Garden goldcrests

I have a few spruce trees around my garden and so luckily goldcrests (Regulus regulus) are quite frequent - more frequently heard than seen anyhow.

Whilst doing some chores in the garden earlier this week I noticed a very confident and typically super active male feeding on the lawn under one of the spruce trees. He seemed to be picking off aphids as can be seen in the crop below.

Goldcrests do breed in the UK in large numbers but our resident population is swollen by up to 2-3 million birds from the continent (mostly Scandinavia) over the cold winter months. 

For the first image below I simply lay on the lawn and got a little cold and wet, within 2 minutes the bird was making regular forays in my direction - thankfully it gave me plenty of opportunities as this species moves so fast that very fast shutter speeds are needed to stop action. The white blur in front of the bird is a remnant patch of snow.

These next two images show the bird in a more typical scene, amongst evergreen leaves. 

This species is very endearing and great to be able to watch in the back yard - for those of you that have coniferous trees growing nearby listen out for high pitched individual notes and a very fast moving small bird, they are great to watch, I have noticed a few squabbles recently.

A belated happy New Year to my readers!

Amphibians of Cusuco national park, Honduras.

This post is a little out of order as it concerns events that took place before my other blog posts, however it should be of interest to many of my readers.

Cusuco National Park is a relatively small montane protected area in Honduras, the habitat is mostly cloud forest, and is home to such species as the resplendent quetzal, a most remarkable bird. It is also home to some lesser known, equally stunning and unfortunately more threatened wildlife. Namely amphibians. The park has around 7 endemic species of amphibian and in my time working there over summer 2012 I was fortunate enough to photograph some of these.

Firstly a habitat shot, the amphibians in Cusuco and in many areas around the world are focussed around wetland areas, which in this case meant mountain streams.

One of the more frequently encountered species (non the less declining) Plectrohyla dasypus -  one of the endemics.

The two shots below shot Plectrohyla exquisita, the Cusuco giant treefrog in its habitat.

Sometimes it can be nice to show amphibians or reptiles in their habitat rather than taking macro shots, to do this in dim rainforest conditions is often challenging as it requires the use of natural light. So here I used a tripod placed in the stream, and a wide angle as opposed to a macro lens, the exposure time for the below shot was 5.0 seconds - luckily some frogs will sit remarkably still. I also used a little fill flash to bring out detail in the foreground of the photo.

This species () is endemic to Cusuco and is classed as Critically endangered by the IUCN. Threats include ongoing habitat loss and chytrid fungus, a fungus that is driving declines in many species of amphibian globally.

One of the endemic salamanders Bolitoglossa diaphora, a Cusuco salamander.

Finally a fantastic example of an amphibian that exploits another semi aquatic habitat found across the neo-tropics, bromeliads. This salamander is Cryptotriton nasalis, so named for the large nostrils evident in this picture. Usually this species is found high up in the forest canopy where bromeliads are prolific. This was a chance find at night in a low lying bromeliad axil.

It will be a great shame if any of these beautiful species become extinct, and so as a conservationist I would urge readers to be mindful of amphibians, not necessarily tropical species, but those species you find at home, wherever that may be. Simple acts such as digging a pond in your garden, or not using pesticides in your flowerbeds can throw a lifeline to struggling frogs, toads and newts, creatures that children the world over find fascinating and can spend hours being entertained by.

Any comments or questions are welcomed as usual,

Regards,

Etienne

Garden birds

I have had a bird feeding station set up in my front garden for as long as I can remember, and I am lucky to live near a woodland and so many of our woodland bird species visit my feeder regularly - unfortunately due to work and other commitments garden photography is as interesting as it is going to get for me until the New Year.

I decided that it was time to make a hide.. and set up some perches. I constructed the hide from 3 delivery pallets, 2 sides, and a front, the front side I sawed the top third off. I nailed these together and have attached a large scrim net to cover the top sides and front leaving a gap large enough for my lens to poke through.

The hide is situated around 6m away from the perches.

Here are some of the results so far.

With some luck birds such as great spotted woodpeckers, nuthatches and treecreepers will start making more appearances once they have grown accustomed to the hide.

If anyone is interested I will post pictures of the hide set-up.

Blue skies and red kites!

I know I said I'd write a post on rollers next - but the light was pretty good today so I managed a few Red kite shots locally which I have been meaning to have a stab at for a while. I'm very lucky in that I don't need to travel at all to see these beauties, in Oxfordshire they are now a common sight, even over towns and gardens.

The low winter sun is perfect for flight shots (so long as you can make the time to get out during the very short days..).

A little gutted I clipped the wings here!

Nothing that's going to feature in the BBC Wildlife magazine but some pleasing images that I will be working to improve. My ultimate goal for a red kite flight shot is to catch the bird with its wing up (the sun hitting the plumage of course..), staring at the camera, with a blurred out deep green background. I think dark green complements red kite plumage perfectly.

Sunbirds

Sunbirds are similar in appearance and have similar habits to the hummingbirds of the New world. They feed mostly feed on nectar but I did observe a splendid sunbird feeding on a moderately sized spider. These photos are not my best, however, these birds are beautiful and fascinating.

I found the best way to photograph this group of birds is to find a suitable flowering plant at low level, position yourself at an angle so that the sun is behind you (but not so that your shadow is cast on the plant) and wait, these are very tiny birds so in order to get frame filling shots you need to be very close. I suggest using some form of cover, be it a scrim net or just hunkering down behind nearby foliage. Patience here is the key... Unfortunately on this last trip I didn't come across any massively regular spots but here are my attempts.

Beautiful sunbird - female.

Beautiful sunbird - male.

Variable sunbird - male.

Up next, rollers!

Miscellaneous small birds.

A selection of small birds taken around Gunjur. 

I find when in a new area one of the best ways to go about photographing small birds is to first do some reconnaissance. Look for areas where birds are visible in abundance, for example a (relatively low) fruiting bush, or in arid areas, a water source. Once an area is located, half your work is done, next comes the waiting game - the use of a hide made of scrim net or similar and a sturdy tripod can save an aching upper body and a lot of time as birds will generally approach a hide more readily than a human with a large camera. 

Bronze manakin, male - taken by a small pool near dusk.

Black-fronted red bishop

The one I didn't do justice to, but in this case, the view was enough to make my day, a stunning male African golden oriole, what I wouldn't give for a pristine portrait of this bird..!

A green wood hoopoe, very different in appearance from the more familiar European hoopoe.

The use of a 1.6x body, an extender and patience can turn a 300mm prime into a fantastic lens for bird photography. Especially in good light typical of the tropics. For this reason and the advantage that it is easier to fly with a 300mm f2.8 as hand luggage than a very weighty 600 or 800mm I think a 300 and a set of extenders is a good compromise for a temperate bird photographer who travels and is prepared to spend time waiting in a hide.

Next up, sunbirds!

Gambian macro subjects

As many of you will know I am a keen herper, so before heading to the Gambia I had a lot of ideas about which snakes I'd like to photograph. This did NOT work out - during November, snakes are largely nocturnal in Gambia, myself and Matthew Fox spend a few very long nights searching through forest, farmland, scrub, swamp and even eco-lodge garden. Guess where we found the only significant snake of the trip...

That's not to say we didn't come up trumps with some other great macro subjects though. 

A blister beetle - so called as the adults secrete cantharadin (a poison) from their leg joints, which may make human skin blister. Apparently if ingested this can prove fatal!

Family - Meloidae

Genus - Actenodia

Senegal chameleon (Chamaeleo senegalensis).

Interesting huntsman spider found at night (Sparassidae sp.)

A Golden-orb weaver, Nephila sp. 

The lighting in these invertebrate pictures was created by careful selection of background scenery and the use of a little off camera fill flash (bounced - not direct). I have tried to place emphasis on the subject, also the web in the spider images, and to slightly underexpose the background. Let me know what you think!

A twin-spot assassin bug,  genus Platymeris sp. 

Many more macro subjects to come.