatisfactory, so I stealthily snuck out of the car on the opposite side to the bird, and edged my way around the front on my stomach whilst resting the lens on my coat. Not a bad tactic as it turns out, but my desire for ground-level shots is really starting to hurt my neck. I really need an angle finder, or I need to use my Wimberley on  the frisbee thing. Trouble is I can never be bothered with that, and so yesterday I actually gave myself a headache taking these photos. Idiot.

Anyway, that's all behind me now, and so here are a few of the results. All taken with the Canon 1D Mk IV, coupled with the 500mm f4 and 1.4xx converter. 1/800 at f5.6, ISO 800 and neck ache.

So here are a few from this morning - all with the 500mm, both with and without the converter. Because of the gloom I used my monopod - although there were brief patches of sunshine, most often my shutter speed was sitting at around 1/200s. I think that next time I might actually take a tripod, and possibly the longer lens for more opportunities.

This was with the 1D4, the 500mm, and the 1.4x converter - 1/6400s at f5.6. Even I can manage a sharp flight shot at that speed!

I then had to lug my camera round Helsinki for the rest of the day. Was it worth it? For the warblers etc, probably not, but that Caspian Tern and that sunrise will live long in the memory!

We also had a couple of opportunities with Snow Buntings - on Flatey and at Godafoss. We couldn't pass up birds in summer plumage, so devoted a bit of time. The first image is from Flatey, the second from Godafoss.

And of course there were various Gulls, Fulmars and Terns. I personally didn't spend a huge amount of time with them, as they are species that I can more easily get elsewhere and time was at a premium, however if they're flying past it would be rude not to. Glaucous Gull is the predominant species in Iceland, loads of gleaming adults (if you're into that kind of thing). It was all I could do to keep Mick and Richard from spending the whole day at one site, but they saw sense in the end. These are from harbour at Grundarfjordur.

Fulmars were present at the top end of Flatey, flying along low cliffs. They came so close that I resorted to a 70-200mm - great fun as the whipped by, but I didn't give it too long as I last year I had some great times with this species in Ireland.

And last but not least, Arctic Tern and Kittiwake. The size of the Tern colonies has to be seen to be believed - the biggest one I've ever seen, acres and acres, at the west end of the Snaefellsnes peninsula between Hellisandur and Rif. We could have stopped, but we would have been pecked to death, so drove on! This photo is from Flatey once again, where there are numerous birds, but also Arctic Tern-free areas where you can shelter!

First up Whimbrel - I've never managed to get close in this country, and without driving majorly north I doubt I ever will. Far easier to travel to where the birds are, served up on a plate. A couple of these were on a tripod, but I found that my tripod skills let me down in Iceland, and the results were not as good as when I switched to my monopod. I guess it's a question of what you use most frequently, and that's easily the monopod. Somehow I guess I and it have just gelled, whereas I don't have that kind of relationship with the tripod. So, don't always follow the advice, instead do what you are most comfortable with. For me, I don't even have to think when using the monpod, it's an extension of the camera. With the tripod I probably introduce shake all over the place without realising it. When I ditched it mid-trip things started going a lot better.

Common Snipe were also very frequently encountered, many of them still drumming. They proved relatively difficult to get close to, even using the car as a blind, but again these are the best photos of the species that I have ever managed. Oh to live somewhere where this species is a breeder, up in the moors of northern England. If every time I went out I was able to photograph Snipe I'm not sure you would see much else from me. As I say, only a couple shots ended up making the cut, but I could very easily do another trip up there simply to concentrate on Waders.

And who can forget the Redshank! Probably the most common bird we saw, their constant scolding a reminder that we were on their turf, not the other way around. The best birds were probably on Flatey, but essentially great photo ops were everywhere - if only Mick could find the perfect post! We drove past loads as the posts were simply sub-standard. Let me tell you now, there is no such thing as a sub-standard post - the eye is drawn to the bird, not the perch, and whilst a lovely lichen-covered post is always pleasing, a plain old wooden stake is not going to stop me!

The final bird I want to highlight is the Black-tailed Godwit. In this country we often get excited when early-returning birds have a bit of colour on them. In Iceland they are all immaculate, such a beautiful species. They enjoy the odd post too, but mostly they were to be found in lush water-meadows. Here's a few images I managed to get along the way, very often from the car.

And finally, a lone Ringed Plover in the early-morning light (very early, probably about 4am!) on our first day. If you're into Wader photography, Iceland has to be right up there, and I for one will be going back as soon as I can!

We stumbled upon a three birds purely by luck as we were investigating some small pools for Phalaropes. The road crossed a small river that became a shallow pool before emptying into the sea. Initially seen on this pool, one bird flew under the narrow bridge and up the river to join another two. Small waders were forgotten as we set up by the side of the pool, hidden from the river by the bridge. We felt that the birds, making steady progress downstream, might shoot the rapids under the bridge and before they knew it would be in front our lenses. Sure enough, our luck was in! First the pair zoomed through and found themselves right in front of us, and while they hurried to the far side and became too distant, the lone drake followed under the bridge and stayed a lot closer. Boy oh boy did we have fun! Lenses to the water, necks bent awkwardly to try and get down - oh for an angle-finder, could be my next purchase!

As was the case 90% of the time in Iceland, the light was complete crap (technical term) for most of this session, but I still managed some pleasing images. Pleasing to me at any rate. Less pleasing was fluffing all flight opportunities, I just don't get it. I blew a female Wigeon away the very next day with some aplomb, but was unable to nail the smartest of all ducks in relatively easy circumstances. C'est la vie I guess! Nonetheless a great encounter, and these were pretty much the only Harlequins we saw other than some in a fast-flowing river near Myvatn, and that were completely unphotographable. So, another "most-wanted" in the bag - I love it when a plan comes together!

The second chance came after our long day at Myvatn. As we climbed out we noticed three birds sheltering in the lee of the wind, really close to the edge of the lake. Although the boys would have liked me to ditch the car in the middle of the road, I insisted we leave it somewhere safe, and unfortunately by the time we had walked back the birds had drifted out a little farther. In crappy light we decided to give it a go anyway, and the Divers surprised us by not swimming several kilometers away. Do they perhaps have poor eyesight? Or perhaps they felt perfectly comfortable at that range? We made the most of what was probably going to be our last chance at this species, but it was a struggle to get low enough, and it was getting dimmer by the minute. Still, an adult summer GND in any light is immense, and having only really seen winter plumage birds before, to be able to get one of these beasts in the frame at all was a huge result. But I still need to go to Maine or somewhere I feel. Here's the best from this encounter, some of the images show a small amount of the neck sheen, but on the whole dull light makes for dull images. Indeed shortly after we left here the rain started to come down. Nonetheless I am happy with what I came away with, best (only!) I've taken so far!

The portrait at the bottom is my favourite of the ten or so images I took though. I've been looking at images on the web lately that are more of a bird in a landscape or a setting, rather than just the bird, and I'm trying to get a few more images with this feel.

A truly fantastic site, presumably a resident bird at that time of year, it dropped in for perhaps 45 seconds to have a drink, and then was gone. I've not seen one since.

Izzy Wheatear was easily the most common Wheatear across the Island. In specific habitat there were more Pied Wheatears, but for overall distribution, Isabelline was the clear winner. This is not a bad thing.....  1/800s at f5.6 - engine off and lens resting on the wing-mirror for support.

I left London at 4am, and arrived on the Suffolk coast just before six in the morning. The sun had just risen, and there was still some mist around. Sorting out the camera and monopod, I headed off along a path that went through some good habitat, and within mere metres found three birds. All told I must easily have had double figures, but most of the views were of the tail end of birds skipping off into the heather, reappearing only well out of range. I was surprised initially that there were not many birds singing, so perhaps my visit was a little late and the singing and displaying is over for the year?  Although the light was great, getting anything decent on the birds was nigh on impossible. I must have walked several circuits of the heath and only once did a bird pop up "in range" - and even then it was only my 800mm and 1.4x converter that saved me. Had I been wandering around with a 500mm, I'm not sure I would have got anything at all. Most shots I took qualify only as landscapes with a Dartford Warbler in for scale - that said, I do quite like one of them, the light makes it.

I managed a couple of series of shots as the bird flew alongside a path, perching twice. Quality has taken a hit with the converter, mainly I think due to the air starting to warm up when I got these shots. To get away with this focal length the air needs to be cold. Still, I was lucky to come away with anything - and the day would have been a big fat zero without these, as when I returned to Lynford in the afternoon for another crack at Nuthatch, I couldn't find a cooperative bird, and all the Treecreepers stayed steadfastly up high.

IMPORTANT POSTSCRIPT

As I mentioned in my post above, I went to Minsmere at the weekend to photograph Dartford Warbler, and whilst there, an RSPB warden approached me and gave me a leaflet and some verbal advice explaining the dos and don'ts (mainly the don'ts!) of watching and photographing the species - I think that between him and the leaflet were specifically mentioned leaving the track, tape-luring birds, lingering near birds, and possibly "pishing". He mentioned that they had been having some trouble with photographers, and I've had this nagging at me ever since. Even though I said nothing at the time, I had unfortunately not followed that guidance at all times. Albeit with no success, but that's hardly the point is it? If they go to the trouble of producing a leaflet, there has to be a good reason for it. I've just looked it up, and there certainly is - I have discovered that Dartford Warblers are highly protected, being on Schedule 1 of the 1981 Wildlife Act. If a bird is on Schedule 1, what this means is that you cannot cause any disturbance to it at any time, but particularly in the breeding season - i.e. now.  If you have not looked at the list of Schedule 1 species, it's here, and contains a surprising amount of birds! Peregrine, Golden Eagle and the like are obvious, but Crossbills, Kingfisher and Cetti's Warbler are on there too, all birds I would consider common. The list is a lot more extensive than you might imagine, and photographers and anyone interested in nature would do well to know it and what it means. I'm not sure why Short-toed Treecreeper might be on there mind you. Not knowing what birds are in Schedule 1 is not an adequate defense, all nature watchers should know what is on the list.

I caused no disturbance, or at least none that I could see, but it doesn't matter. It's possible that I could have, and that's the issue and what the list is for. The birds appeared to steadfastly ignore me and all my attempts to get them bigger in the frame, and just got on with whatever they were doing (being invisible in the heather mostly....), but it's an interesting lesson that I wanted to write about, because I think I have become too obsessed with the image, and in doing so I've crossed the line and I'm really disappointed in myself - I'm the one moaning at dog walkers disturbing our Skylarks for Christ's sake! My reason for writing an addendum to this post is that I have been doing some thinking following being given that leaflet, and in hindsight, really it's incredibly easy to let the pursuit of the image get in the way of good behaviour, and the schedule doesn't really come into it at that point. As I get better at bird photography, I often have an image in mind, and my determination to get it has caused me to lose sight of the bigger picture. The bird has to come first, and I forgot that. The image therefore comes second, and I forgot that too. Common sense really, but believe me when I say that you get obsessive about bird photography!

We all know that photographers get a bad rap, primarily at twitches it would appear, when they are too close, crowding a bird etc (I've moaned about this in the past) but equally this could also apply to disturbing birds away from the big crowds. That appears not to get much press, though I am told that at Gilfach nature reserve in Wales they have just recently banned photography as it was perceived to be causing too much disturbance. A shame as I had never been there and was planning to go - Pied Flycatcher! A photographer who disturbs breeding birds is not the type of photographer would like to be. It was a lack of patience, pure and simple, and that's such an important thing that a photographer has to have. After however long of watching the warblers flit away and disappear, often before I'd even seen them, either not to be seen again, or to pop up miles away, I decided to try and get a closer bird, which I should not have done. Four hours in the car there and back, I really wanted that photo that I had in my mind - I lost patience.

Essentially I'm on a guilt trip, and wanted to let people know, if anyone actually reads this, that you have to be really careful. So what am I doing beyond writing this, as whilst cathartic, it doesn't particularly help the birds does it? Well firstly I've deleted the images as I don't want to get praise or credit for an image that was taken during the season at a known breeding site. I also don't want to encourage others to go there, or anywhere similar, to try and get equivalent images. This raises an interesting point, as you see an awful lot of amazing close-ups of Dartford Warbler on the net (hence my desire to take one) but you don't get any insight as to how or when they were taken. Perhaps question that the next time you see a blinder. All the advice I have since read about Schedule 1 suggests that the best course of action is simply to stay away altogether during the breeding season, as that's the only way you can be absolutely certain that you're not causing a problem. Secondly, and perhaps more importantly, I am getting in touch with the National Trust, and also the RSPB guy who handed me the leaflet and had a word with me. To be fair to him, he was very even handed about it, and I can imagine he was incredibly frustrated as he has clearly seen lots of photographers turn up and get it wrong. The leaflet is a great idea for getting the message across - I wonder if we could do the same in Wanstead with dog walkers - have a polite leaflet that we can hand out, as clearly it can work. If I can end up getting in touch with him, even if it means going back there to find him at some point, I'll apologise personally and see what I can do to help. He may have some good ideas, as he's a photographer himself by the looks of things, and I'm willing to bet that very few if any photographers ever decide that they have approached a situation badly and then seek to do something positive about it. If anyone has his contact details, I'd like to have them. Anyway, there we are, what's done is unfortunately done, but hopefully in writing this and doing these few things I can help spread the message about Schedule 1 and what it means, and what constitutes good standards and what does not, rather than just post point blank images of birds all the time.

Although I like the trunks, I decided to mix things up by finding a couple of perches, one of which was a mossy branch that I placed at the bottom of a trunk. Pretty soon a bird came in and started coming around and down the trunk - they seemed to work one tree and then the next in a relatively predictable order. I was using the 800mm, and so was able to keep my distance. I held my breath as the bird came along the series of trunks, and then it was on mine! The first time it proceeded to the next trunk but skipped the perch, but the next time it came around it went along the perch, and spent some time hopping around the floor. 

I took around 300 images, and have managed to get quite a few keepers from the morning. The best are from the perch, even if it's not the classic Nuthatch image vertically down a trunk. I'll definitely be going back as it seems that are are quite a few possibilities, (including Treecreepers) and if I take a lens that lets in more light (as well as a tripod perhaps, for additional secuity!), I'll likely come back with some even better results. Still, not bad for a first attempt, and more interesting than a bunch of Crossbills up in a high tree! Here are a selection of the best from that short spell yesterday, including two at the ned from the perch - I must try and find a twig that isn't as obviously snapped at the end!

Cyprus Wheatears prefer open rocky terrain with low bushes and scrub. They are particularly numerous at Cape Greco on the the south-eastern tip of the island, and having done my research before booking this is where I decided to base myself. I was no more than a 15 minute drive from them each morning, which was when all the below photos were taken. At this time of year (just post the clocks changing) it gets light enough for the camera at around 6.45am, but by 10am it is getting extremely bright and it is basically time to put the camera away until the late afternoon. But I made the most of my two mornings I'm pleased to say.

The two images above came from the second morning, and I'm not sure which is my favourite. When I saw the bird from afar perched on the perfect loop I knew I had to get it, and so carefully maneuvered into position with the sun behind me. Although the bird flew off, it only went to a nearby rock, and so I ended up choosing a position between the two - 700mm of reach kept me in the game. The deep blue background is the sea, and I used a slightly higher perspective in order to place the bird in line. For the second I remained crouched, and so the background is the sky. Try as I might, I couldn't get some shallow water with a sandy bottom for a truly aquamarine background - another trip perhaps. The images below are of the bird on the close by rock.

Once, just once, it perched on a plant, making for a very minimalist image.

The next series of images are from the first morning, and my first decent session with the birds. Only some individuals are tolerant of the close presence of a person, and if a bird flies some distance, it is often not worth pursuing and instead looking for another subject. This bird was perhaps the third individual that I targeted. Again, I moved around a bit in order to get a variety of backgrounds - for instance a bush to get some relatively solid greens, and then the beige is in fact a large rock about thirty feet behind. I suppose they're a bit sterlie for some, but I love plain backgrounds - for me it focuses all the attention where it should be. The bird, with no distractions. All images were with the Canon 1D Mark IV, 500mm f4 lens, and a 1.4x converter - my most often used set up. Oh and the Monopod, my most useful non-electronic bit of kit. Shutter speeds 1/2000s to 1/4000s - brilliant light makes photography a lot easier. There are quite a few more images of this species in the gallery.

So, a very successful trip, with "keeper" images of six species over the two days. This might seem like a low return, but I would have been happy with just the Wheatear. Next up, Cyprus Warbler....

However it was another good opportunity to practice both flight photography and the exposure of whites, both things that I wish I could do better. Also a good opportunity to try out flight photography in vertical format which means less chance of clipping the wings when a bird banks. The Gulls were 90% Lesser Black-backed, 10% Yellow Legged, and 100% scabby! If you do want a place with heaps of Yellow Legs guaranteed, you could do worse than go here, but you need to get there early before the light becomes very harsh, but also the factory needs to start up, so in reality you do not have a lot of time at your disposal. The biggest issue was targeting a single bird and remaining with it and getting a clear shot, as there are so many other birds swirling round that they get in front, they end up in the frame, they obscure the target and throw the AF......All good fun. I can still smell the place today!

On one of our desert forays we parked the car in a likely spot and the three of us parted ways. We had stopped the car because of a pair of Wheatear, and I had seen the male disappear up a wadi. The heat was building and even though sensing I was almost bound to fail, I gamely set off in pursuit. I got close to it twice, and this is the result. I snuck up on it by crawling along the bottom of the wadi, and then popping up roughly where I thought it was. Bingo! I'll make no bones about it, I bloody love this photo, a clean background, a cocked tail and a lovely little over the shoulder head turn. It could have done a little more head turn but this angle is, for me at least, in the exact arc that makes me happy. Techy stuff - Canon 1D Mk IV (when this dies I do not know what I will do), with the 500mm and 1.4x converter, atop my trusty monopod. Settings were ISO 500 (no particular reason), 1/2000s, and f8. Looking back, I also see that I am in AV mode. This isn't normal, I think it was because it was on and off sunshine earlier in the day had meant that Manual mode was a pain the arse. I've dialled in +1/3rd, this is a common thing I do in AV as I like a bright image. It's a slight crop, perhaps 70%, and I've cloned out a distracting twig that came up and under the breast towards the leg. This is just me being picky, the image was a belter even without that (again, just my opinion!). It's just one of those grab shots that really makes me smile as I remember what it took for me to get it, crawling along, guessing, and finally nailing it after half an hour or so. I got a few more images of it elsewhere, but this is by far the nicest - I've done a portrait version as well, which is a crop of the original landscape with canvas added in at the top and filled with sky. I am undecided which I like best, so here are both.

As usual the best angles were to be found low down, and I got very dusty indeed on quite a few occasions. The only difficulty with this tactic was that the birds were very mobile and active, and I found I was constantly having to drag myself off the floor and move position to get ahead of them again as they fed rapidly. It's a hard life! I came back from Morocco on February 5th, and exactly two weeks later I have not taken a single decent image of a bird in this country - I need to pull my finger out! These are OK though - I'm happy to act as a guide for any Moroccan trips anyone wants to do, I can't wait to go back!

We set up a few rocks for perches and started the vigil. The male wandered off quite quickly, but with patience (we were probably at it for a couple of hours on just this pair as they fed alongside a "field") we got a few decent images of him as well. The day was quite windy, with broken cloud cover, so although I started off in manual mode, it became apparent that the ever-changing light would be better dealt with in AV (Canon's aperture priority) mode. The light was nice under the clouds, and so most images seen below were taken at f8 with shutter speeds ranging from 1/1000s to 1/2500s, mostly at ISO 640 to keep myself in four figures. I used my trusty monopod, which was incredibly useful for supporting and panning to follow these often quick-moving birds around. We saw a few more of these species over the next day and a half, but never really bothered trying to get more on them as we knew we had done pretty well first time around and there were many other things we wanted to do.

Thick-billed Lark was high on our list of targets, so to have all of these images safely tucked away on the cameras by mid-morning on day two (day one spent travelling) was a great start.

Next time I'm out there I want to try a couple of other things, but I was particularly pleased with the cactus as for the most part they rarely left the ground, and in fact this was the only bird of any species that ever posed for me on one. These prickly pear cactuses are everywhere, people tend to use them as natural hedges or to protect their property. There is definitely some mileage in a series of images of birds on cactuses, but for now I've only got Thekla Lark! There are a few more images in the gallery.

1/640 at f5.6. 500mm MkII lens + 1.4 converter. Monopod.

It didn't work with all individuals I came across, but later on during the trip I was able to approach three other birds relatively closely as well, including one that was absolutely astonishing in its fearlessness. I spent hours with it, just sat alongside its favoured hunting perch. It spent a lot of time checking me out, but continued to fly down to the ground to pick up beetles. Insects must be 100% of its diet, or at least other birds perhaps formed 0% of its diet, as every Shrike I found was in the company of other passerine species that it paid no heed to whatsoever, and who were not afraid of it at all. Perhaps it is only in northern areas that small birds form part of their diet, and that in warmer climes insects are sufficiently common and easy prey that there is no need to add birds to their diet. Or that's my theory anyway.

1/1600 at f10. ISO 640. 500mm MkII lens + 1.4x converter.

I absolutely love the detail in this image, it passes all my tests for sharpness with flying colours, but in reality the bird was too close! A 300mm lens, or my 70-200 (which was in the car at the bottom the hill!) would have been really quite useful in this situation. Then again, can you really ever be too close to a Great Grey Shrike? No! There are a few more images in my "Shrikes" gallery.

1/2000 at f7.1, ISO 400. 500mm MkII lens.

1/3200 at f6.3, ISO 640. 500mm MkII lens + 1.4x converter

1/3200 at f7.1, ISO 640. 500mm MkI lens + 1.4x converter

I flew to Marrakech with British Airways, hired a car from Medloc, a local company (22 EUR/day - arranged in advance from the UK), and stayed at the clean and comfortable Hotel Le Coq Hardi in Ait Ourir, where a room, dinner and breakfast set me back about 25 quid. Bargain. Driving is interesting, but if you're sensible and slow it's easier than it first looks. At no point in the trip was I further than about an hour from Marrakech by car, perhaps 60km, but it felt for the most part as if I were on a different planet. Speaking french is a big plus, but probably not essential, and I found that being polite to local people and taking time to speak to them and their children paid dividends. Once you get into the backcountry, people cease wanting to sell you stuff and just want to know what you're doing - my advice from personal experience is simply to steer clear of the tourist areas like the Ourika Valley and Oukaimeden, and instead go off the beaten track. It's a great destination, and you could easily come away with a ton of good images in just a weekend - I may attempt just that later on this year.

I took the 1D Mark IV body, the 500mm lens and both converters, as well as full tripod set-up and my monopod. As I was by myself, I ended up with the tripod set up in the front seat (one leg in the footwell, one near the handbrake, the other out horiztonally into the door frame - see photo) so that I could gently roll up to roadside birds and start papping. When I left the car in search of birds I simply took the camera off the wimberley and popped in on the monopod. Most images were taken outside the car, but the "drive by" is still an effective method of getting close to some individuals, even in a bright white car! Other lenses taken but only lightly used were 16-35mm and 70-200mm zooms, with a 5D Mark III body which was also intended to serve as a backup should the worst happen with the 1D. All of this went into the Guragear Kiboko bag no problem at all, along with a whole pile of gubbins like spare batteries, cards, chargers, a rocket blower. As usual I took far too much, I was so busy taking photos of birds that the other lenses barely got a look in - lesson learned for next time!

The majority of the time I used the 1.4x converter, but some birds were so accommodating that this wasn't necessary. The 2x converter didn't come out of the bag! The light in the morning is brilliant from about 8am until 10.30am, at which point it became a bit harsh. It was at it worse probably at around 1-2pm, but it remained harsh probably until about 3pm. During this period not only was the light a bit tough, but the heat (20+ degrees even at the start of January) made accurate focusing and sharp images very difficult. If you could get very close you were OK, but I'd imagine that later in the year even this would be impossible. I tended to either rest up or do a bit of driving around in the middle of the day.

With the light being so intense and constant, I worked in manual the whole time and was able to get shutter speeds all the way up to 1/6400th of a second. Generally I used this to get decent apertures of f8 and beyond, and so a typical speed was 1/1600th. When you get very close to birds, you need a lot of depth of field, I think f13 was used on a couple of occasions - a far cry from the UK! This was one of the reasons I went - the forecast at home was absolutely dire, whereas Morocco looked incredible, and I only booked it about two weeks before I travelled. Sure enough, winter gales ruined the whole weekend in the UK whereas I was wandering around in short sleeves. 

In addition to excellent birds and very few people to spoil your enjoyment of them, Morocco is such a sparse country that you can generally always find a situation which has the potential for very simple backgrounds of the type I love. Rocks and thorny bushes are often favourite perches, and you can blow the backdrops to pieces as there is simply nothing there, even when stopped down a lot. And the colours....wow! Every shade of red and orange or beige you could dream of. Bright blues and olive greens. Personally I love this kind of simple image, and it's a reason I'll keep going back there.

On the trip I was birding as well, and so clocked up over fifty species, but took images of only about ten. I'm going to do a post per species of the best of those - Great Grey Shrike, Thekla Lark, Black Wheatear, and to start with, Moussier's Redstart. Here's a taster.

You will note that five of the nine images are from Morocco - it's THE place to go for Wheatears, or at least THE place that I've so far discovered. Heaps of scope for pleasing perches, completely blank backgrounds if that's your thing, and mostly great light in the early mornings and late afternoons. Just go!

That said, my favourite image is the Izzy Wheatear from.....Wales!

You can click on any of the images to make them bigger, and hovering over them gets you the exif. Fun fun fun!

Black Wheatear

Black Wheatear1/1250 at f6.3, ISO 640

Taken on my first visit to Morocco, we perched behind our lenses hoping that the bird would come in. I ended up slightly badly placed, needed to be few feet left, and an inconvenient rock obscures the lower part of the photo as well as bit of background irritation. This was my first ever image of this species, so no real complaints. Next time! Maybe....

Black-eared Wheatear

Black-eared Wheatear1/1250 at f5.6, ISO 400

Only managed a few photos of this bird, taken from a gently rolling car in southern Spain. Note the lovely perch and the nicely exposed forehead.....oh well, another one to aim for. The image was taken in early April, it was interesting to see how early the bird bleaches from the rich ochre. Later in the season they actually look black and white.

Desert Wheatear

Desert Wheatear1/1600 at f8, ISO 400

Another image from the Moroccan deserts. I needed a faster shutter speed here, as 1/1600 wasn't sufficiently motion-stopping or sharp. I actually use ISO 800 far more frequently these days than I did back in March, could have done with that here. That said, how often do I get usuable images of passerines in flight, and I like the action here. Eye level with the bird, decent background too, lots of nothing in Morocco.

Isabelline Wheatear

Isabelline Wheatear1/1600 at f7.1, ISO 800

Have I already said all there is to say about this image.? Possibly, possibly. Don't care though. I love it, I absolutely love it. Partly it's the image, for me it ticks all the boxes - on my stomach to get level with the bird also helps get a good soft background, the light is lovely and the bird has a sweet head turn. Partly though it was the blissful location, the lack of crowds, and the shirt sleeve weather in October. Mostly though, it's because it's a Wheatear.

Mourning Wheatear

Mourning (Maghreb) Wheatear1/400 at f5.6. ISO 800

A big target bird for us in Morocco, we finally found a pair late in the day. I've lightened this image significantly to bring up detail. Now that I know my camera better I might have upped the ISO as well, but what's done is done. Still an effective portrait to my mind, got that classic Morocco background. Shame I couldn't stop down, but the light was bad. I deliberately underexposed in the field to squeeze out some speed, knowing I could bring it back up - always worth remembering, but only if you shoot RAW.

Northern Wheatear

Northern Wheatear1/1600 at f7.1, ISO 800

Although a little more space would have been nice, this bird was so close! Here, it's all about the pose, I don't see Northern Wheatear adopt it all that often, and I do spend a lot of time chasing them about! Good detail, nice light (note that the exposure is identical to the Izzy Wheatear above - same day, same light, same working in manual exposure mode), nice background, and something a little different so that's why I chose it above all my other N. Wheatear shots for this post.

Pied Wheatear

Pied Wheatear1/1000 at f8, ISO 800

Wish that I'd taken a longer lens! I had not been expecting to have a chance of photographing this particular bird, so was surprised to find that the opportuntity presented itself on a major twitch. I nearly didn't take a camera at all, then realised that I would be naked without one. This is with my 500mm with the 2x converter attached. Not bad considering, but as in so many UK birding situations, the 800mm would have been the deal-breaker here. Monopod (my tripod had a scope on it, you can see this was a birding trip!) and the central focal point by necessity as the minimum aperture is f8 with the doubler. 

Red-rumped Wheatear

Red-rumped Wheatear1/2500 at f6.3, ISO 400

Amazingly we only found one pair of this species in the Moroccan Desert, and in the heat of the day! Nevermind, here is the image, poor though it unfortunately is. Let's just say I had some lighting and exposure issues..... Aiming to improve on these birds on a trip sometime soon, for now here's what I have.

White-crowned Black Wheatear

White-crowned Black Wheatear1/1600 at f7.1, ISO 640

By the far most frequently-encountered Wheatear in Morocco, I like the pose, the simple background, and the native plant versus the usual rock. Many of the plants in Morocco are very stubby, thus you only have to be crouched in order to get to eye level with the bird.

I was inspired to do this post by Mick and Richard, who spend all weekend every weekend at Dungeness photographing Gulls. This is slightly one-dimensional, but results in some truly outstanding images (far better than those that follow), and Mick's review of his Gull year can be seen here, not sure Richard has done one.

So, in that vein, here are what I think are my best Gull images from last year. None spared, if I photographed the species, there is an image here to prove it, even if it it's a bit useless! Funnily enough I had under ten Lesser Black-backed Gull images to choose from, but well over thirty of Bonaparte's Gull. It's only when you look back that you realise you have completely overlooked the common stuff that you see day in day out.

You can hover over the images for the technical details, and click on them to display them at full resolution.

Audouin's Gull

Audouin's Gull1/500 at f5.6, ISO 800

Audouin's Gulls were few and far between on my family holiday in August. They departed the beach at the first signs of human life and didn't come back until dusk. Based on the east side of the island, it was impossible to get the right sun angle without taking my lens for a swim (I tried, didn't work!), but this is the best of what I got. Although there is a lot of shadow, the side lighting looks quite nice. I was very low for this one, and although the bird's legs look lost in the mist, this is actually the top of a ridge of sand I was shooting through.

Black-headed Gull

Black-headed Gull1/3200 at f9, ISO 800

Probably not the greatest photo of this species I've ever taken, but my main targets are always something else! This is a rare flight shot from me, and proves at least that I can kind of do it if I put my mind to it! Just not consistently! This was taken off Southend Pier, which I visited specifically to practice flight photography. That's dedication!

Bonaparte's Gull

Bonaparte's Gull1/1600 at f5, ISO 640

I actually made a specific trip to photograph this bird, four hours in car - what is the world coming to! The light was horrible, a nasty, insipid, flat and uninspiring day. The resulting images all looked very monochromatic, but you take what you can get. The bird was on a boating lake, and to get this image I lay flat on the pavement with the lens resting almost on the ground - you can't really tell where the water ends and the sky begins. I should have stopped down more to get a sharper beak, but probably even f13 would not have been enough, and at that point I would have been down to 1/250 or thereabouts.

Common Gull

Common Gull1/2500 at f8, ISO 800

Another image from that same day on Southend Pier. This image required a tiny tiny bit of missing wingtip to be added - don't ask me the P number, I'm not that kind of birder! I barely have any images of Gulls in flight, I like the pose and the lighting, so I thought what the hell, I'll do it. Rather than stitch it from another frame, there was so little of it needed that I simply drew it by hand/mouse, as well as adding canvas to the right. If you hadn't been told, would you have noticed?!

Glaucous Gull

Glaucous Gull 1/1000 at f5.6, ISO 1600

This is about the only image I took of a Glauc all year - a bit annoying as I have much nicer ones from last year but rules is rules. This was taken on Shetland near the fishing factory, where there are always a few white-wingers hanging around. Getting any kind of shot was very difficult as this was late in the day, and even up at ISO 1600 I was struggling - the converter meant my maximum aperture was f5.6. Of all the shots I took, I like this one the best. I know eye contact is considered essential, but this a little different. The white wings of a white-winger.

Great Black-backed Gull

Great Black-backed Gull1/3200 at f9, ISO 500

I was forced against my will to go to Dungeness one day, and 100% of the birds there are Gulls. What was I supposed to do? This was another opportunity to practice flight photography. I'm still at the stage where if it's sharp I'm basically happy, so this isn't a classic pose, banking and so on, but I'll get there. The weather was really nice, good light in the afternoon, and this allowed me to dial in f9, which is always helpful in flight shots. Note how all the Ps on view (numbers 21, 23, and 28 especially!) are ragged. 

Herring Gull

Herring Gull1/5000 at f4, ISO 640

Ah, the ubiquitous Herring Gull. Nothing special about this image, but I like the pose, and the light was fabulous, as was my positioning for the light. What do I wish I had done differently? Smaller than f4, as although this was handheld I didn't need 1/5000th of a second.

Iceland Gull

Iceland Gull1/1250 at f4, ISO 800

I travelled to Ireland in the summer for a spot of sea-watching. The wind had other ideas and it wasn't that great, but luckily I had my camera with me. This was taken at Galway's famous Nimmo's Pier, a place I'd never been and that was completely different to what I had in my head. This was the only interesting Gull around, so I took a few images. As with the Bonaparte's Gull, I like the almost Black and White feel to the image, as well as it's cleanliness. Although the whites look bright in the late evening sunshine, the histogram has not been breached. A low angle has helped here - I was lying down on the pavement again.

Ivory Gull

Ivory Gull1/2000 at f5.6, ISO 800

Never thought I'd see one of these, one of the only Gulls I've truly enjoyed this year! Photography at a major twitch is never easy, as you can't move around to change your position in case you flush the bird and are then lynched by 100 angry birders. I had to choose my spot in advance of the bird coming in, and this is what I got. Some way from ideal, but you can tell what it is. I actually guess the right spot and was closer to the bird than many people, and although the light was fine, even getting down as low as I could had no impact on the background which is naff.

Kittiwake

Kittiwake1/2500 at f6.3, ISO 400

This is a special image for me, not because it the best ever image of a Kittiwake (which clearly it isn't), but because of where I took it. Sometimes images are not all about the end result and how you got there, but the memories they recall. This bird was in Wanstead! I was walking along near Alexandra Lake when I glanced up at a Gull flying over my head. I did a double take when it appeared to have black legs. My brain screamed at me and I fumbled for the camera. At this point I was right into the light but even the dreadful frame showed what I wanted it to see. Solid wingtips and a yellow bill! Kittiwake! Nick and I think Josh who were still within earshot must have heard my screams - I was literally jumping up and down, pointing and yelling. I couldn't believe it, Kittiwake is rare enough on the river in London, let alone on my patch miles from the Thames, but yet here it was, a patch tick. The bird stuck around long enough to get some images with the sun behind me, and I was over the moon for the next few days.

Lesser Black-backed Gull

Lesser Black-backed Gull1/2500 at f6.3, ISO 640

I could only find a handful of images of LBB that I had taken in 2013, and not many more than that ever. It seems to be a species that I have completely overlooked. I have nothing to say about this image, the only thing that stands out is that I used a 300mm lens and a converter rather than anything longer as my 500mm was broken (or so I thought at the time!).

Mediterranean Gull

Med Gull

Lovely Gulls these, as Gulls go. I was quite pleased with the lighting and the pose on this image, given my usual success rate. The plain background helps, and I have to say I really enjoyed my time on Southend Pier.

Ring-billed Gull

Ring-billed Gull1/2000 at f8, ISO 800

This bird was already frustratingly full of bread when I got to it, and never really showed much interest. That said, it was the first time I'd seen a juvenile of this species so I took what I could. Birds flying straight at you never really work, but the saving grace of this image is the head-turn and eye contact - ideally there would have been even more head turn, masking the other eye, but it wasn't to be. The bird did one pass and then flew back over estuary and landed in the same field it had been sat in when we turned up. 

I use the venerable Adobe Photoshop CS2 package, which is now available for free I believe. I use a tiny tiny fraction of its functionality, but it is the most amazing program, and I do not see the need to swap to a newer version that costs many hundreds of pounds. It does everything I could possibly want, which for most images, isn't a great deal. The example below is extreme in nature, but from a free software package, wow! 

...in Marrakech it looks rather nice! I said I'd be attempting to use the camera as much as possible this year, and this may be the solution to get me through the dark winter months - abandon the UK altogether. Morocco was probably the best place I went to last year for bird photography, and seeing as I have worked right through Christmas and New Year, I felt that a short trip away was merited. The flights are really cheap, everything when you get there is really cheap, and the weather and birds are excellent. Are you sold yet? Let's see if I can get some contenders for my "January" image under my belt early on, before work becomes rather hectic. You can actually do Morocco in a weekend, an early morning Saturday flight gets you there for about ten in the morning, and the return flight is on Sunday evening. That's only one morning and two afternoons, but there are a load of great places within striking distance of Marrakech, and by lunchtime on Saturday you could be photographing Atlas Shore Lark in the mountains. I'm actually going for a slightly longer weekend than that, but you get the picture. And I hope I do too!

Anyway, enough about my hopes and plans for 2014, let’s go back to 2013. I’ve tried to pick a favourite image from each month, one that represents both a happy memory as well as decent image. Some months were far more productive than others though, so it has been impossible to whittle it down to just one. In other words there are more than 12 images in this post!

January - Slavonian Grebe

I remember that when this first came up I had no car and couldn’t get there. The bird was on a tiny pond, and about 60% of it had frozen over, and the views were apparently amazing. My mate Mick was there and I knew he would be absolutely smashing it. Gutted. However it stayed for quite a few more days, and in the end I went twice. The first time was a flying visit with the kids and I only had a few minutes. The bright sun made it hard work, and I wasn’t completely happy with any of the images, though I'd have taken any of them in advance given how short I knew my visit would have to be. The second visit was much better and under the cover of white cloud – ideal - and that's where I got the shots I really like. Wish I'd had a third visit.... The first image was taken in January, but my favourite image of the bird, shown afterwards, is actually from the first few days in February. Is that cheating? My blog, my rules....

February - Fieldfare and Dipper

Fieldfares are such lovely birds, but they’re a pig to get close to, usually very shy indeed. Mick, Richard and I had gone to Shoeburyness to try for the Long-tailed Duck that was there, but had drawn a blank. They had been the previous day and noted a Fieldfare very near to the carpark, so we changed tack. For some reason the bird was on an oval bit of grass no bigger than half a tennis court, which was surrounded by the access track to the carpark on one side, and the parked cars on the other. The three of us lay in a circle with the bird in the middle, and oblivious to cars going back and forth we were treated to some fabulous opportunities with this incredibly confiding bird as it hopped around feeding between us. We got a bit cold and muddy all lying face down on the floor in late Feb, but it was more than worth it.

The Black-bellied Dipper was a really confiding bird that spent a few weeks on the river Thet in Norfolk. Although I marginally prefer the Fieldfare image, I can't not post one up of this bird. I'd never seen a dipper so well, and so to have the chance at some images was a real bonus even though it was really dark.

March - White-crowned Black Wheatear

White-crowned Black Wheatear is probably the commonest species in Morocco, and they were a joy to photograph. Morocco is perhaps one of the best places I’ve ever been to for bird photography – I already have two trips planned for 2014. There are no people, amazing light, heaps of birds, and with so much space it’s a lot easier to create the blown backgrounds that I love so much. I have extremely fond memories of the trip, which combined great birding with great photographic opportunities. And it wasn't confined to just birds....

April - Eastern Subalpine Warbler

Just a few days previously I’d driven three hours to finally get Subalp on my UK list, and then this bird appeared a lot closer to home at Landguard. It was a really showy bird, but there were far too many photographers pursuing it as it fed – this is the trouble with photographing rare birds in the south of England, so many people have cameras that wherever you go there are fifty other people all wanting a piece of the action. I quit this game after a while and sought out an area where I might get a clear shot without all the twigs and so in the background, and in doing so got well ahead of it. As the bird and the scrum approached I got ready, hoping it would land on the stem I had in mind. It did, I took a dozen shots in the space of the few seconds it was perched, and I then left the site immediately knowing I couldn’t get any better in the current circumstances. The hordes continued following the bird up and down, and I never did see a single other photo that I really liked.

May - Meadow Pipit

Meadow Pipits saved a quiet day back in May up on the cliffs at Dover. With our main target not turning up, a territorial Mipit that would come in quiet close made for some great photography in glorious conditions on the clifftops. I remember loads of stupid tourists balancing on the cliffs and posing for iPhone shots, but luckily none of them fell off. We largely ignored them and enjoyed the photography. Although I ended up with many better shots of the bird itself in a variety of good poses, my favourite is still this one of it eyeing up a potential snack!

June - Roller & Bee-eater

Whilst I go out looking for birds to photograph, I’ve never actually been on a pure photographic holiday. On a whim I booked up to go to Hungary with Sakertours, taking the last slot on a June trip to the Hortobagy National Park. They have a number of hides set up, and they take you to one or two per day and leave you to it. I’m not a hide photographer really, I find it very constrained, but I can’t deny that they deliver the goods. I’m actually wondering about purchasing a pop-up hide to use in this country, perhaps set it up in the garden this winter. Anyhow, these hides were the business, and whilst my shots of these birds are all pretty standard stuff, I was really pleased with the results. I couldn't choose between these species, so have taken the liberty of posting one of each. 

July - Arctic Tern

In  late July I twitched the Bridled Tern on the Farnes, and have since made a vow to go back every year, but in future not to stand around on the jetty for hours and hours. The islands are fabulous, and I intend to make the most of them as often as I can get up there in the breeding season - simply a glorious place with millions of photographic subjects. I'm not exactly sure what it is about this image that made me pick it, but part of is the expression of what seems to be distaste on the face of the adult - it just looks deeply unimpressed and disappointed with its offspring!

August - Fulmar

A somewhat abortive trip to Ireland for sea-watching once again put me in a beautiful location, Loop Head in County Clare. In the wind currents above the towering cliffs, the resident Fulmars were having a whale of a time, and so did I. Utterly alone, sat in extremely comfortable long grass, I spent a few hours trying to get flight shots. This is not my forte, although I am getting better, but I really worked it between rain showers, and ended up having a great time. And you get two for the price of one!

September - Red-backed Shrike

This bird comes a close second to my "Bird of the Year", and had the added bonus of being quite local. I forwent twitching the Spurn Great Snipe in order to get to this bird, and it lived up to my every expectation. I have a soft spot for certain bird families, and the Shrikes are right up there. This bird performed superbly, my one regret is that I never caught it in flight. But what a bird!

October - Isabelline Wheatear

This was undoubtedly my favourite bird of the year for a couple of reasons, the first being that it is a Wheatear, obviously. The second was that the scenery in far west Pembrokeshire was sublime, a grotty morning in London turned into a glorious afternoon in Wales, and after a journey of nearly five hours Nick and I had the bird almost entirely to ourselves. The bird was confiding, returning to the same spot again and again (at some point during its stay mealworms had been placed on a certain part of the cliff, though one remained), and the light was glorious. I lay flat down on my stomach with the lens on the ground in front of me, and was rewarded with exceptional views and a fabulous photographic situation. Everything had come together and I can honestly say I have rarely been happier.

November - Antillean Crested Hummingbird

As you may know, my work is pretty intense, and by the end of the year I’m usually pretty shattered. Actually I’m probably pretty shattered most of the time, but it’s a good excuse to book a holiday. This time around Mrs L and I went to St Lucia. I didn’t actually spend a great deal of time with the camera – the lure of a deckchair, rum cocktails and a warm sea was simply too great, but a little bit of chasing Hummingbirds around produced this image which I particularly like. Although I had taken a few flashes with me, there were no feeders around which to set them up, and with the multitude of flowers there was no telling where the birds would go. Rather than waste good beach time waiting by one flower with everything primed, I went the old-fashioned route of setting a high shutter speed and following a bird round. It's bloody hard, but I came away with a few that have worked pretty well.

December - Brunnich's Guillemot

For Christmas this year I made a bird calendar for my family, and needing to get it done in time for the last post, I went with an early December Black-headed Gull with autumn leaves reflecting in the water. Since then though I’ve had surprisingly more outings with the camera than I had anticipated, including an Ivory Gull up in Yorkshire that will live long in the memory. Although the Gull was brilliant, it didn’t really do much other than just sit there, and the whole location was pretty crap for photography. My photos of the Gull are visible in my Gallery, but they won’t win any prizes for artistic merit. But I have to confess to being pretty pleased with that Brunnich’s Guillemot shot from a few days ago. Not that it’s a superb shot or anything, but it’s all about the circumstances in which you find yourself. On that morning I had one single opportunity that lasted about three seconds in order to create an image that would both please me and be different from pretty much everything else that was taken that morning by the dozens of cameras present. As much as it was luck that caused the bird to pop up near me, experience meant that I was ready for that opportunity, and I remained calm enough to do what was needed. Sometimes it’s enough to say that you didn’t blow it!

So there you have it, a few of the images I have most enjoyed taking this year. My overall favourite bird and experience was the Izzy Wheatear in October - just a wonderful trip and a lovely location. So I'll leave you with one last view of it as it hopped around a coastal path in some afternoon sunshine. Every time I think of it I smile, and you can't ask much more than that.

Most of my beach vigil was in vain, the bird would appear next to a couple of posts that were still too far out, and then it would dive and the next thing you knew it was back in its favourite dark corner, having managed to do it on a single lungful, and amazing quickly. Only once did it come a bit closer, and I was as ready as I could be, low to the ground only a couple of feet above water level. I'd elected to bring the 800mm, despite the stories of the bird appearing less than twenty feet away I though that as much focal length as possible was the way forward. As the bird was frustratingly far out I had the 1.4x converter mounted as well, for 1120mm at f8, although only the central focus point is active at this point. I knew this combo could hold the quality in cold weather, especially on a tripod - much as love my monopod, there is only so much it can do sometimes. I repeatedly reset my exposure to account for the changing light, and so when the bird suddenly appeared about thirty or forty feet out, all I had to do was quickly swing the gimbal round, focus, and fire. I managed about five shots before the bird submerged again and went straight back - underwater - to the dark corner. 

Looking at the back of my camera, I knew I had done OK in the circumstances, which was good as I needed to get back on the road for the Diver in Devon, and would have hated to have gone away empty handed. The bird had surfaced just on the border of shade and sunshine, with its head thankfully lit up. I had been exposing for some Red-breasted Merganser that had also been in the sunshine, so was more or less spot on - the body of the bird is overly dark but it's the head and eye that are by far the most important. Of the five images I got, probably only two work, and the first is far better as the head is slightly angled in, whereas on the second it is already turning out as the bird starts to head away. So, I got lucky, but importantly I was prepared to get lucky, and that's what made the difference. If the bird stays and a fine day coincides with a weekend, I might go again and spend more time there, as eventually I expect I'd get more and better opportunities. For now though, I'm really pleased how it worked out in the limited amount of time that I had.

Techy details are Canon 1D4, 800mm + 1.4x converter, ISO 800, 1/1250s at f8, exposure set manually.

In the meantime of course, Canon released a new 500mm, the Mark II. It weighs 600g less than the old version (18%), focuses closer, and has a more effective IS system. The older lens was no slouch in the quality department, and this new version is at least its equal, and the fact that I had to tone down my Photoshop sharpening points to the fact that it is even better. The only trouble is that it was nearly double the price of the older second hand model. I agonised for a while, and then took the plunge - you only live once. And I am glad I did, the new 500mm F4 IS Mark II is an incredible bit of kit and I get stacks and stacks of use out of it.

Having now used it extensively for about a year I can't think of a lens better than this one for general birding, or travel where birds might be on the menu. For starters it packs into a tiny bag, unlike the 600mm and 800mm. The value of this cannot be underestimated, it is so easy to pack. I can take this lens anywhere, even on the smallest of planes, nobody ever questions the small bag, which also contains a 1d body alongside (i.e. not mounted), both converters, a standard sized lens like a 100mm macro or 16-35mm zoom, and various small items like batteries and cards. Monopod strapped to the side, I have a package that can go anywhere for bird photography and be perfect for most birding situations. Partnered with a 1d body it weighs in at less than 5kg. I can handhold it all day long, and with my unique horizontal carrying system I barely notice it on my shoulder if I'm out birding, and it seems not to aggravate my side too much. I've been doing a fair bit of travelling this year, and this lens has been everywhere with me. Without even a monopod, I'm finding that it delivers great image quality time after time. And it takes the 1.4x converter without blinking. I swear I can't tell if I used it or not. On my recent holiday to St. Lucia, I used it handheld 90% of the time, often with the converter, and I'm perfectly happy with the results. It takes the 2x pretty well too, and just this past weekend I used it with both converters stacked around a 12mm extension tube with perfectly acceptable, if not spectacular, results. The cost is the only downside, especially when a mint example of the older model can be had for around 60% of the price at the time of writing, or a saving of over £3000 - this amount could take you a long way!

Below, a female Antillean Crested Hummingbird, taken handheld at 700mm (f7.1, 1/2000s, ISO 1000)

The following day once back in the hotel, or maybe the day after as I tended to lose track of time, I discovered a bird frequenting a less manicured part of the grounds, and spent a good hour or so taking photos, this time armed with all the kit I hadn't had with me in the hills. The only place it would perch at eye level was a fence, but it's quite a nice fence with a nice clean background, and definitely preferable to having the bird from below and framed against a white sky. All of the images were at 700mm (i.e. with the 1.4x converter), and I used the monopod for support. The bird never came back to the same bit of fence, and although it fed relatively frequently I frustratingly never chose the right part of fence for a landing shot, and after a while I got a bit hot and retired to the Caribbean Sea for a spot of snorkelling, all thoughts of photography forgotten!

The bird was frequenting a slurry pit, or sileage run off. I have no idea what you call it, but effectively it was 90% liquid cow shit as far as a I could tell. Even I wasn't prepared to lie down flat, especially with no spare clothes! Crouching was the best I could do, and tried to brace the rig as best I could on slightly dodgy support, and even then it was pretty unpleasant. The bird seemed to be frequenting the darkest and furthest corner, but also would come close to people around the outside, so knowing I didn't have long, when the bird next flew away and over the barns I went and crouched in the space nearest to the corner that was clear of brown liquid! I had to hop, skip and jump to get there, but this bold move was rewarded when the bird flew back in and came in really close, completely unconcerned by my presence. So I was in position, as close as I could get, I was as low as I could get, now the bird just had to stay still! To cut a long story short, it didn't! In active feeding mode, only very occasionally did it stop for a split second, and as a result most of my photos are complete garbage! Some however came out OK, despite the tough conditions. All taken with the 500mk II + 1.4x converter, ISO 800-1250, and unusually for me, on Aperture Priority mode, which I figured would keep me right as the bird moved in and out of darker areas.

As I get more ruthless with paring my images down, a process which I only truly got to grips with this year, and which I continue to improve upon, I thought it might be interesting to share my thought process as I go through my RAW files on the computer. Largely this involves THE BIN! These steps are more or less in order, and each ends with the bin, unless it makes it through that step. So for instance if the image is sharp enough it goes through to stage two, but if I'm missing part of the bird it goes. If I have an entire bird that is sharp, but the exposure is off, then I bin it. If the exposure is OK, then it makes it to stage four, and so on. Or at least that is how I suggest you look at this if you doing this very strict selection process for the first time. Probably in reality I do many of the steps simultaneously, especially the first five. But anyway, here is what I think about when I am reviewing images that I have just downloaded. Also worth noting is that I use a piece of software called Breezebrower Pro. This is a very rapid way of categorising images as keep or bin, and has the advantage of applying some standard "as if sharpened" views of the RAW images. You simply select the keepers, then invert your selection and delete the rest.

 1) Is it sharp, and I mean properly sharp? None of this "oh it's ok I suppose", we're talking real sharpness. Feather detail sharpness. This particularly applies to the  head, particularly the beak and the eye. Not sharp? Bin. I am mildly addicted to what I call the "Rictal bristle test". Can you see them? If you can, you're all good on the sharpness and detail front. In the image below, the left hand bird is off. The right hand bird is a lot better.

 2) Have I got the whole bird? Is the tail there? The wingtips? The feet? Unless you're aiming for a tight portrait, really you don't want images which have been cut off. If I'm missing just a tiny bit, have I got that bit on another frame that I can copy across? Can I clone it in, and leave some space around it? Mostly, if I've missed it, I bin it. Cloning and copying take time. Only when I have no other choice do I go down this route. The following two side-by-side images were taken about a second apart. I realised I had clipped the tail and panned slightly to the right. If anything though, there is now not enough space on the right of the bird.

 3) Is the exposure good, or at least recoverable if slightly off? No? Bin. Some images you can raise to bring them back. Lowering them is more difficult. Did I blow my whites? A bit is recoverable. A lot? Bin. To be honest this is rarely a problem as I constantly check my exposure in the field and amend accordingly. It would be extremely rare that I went through more than ten shots without checking that everything was OK, and an entire session would be unheard of. However if you're not completely at ease with exposure theory, which only comes with time, then this could be an important step. The Brambling below is too far underexposed to raise successfully - I tried and the whites never recovered. Only one place for it.....

 4) Quality of light. This is in many ways connected to the exposure as detailed in #2, and also to the shadow issue as detailed in #5, but what is the light like? Images taken under a white cloudy sky are the best, direct sunlight often looks extremely harsh. Once again this is very subjective, but images taken in the midday sun are rarely better than those taken early morning or late afternoon. Softness is key. Any image which grates is destined for only one place. Most of the time I don't pick up the camera in these conditions as I know I will be disappointed. Photographers often moan about the lack of light, but too much is equally bad.

 5) Head angle, position of bird? This is where we start getting subjective, but this it's one the areas where I see the most images on the net that I end up shaking my head at, knowing how easy this to get right. If bird's head is turned away from the camera, the image goes in the bin. If it's looking down, it goes in the bin. Similarly, if bird is flying away from the camera, even slightly, it's a goner. Even if it's the sharpest ever photo with a brilliantly perfect  exposure, if the bird is flying away, or the head is inclined away from the camera, it fails the definition of a good photo, and goes in the trash. I lose a lot of images here, especially where I have taken a sequence knowing that at least some of that sequence will have the bird doing what I want it to do, or where it turns away as I am still firing. In the first image below of the Isabelline Wheatear from last weekend, I binned the bin left hand bird and kept the right. There is only a fraction in it but the slightly lowered head on the left means it doesn't work for me. When it raised its head slightly, I got better light on it and a catch-light in the eye. Happy days! In the second image, which is of a Northern Wheatear, it is far more subjective. Either image works, but I much prefer the one on the right.

 6) Shadows? Is the head in shadow? Yes? Bin it! You want a nice evenly lit bird. You ideally want a catch light in the eye. If the bird's head is in shade, you won't have either of those things. Bin! Twigs and so on, sometime even other birds, can cast shadows across a bird. The body, the head, anywhere. If you don't think you can clone it out (cloning is where you take pixels from another part of the image and paste them over bits of the image you don't like, but so that you CAN'T TELL!) then bin it. In the Izzy Wheatear image, I like the pose, but look at those shadows! Bin! The Gull would be OK, the head turn is OK and just about rescues it from the fact that the bird is flying away, but the wing cuts off some of the beak. No rescuing that, goodbye! And the Chaffinch? Check out that shadow slap bang across the body, the head isn't quite sharp, and the bird seed......oh dear.

 7) Shooting angle. Very important. Where was I when I was photographing the bird. Was my lens mounted on a six foot tripod pointing down at 30 degrees towards the bird, as I see all the time in the field from the no clue brigade. Or better, am I level with the bird. At eye level with it. This step barely exists in my routine these days as I am never point down, only pointing level. Very occasionally there is no option, for instance shooting over a wall, or the banks of a reservoir, but the answer there is to move back from the bird to reduce the angle, and instead add focal length if you can. I'd much rather an image taken at height with a 2x converter from a distance, than taken at a height closer and with the bare lens. If it's obvious that you're on top of the bird, bin it. The Buff-bellied Pipit below is an over-the-wall job that I could do nothing about. The image is sharp, the exposure is spot on, but I was too close, and the angle was too acute. It goes down as a better-than-average record shot, which is why I still have it to use it as an example.

 8) Clutter. Is it a clean image? Very much personal taste. Some prefer the natural image, some prefer the clean image - I fall in the latter camp. Neither is better than the other, but if you're in my camp then it becomes a lot more difficult. I've deleted many a perfect image of a bird because I can't reconcile myself with the rest of the image. For instance are there twigs cutting across the bird? Can they be dealt with in Photoshop? Leaves, grass, litter, bird seed? Other birds distracting? Again, can I deal with them? I am very fussy, getting fussier, and aim not to include them in the first place, but knowing what I can and cannot do in post processing is very important. Some images just can't be worked on and if you're like me, have to be let go. I've tried to work on the Spotted Flycatcher image below many times, as with a clean background and some space out to the right, it would be a killer. It's unfortunately beyond me at the moment, but I'm saving it for a day when my photoshop skills are better.

So, a lot of this is probably obvious, but not necessarily if you took the photo. It certainly wasn't obvious to me for many years, and it has only really begun to click in the last 18 months. Before that I was willing to accept any old rubbish if it had one good element to it. I'm still working on it, still learning, and no doubt there are photos in my galleries that don't reach the standards I'm describing. I'm planning another edit soon, the final one following two immense purges. I had one go myself, and then passed my portfolio to a fellow photographer to cast an impartial eye. I return, I went through his. It's a healthy exercise to go through now and again - what I thought was brilliant two or three years ago I look at now and wonder what drugs I was on. No doubt the same will apply a couple of years from now when I look at my output from this current period. As well as going through my galleries on this website and pressing the delete key a lot, I also went through my entire collection of RAW files from about 2007. I deleted gigabytes and gigabytes, it was quite incredible. And although that sounds like it ought to have taken ages, it didn't really. It was all obvious, and most of the images I deleted were straight bins, without a second glance. Many of them I could not believe I had even taken in the first place. Forget about c&c on the web, most of it is meaningless drivel that won't help you in the slightest. Take as many photos as you can, but only press the shutter if the image there to take. If you set yourself high standards, my experience is that gradually, slowly, it will all come together. I binned the image below, can you see why?

There were only about four others there for the bird, and they suggested that the bird liked to come back to the same area of grass where somebody had placed mealworms earlier on. None were left, but nonetheless the thought of finding a hidden crumb kept the bird returning, and it was simply a matter of waiting. With lovely light, there were some choice backgrounds on offer - pure green, pure blue, or a mixture of both. And as usual, down to bird eye level! Monopod dispensed with, I flat on my stomach (still just about possible!) and supported the lens with both my elbows, left one in front, right one tucked in a bit, and waited for the bird to return. This it did every now and again, flying in with some Northern Wheatears, and then running in a little bit closer. It was then simply a matter of tracking it around the place and waiting for a nice combination of pose and background, altering my height as appropriate in order to get a particular background, though obviously if the bird was super-close I didn't move. Although I was lying a little ways in front and to the side of some of the other people, the bird probably approached me to within ten feet on multiple occasions. Why the others decided to stay further away, and with lenses of top of tripods pointing down at the bird I will never know, but I see it all the time. I know which images I'd rather have! All the below were using the 1D Mark IV, my body of choice, and the 500mm f4 Mark II lens, with the 1.4x converter attached - despite the bird's proximity at times, I wanted as much on it as I could, and the converter seems to lose me nothing on the quality front. All images manually set at 1/1600s or 1/2000s, and at f7.1 or f8, as with the bird close I needed to stop down to ensure as much of it was in focus as possible - had I used f5.6 I might have been caught short, but at the same time I needed a fast shutter speed as I was hand-holding - the settings mentioned seemed to be the best compromise. ISO 800 was therefore also a compromise, but with noise reduction in even the venerable CS2, they look fine to me. So, that's the technical stuff out of the way - I hope you enjoy viewing them as much as I enjoyed taking them!

If anything the birds were even more flighty than I expected. In over two hours of lugging the gear around - weighing in at something like 7.5kg all told - I managed about thirty seconds of photography. Such is life, but here are some of the results. In the first image I have tidied up the excess foliage, however for rest of them I couldn't be bothered. I love a nice clean image, but most of the time it simply isn't possible, and I do sometimes need to resort to a bit of cloning. As I develop as a digital photographer, I'm beginning to have half a mind on Adobe Photoshop even as I press the shutter, it's just the way you start to think. When you know you can't get the 100% clean image you have in your mind, you know that even if you alter your position slightly, you have an image that you know you can deal with in post-processing. What would the Velvia shooters have thought of these new ways? Annoyed that they were not part of this generation I expect! Digital photography makes things so so easy. Not completely facile, just look at the proliferation of utter dross all over the net, but easy enough that if you spend a little time, take a little care, and are cogniscent of the possibilities before you even press the trigger, then decent images are the norm rather than the occasional. So, any photo of a Whinchat, for me at least, is a complete bonus, but if a little work in Photoshop is needed to make the image shine, why not. The first image in the sequence has undergone cloning only. That is to say that where there was stuff in the background, in this instance out-of-focus foliage on a different plane, I've used parts of the clean background to cover that up and get the uniform look I wanted in the first place. After over an hour of chasing Whinchats around I wasn't about to hold off simply because a bit of Broom was in the wrong place!

I'll say it again, I am astonished by the quality possible with the 800mm + 1.4x converter (Mk III), and with only a monopod for support. Heavy, and I much prefer using a shorter lens, but there are times when you need all you can get, and nothing else comes close. 700mm, i.e. the 500mm with the 1.4x converter, and I would have been nowhere. Tripod would have been ideal, but I suspect that in the time it would have taken me to extend the legs and so on that the birds would have moved on. The flexibility and mobility of the monopod is worth the sacrifice in stability. No such thing as a free lunch anywhere in photography, nonetheless I'm pleased by what I managed to achieve in the circumstances. 

So once I was dialled in, I sat down on the cliff edge - a dangerous business this photography lark - and got to work. Exposure in the event required constant tweaking, but generally I used ISO 800, with shutter speeds of 1/2500s-1/3200s, and apertures of f6.3-f9. Centre point AF was by far the most effective, the "ring of fire" never locked on, always got the sea below, really irritating, and the variable distances involved meant I could not use the focus limiter on the lens. All photos with the 1D Mark IV, and the 500mm Mark II lens. I tried the following day with the 5D Mark III, and the focus simply wasn't as effective for me - I soon gave up and reverted to the 1D.

I was picked up at about midday and that was it, back to the hotel for 20 minutes and then a two hour drive to Budapest airport. So in summary, some great opportunities, but somewhat below my expectations for a trip that ended up costing close to £1300 in total. I had 2.5 days of great photography, but 3 days of poor photography. The 2.5 days were productive for sure, but I'd expect a trip with photographing birds as the sole aim to have scored higher than this in percentage terms. There isn't a lot you can do if birds don't come and sit in front of hides is the bottom line I suppose, though Sakertours could also have improved in places - I've left feedback with the owner and will see what he comes back with.

Birds or no birds, the hides were on the whole outstandingly well thought out, the hotel at Balmazujvaros clean, comfortable with ok food, the staff friendly and mostly accommodating. For my part I perhaps could have been a pushier client perhaps, and next time I'll pursue my agenda rather than following somebody else's. I've come back with some of the images I'd hoped for, but am missing all those killer Heron and Stork shots. Will I go back? Probably, but at a different season. I want to go earlier in the year so that there is less canopy over the Drinking Pool hide, and a different mix of birds, including migrants on the move. Is it worth it? If you had four or five bird-filled days, I wouldn't hesitate to say yes. As it is I can't help but feel a little short-changed. That said, these days I am pleased if I come home from a day out with three or four keepers, and during those two days I got hundreds, so actually the ratio of images to hours in the field is way above the normal rate. But it could have been even better! No regrets (or Egrets....) as I really wanted to do it.

The one big issue is that there were almost no opportunities for photography as the birds just didn't come in. In ten hours we were treated to three brief visits by a Squacco Heron, none of which provided a decent image, and a Night Heron came in just once, sitting resolutely on a stump against a blank sky before flying off again without feeding. Beyond that we had a single Ferruginous Duck, and a number of Mallards and Greylags. This was one fifth of my holiday don't forget, and bitterly disappointing. Had the smaller pool been stocked with fish then the opportunities would have been amazing, but this was not the case. Consequently it ranked as a terrible day and I have no keepers.

Looking out of the hide windows, waterbirds passed overhead constantly - flights of Night Herons and Spoonbills, loads of Egrets and Herons. Bar what I've mentioned, none of them ever landed  - a real shame as the hide has the potential to be amazing. The best of what I did take are below. Much as I'd have like to have shown off a series of great images, when the birds just are not there, there is simply nothing that can be done. So not a good day at all unfortunately, but such is bird photography - nobody ever said it was straightforward, but hides are supposed to make it easier!

Gear

Lenses: A 300mm lens would be an asset for photographing birds that came along the bund (if they were ever to do that....), but otherwise a 500mm/600mm + extenders would be suitable - the longest you have, basically.

Cameras: Again, high ISO is useful, but unlike the Drinking Pool Hide, a 1.6x crop body would work fine. A few birds came close, but our experience was that most were far out. I used a 1.3x crop body almost exclusively.

Other: A tripod without a centre column, one that can go flush to the ground. Alternatively a beanbag or a skimmer pod would work. All wildlife photographers ought to have a tripod that goes to ground level though, in my opinion at least.

Mosquito repellent!

You're sat in a wooden shed that has been positioned in front of a sandbank that has many Bee-eater nest holes as well as lots of Sand Martins. Between you and the sandbank are a few perches, and these are where the Bee-eaters land with food before delivering to the nest holes, and where they often perch.

Beautiful birds that I have wanted to photograph for simply ages, this hide ticked all the boxes. After tiring of the standard perched shots, the challenge was to get some wings open action, but anticipating where the birds would land was a complete lottery. The bird that had come back to the same perch four times would land somewhere different the fifth time, or on the same perch but at the other end! And with lenses that were just a shade too long (300mm native - 200mm would have been better for easier framing) I was forever cutting off the wingtips or tail, consigning otherwise great images to the dustbin!

The maximum number of birds on the perches at any one point was probably five, but I think that at least four nest holes were occupied. Periods of inactivity were interspersed with frenetic coming and going, rattling off shot after shot - Bee-eater is one of these species that cannot fail to look nice. There wasn't a great deal of supporting cast - the Sand Martins were too far away, but a Golden Oriole did drop in momentarily in some grass to the left of the hide. Positioned on the right hand side of the hide I had to shoot at a terrible angle through the glass, but it just about worked.

So all in all a great morning, and although the weather was mixed, this probably meant we ended up having decent shooting conditions for an additional two hours. A blue sky day would have seen us pack it in at 10am due to haze and harsh light. So at midday we reluctantly packed up and went back to the hotel before the afternoon session back at the Red-footed Falcon Hide. This was actually the only day we got a break - I had understood prior to going that all days involved a morning and afternoon session, with the middle of the day devoted to sleeping and resting in the cool. In the event either Sakertours were short of drivers or were feeling a little laid back, and every other day we were either left in the hide for the duration, or moved straight from one to the other in the heat of the day. If I go back I'm going to insist on the rest part!

Gear

Lenses: The ideal lens for this hide would have been a 200-400mm zoom. I use Canon, and they have just come out with such a lens. Unfortunately it costs something like £12,000 at the present time, and so far this hide is the only situation where I have thought "oooh, I could really do with one of those". As it was, the trusty combo of 300mm f2.8 and the 500mm f4 sorted me out. Really if you have these two lenses, there is very little else you need to photograph birds.

Cameras: Any, I chopped and changed between full-frame and 1.3x crop the whole time. Open wing shots needed the 300mm at full-frame.

Other: A tripod with or without a centre column.

The big downside to this hide is its size. Whereas the tower hide we had come from was large and comfortable, this was small and highly uncomfortable, with the seats being too low and there being nowhere to put your legs. Many periods of pins and needles, combined with stifling heat made this very hard work indeed, and eventually we gave up. I think the bird had twigged that we were in there after all our noise trying to remain comfortable (impossible!), and thus after the first hour it only came in direct to the nest box rather than landing on the perch. In addition the options are very limited - one bird, one perch, and no supporting cast. Apparently the Morning Roller Hide had a lot more activity, and a few more species present. Nonetheless I managed some pleasing photos during that first period, though I have to say that I can't really enthuse much about this hide - my best Roller photos were probably taken here, but there were far more options for different Roller poses at the Red-foot Tower Hide earlier in the day.

Gear

Lenses: The longest you have, a 500mm lens is ideal for portraits with a 1.3x crop body, as well as for the bird in flight. A 400mm should be fine with a 1.6x body. 

Cameras: See above.

Other: A tripod is essential.

It was brilliant. The hide has full length windows on the east and west sides, so is suitable for both mornings and afternoons. You can only one side at a time, and you cover the other side with either curtains or shutters. Each side of the hide there are a couple of Red-footed Falcon nest boxes, as well as a Roller nest box. The Falcons nest colonially, so there are more nest boxes on the sides of the tower. With so many birds the activity is more or less constant, so a wildly different experience to the previous day (Thank God!).

I've already posted quite a few images up, so won't do too many here, but it was superb in every respect. The hide is as good for Rollers as it is for the Falcons.

Gear

Lenses: A 500mm lens is ideal for portraits with a 1.3x crop body. A 400mm should be fine with a 1.6x body. A 300mm with any body should ensure you are far enough out to get two birds in the frame, or wing stretches. A 70-200 can also be used for the times when birds perch on the side of the hide.

Cameras: Any will work.

Other: A tripod is essential, but need not go to ground level as the windows are set about a metre off the floor. Bladder control would be an advantage.....

We drove through a deluge to the hide, black skies and forked lightning. Pushing our way through water-logged reeds we got soaked getting to the hide  (tip, if it's raining, go last!). Once safely inside, we raised the shutter to reveal......nothing!! Oh well, patience is often the name of the game, so we set up and waited. And waited....

I'm not sure what to say. For most of the day we had mostly Greylag Geese, Mallards and Pochard outside the hide. I refused to photograph the first two. Sometimes small parties of Ferruginous Duck attempted to visit but either stayed some way out, or were chased away by a family of Coots. A Great White Egret visited twice, a Squacco once, and a Purple Heron was unphotographable. Whilst there was opportunity for Whiskered Tern flight shots, I gave it several hundred attempts and came away with one single image that was vaguely OK, but still essentially laughable. I have no idea what I am doing wrong, I may try a special course in the US as it is most frustrating. Anyway, moving on, a frustrating day which saw the perches go almost unused - a single Whiskered Tern spent perhaps a minute on one of the larger logs. Apart from that the only options were for birds in amongst the yellow water plant flowers - I'm not sure yellow is a particularly forgiving background for bird photography. One or two perhaps, but every shot? A Pygmy Cormorant visited once, swimming and diving in the centre of the pool before disappearing leaving us with no shots. Oh, and we got eaten alive by mossies as the day went on! The light was largely sub-optimal, and when it was nice, no birds deigned to drop in!

So, tiring, hot, and deeply unsatisfying,  and I ended up keeping only a tiny number of photos, fewer than 30, which for a whole day of bird photography in a set-up designed for you to score heavily is very poor indeed. With few usable images we bemoaned our luck on the way back to Balmazjuvaros and our hotel, hoping for better weather the following day, and a hide with birds in front of it! Things could only get better!

Gear

Lenses: A 300mm lens would be an asset for photographing Marsh Harrier and Whiskered Tern in flight, but otherwise a 500mm/600mm + extenders would be suitable - the longest you have, basically.

Cameras: Again, high ISO is a necessity, but unlike the Drinking Pool Hide, a 1.6x crop body would work fine. A few birds came close, but our experience was that most were far out. I used a 1.3x crop body almost exclusively.

Other: A tripod without a centre column, one that can go flush to the ground. Alternatively a beanbag or a skimmer pod would work. All wildlife photographers ought to have a tripod that goes to ground level though, in my opinion at least.

Mosquito repellent!

The two drinking hides are situated close together in Debrecen Great Wood. They seat three people reasonably comfortably, and are set below the water line, so that you can set up parallel to the surface for absolutely level-with-the-bird shots for that unique perspective, and allowing for awesome reflections. You shoot through one-way glass, and  I estimate that this cuts up to 2 stops of light. Drinking hide #1, the one I was in, is set underneath the canopy, and as such it can get very dark - shutter speeds of 1/60s are not uncommon, and as such bathing action or bird interaction is essentially out of the question which is a great shame. You face a shallow pool, constructed as a metal trough, that is perhaps 5m long. The majority of the action happens at the far end where you can set up various perches - mossy bark, stones, sticks, whatever takes your fancy. A pre-bathing perch is often a good idea - birds like to take a moment to check out the situation before getting down to business. The sides of the pool are lined with logs that prevent birds from drinking, thus everything is concentrated at the far end unless you set up a perch closer to the hide. There is a large gap between the end of the pool and the foliage at the rear, allowing amazingly clean backgrounds.

Note that drinking hide #2 is identical to the first in terms of physical layout, but is in a more open situation that allows faster shutter speeds - perhaps up to a stop and a half. When I was there though, it attracted far fewer birds than hide #1. You are more likely to get a light green background in #2, whereas #1 will have darker backgrounds, including black.

When we arrived the guide opened the hide up, cleaned the glass, topped up the pool with water and left us to it. It didn't take long for birds to return, and for the photography to start. A average day should see 18-22 species visit, an exceptional day would be 30 species. These are classic woodland birds - Tits, Woodpeckers, Thrushes, Finches and so on. It can get quite intense at times and you don't know what to point the camera at! One recommendation is to get the birds before they start bathing, as they become very quickly become drenched and rather unattractive!

I had a great day, getting shots of some species like Turtle Dove that I had only dreamed of. My only criticism beyond the light issues is that many images end up looking very samey, even if of different species. I wouldn't put together a portfolio of images from this hide alone, it would be very one-dimensional. You can help yourself out by nipping outside every now and again to play around with the placement of perches, but there is still really only one thing going on. This does not in any way detract from the fun though, and it's pretty easy to get standout shots that you would difficult to reproduce elsewhere. Beware of getting your horizons level - with reflections it's really obvious when you're not true to the world.

We elected to have a full day in the hide, though a half day is an option. We arrived at 6.30am and were picked up at 6pm - that's a long day to be sat in one place, but the images you get make it worthwhile in my opinion. In a 12 hour session I got the best images I've ever taken of probably a dozen species, can't ask for more than that really, and I'll be doing a series of "species" posts in the coming days, to include Hawfinch and Turtle Dove.

Gear

Lenses: Lenses from 300mm to 700mm are what you need, including any crop factor. A 500mm f4 was my most-used lens, though a 300 f2.8 also saw some action. With the end of the pool about 5.5m away from you, 500mm is excellent for portraits of small birds when using a 1.3x crop body. A 1.6x crop body would likely be too much to allow pleasing compositions. If you want full reflections, this focal length of 700mm is too much, and I swapped to a full-frame body. For larger birds, like Jays and Thrushes, 500mm native focal length was good, though 400mm would have been better. Anything closer would require a 300mm lens, an f2.8 version would be good as it lets heaps of light in, though bear in mind that the subjects are often at or just beyond minimum focusing distance, so stopping down is often required, despite the lack of light. I found myself using f8 and f9 quite frequently to get sufficient depth of field, with the resulting extremely slow shutter speeds - down to 1/40s in some instances. Solid long lens technique is very important, as is a tripod.

Cameras: Unless you only use a 300mm lens, a 1.6x crop is too long. This hide is perfect for a full-frame body with longer lenses, and I used my 5D Mk III more frequently than anything else. A 1.3x crop body gets you tight in for smaller subjects, but won't allow you to get the full reflections in. All bodies need to have excellent high ISO capabilities. I never went below ISO 800, and often used 1250 - it really is dark in there. In addition, many of the best reflective compositions require portrait framing, so a camera with a vertical grip will make things a lot easier and much more comfortable. My 1D Mk IV has a vertical grip built in, but I really missed not having this option with the 5D Mk III.

Other: A tripod is essential in my opinion, with a head than pans easily and smoothly. You may need to lock it down for some shots to minimise the risk of camera shake. Mosquito repellent and after-bite lotion. Toilet paper in case the need arises. Plenty of water is provided. In high summer it can surpass 30 degrees in there. Don't be tempted, as we did, to open the front window a fraction. When the sun is out, unless the lens is perfectly parallel to the glass, ghosting will occur on high contrast areas of the subject, such as a Blackbird's beak. This wasn't apparent in shade, but in brighter light we couldn't understand what was going on until we shut the window. Lesson learned!