Grey Squirrels Part III

Sorry, it's another Grey Squirrel blog. You're probably all getting bored of these now but its kind of a little project at the moment for me. I promise to do a different animal on my next blog...

So this week I decided to take a different approach with the photographs and went for macro shots, getting up close and personal with the tame beasts... This required the squirrels to be willing to hang around me at close quarters which is where the magic of peanuts came in. I basically surrounded myself in peanuts, they were all over the grass, all over me and some in my lens hood to attract the squirrels just that little bit closer. 

I hope you like them, they aren't as good as last weeks, in my opinion, but I do like them!!

I also tried to take an extreme close up of one squirrels foot, don't ask why but I did it anyway, don't ask how either...

For these photos I used my Canon 100mm L macro lens which worked really well and didn't let down...

Grey Squirrels Part II

Hello again... So last week I went to photograph grey squirrels at a local park and found it really enjoyable and I think I got a few alright shots out of it but I knew that there was still room for improvement, as always. So today I went back with shots in mind.

I decided that the main photos I wanted were ones with shallow depth of fields with orange leaves in the foreground and background.

I started by making a trail of dead leaves along the floor coated in peanuts to attract the squirrels. I piled up leaves at the back to act as the background and here are some of the results...

I then decided to take some portrait photos because I am just that crazy...

I hope you like the photos, I think they've improved since last week... Tell me what yo think...

Grey squirrels

I woke up this morning to discover an extremely rare occurance, a sunny day in the middle of Autumn... So I thought, I must make the most of this. I decided to go to a nearby park to photograph grey squirrels. I knew a location with hundreds of tame squirrels which was a bonus, so I hopped into the car and went there.
Most of the day was spent filming but I did take some photos as well.

As its autumn the squirrels are always stashing their nuts in the ground which was behaviour which I wanted to photograph and I think that the first shot here shows it well...

These shots were what I wanted to get most as they show the animal with the Autumnal colours

I'm often found lying on the ground in order to get shots like this one, I get dirty but its worth for the outcome

I discovered a tree which was pure yellow and so lay down some peanuts in front of it in order to attract the squirrels to pose with it as a blurred background and here are the results...

 Here's one more photograph from the day to show the tameness of the squirrels

I was also very excited to be using my new Manfrotto video tripod today for the first proper time and can say it was amazing!!!!

Kit used:

-Canon 60D

-Sigma 150-500mm

-Canon 100mm L

-Manfrotto 504HD tripod

Wildlife of St Ives

I have just got back from a family holiday to St Ives in Cornwall and thought I would share with you some of the photos I took over the week. 

When I thought of St Ives and wildlife I thought seagulls, seagulls and more seagulls. When I got there however their were much more varied bird species which, despite all being very common, certainly made for great subjects to photograph. 

One of the birds which I particularly enjoyed photographing were the House Sparrows which had made home in a pile of unused lobster pots near the fishing boats. A lot of the birds were very dirty and often their feathers weren't well aligned. 

This particular bird was extremely scraggly 

The joy of working with these birds as well was that they were used to human company due to living in a very busy place which made photographing them a lot easier.

They also made for great silhouette shots with the ropes and wiring from the lobster pots:

Here the setting sun made a nice creamy red coloured backdrop for the photo

Another great bird which I found enjoyable to photograph was the Turnstones' who were very friendly. I found them foraging in the rock pools, there were around 10 at one site. I found that low angled shots worked well with these birds meaning that I got very wet and sandy... but I got some good photos so who cares.

One morning I was very privaliged to spot a group of around 6 dolphins around 50 metres out to sea. They were jumping out of the water and playing with each other. It was a real joy and something which I definatley did not expect to see. I took some photos although they did not come out great as they were so far away:

In this case they actually jumped completely out of the water which was amazing to watch

Obviously as it was Cornwall there were indeed plenty of Seagulls. Mobbing people for their chips and for their pasty . Although we see them as annoying birds I did enjoy photographing them not only because I could get close but also because of the way that their eyes stand out from the rest of their body. I hadn't noticed this before but they really do have beautiful eyes.

I also came across many other birds including many crows, finches and of course as I was on the coast Cormorants. 

Overall after not knowing what to expect about the wildlife of St Ives I can safely say I would enjoy going back their with my camera again... 

Kit used in these photographs - 

-Canon EOS 60D

-Sigma 150-500mm lens

-Canon 100mm L lens

Kingfishers - New project

So I have decided to make a blog as I have recently started many new projects and wanted to share them with everyone.

About a week ago now I decided I wanted to begin a project on Kingfishers for the autumn/winter as I knew it would be very challenging and would allow me to push my photography forward. I began by simply looking on Google maps for rivers a short distance from my house. I noticed one which was around a 5 minute cycle ride away so I went there to check it out. I knew what I was looking for: clear water, not too deep but deep enough, good supply of fish and very importantly little dog walkers.

When I got to the site the first thing I did was look straight down into the river, I could see the bottom around 1-2 foot down, I then saw around 6 minnows swimming around. Minnows are small fish which Kingfishers love - things were looking good. I walked downstream in search of any perches leaning out into the water and I saw a few which seemed to be at a good height and strong enough for the birds.

I came back the next day with my hide hoping to see an actual Kingfisher. I waited for around half an hour before I saw a flash of blue and there it was in front of my eyes a Kingfisher, I'd never seen one before in my life so this was really special for me. I then knew that this was quite obviously a decent Kingfisher site.

I have been going there daily for the past 4 days now whenever I have a spare couple of hours (usually after college). Everyday I see the Kingfisher and I think that its an adult male as it has an all black beak and no white tip at the end of it. There is also another Kingfisher on the river but I don't see it as often and haven't been close enough to see if its male or female.

Screenshot from clip of the adult male (Canon 60D + Sigma 150-500mm)

I have seen it hunting on a few occasions however due to the recent rain we've had the river it running high and the water is not clear at the moment so his attempts haven't went well so I haven't actually seen him catch a fish yet. I did manage to film the Kingfisher diving off of its perch the other day though. (see below)

The orange blur is the Kingfisher (screenshot from film)

I'll be updating my blog soon when I get some more footage and I am also going to begin taking some stills when it becomes more reliable and I know some of it's favoured perches. Watch this space.