This morning I had the absolute delight of photographing my favourite bird, often referred to as the jewel of rivers and estuaries. Sometimes only seen as a blue and orange bullet darting across the water or if your lucky you will catch a little splash in the corner of your eye as it dives into the water for a fish. But today the very elusive kingfisher put on a spectacular show for me and fellow birders in the Ryan Fields Hide at the Hayle Estuary. On first arrival I heard the high pitched call as it landed on some pampas grass, I manage to get a quick glance through my binoculars before it flew off in the other direction. So after discovering that the bird was here, I set up my camera kit. For this shoot I used a Nikon D810 with a 600mm lens to get to as close to the subject as possible. After waiting no more than 40 minutes the bird returned, again calling with its high pitched song. It darted across the estuary then landed on some near by nettles that were close to the hide giving me the chance to get some nice shots. It stayed there for a while scanning the waters below before diving in to the water but this was to be an unsuccessful hunt by the king. So as it darts back out of the water it seemed a little dazed an unsure of where it dived from, so to my fortune is lands on the nearest thing it can find which was a rock that was half submerged in the water. The rock was just in front of the hide giving me the chance to get an even closer perspective of this little blue beauty. But as soon as it appeared it was gone again and dashed off leaving one very happy photographer and naturalist.
As well as the Kingfisher there was also another bird I set out to photograph today...the starling. But this shoot was to focus on the birds beauty rather than the wonder of the murmuration. To do this I headed to the arty cornish seaside town of St.ives but on this occasion it was tourist invested. Not where you would normally expect wildlife photographers to visit but sometimes it's not all mud and hides. For this shoot I had to change my lens from the 600mm to a 70-200mm, f.28 lens as the subject matter was going to be a lot, lot closer than the Kingfisher. At first I could only see starlings sitting on the roof tops and chimneys which was too far away to get a detailed shot. So I decided to head along the seaside front where there was shops, cafes, chip shops and restaurants. This is where I could find the really brave and tame birds, it was amazing to see them just sitting on bins, walking in amongst the crowds and hanging around families with picnics. These birds had obviously evolved to become tame in order to survive by picking up scraps that people leave behind. So all I had to do was tread carefully towards the starlings and get down low for my shots. This was the end result:
I am also beginning a new assignment shortly which I will keep you informed on. The assignment will be focusing on the common garden snail, the point of this project is to try and get people involved in all types of nature. Because as a child we are extremely fascinated by the world around us and some of us loose that spark as we get older, so I hope to reignite that flame by making the often referred "little brown jobs" more exciting through my photography. More photographs to be upload shortly from today and can be found in the wildlife section of my website.