As 2014 comes to an end, it means its time to look back at the year and pick out my best photos from the year. The first good photography of the year. came in a January trip to Southend Pier, where I got a nice close up of this turnstone.
and a Mediterranean gull in flight.
I also had my first good encounter with a fox in January.
On a trip to Bath in February I got my first half decent peregrine shot.
I dug out the photographic aquarium for my best ever alderfly larva shots.
In February I upgraded to a Pentax K-3 with better AF and higher resolution, which helped me get my best ever blue tit photo.
I also visited Warley Place for the first time and got some lovely snowdrop shots.
In March I decided to try for some dunnock shots and got a nice close up.
I also combined my 300mm, my teleconverter and my Pentax Q to get this shot of Jupiter + its moons.
The local highlight in march was the appearance of a spoonbill, which I was lucky enough to capture reasonably close while it was fishing.
Sadly on both encounters the sun was in the wrong direction.
I went up to Minsmere for the day and after hours waiting in the hide, a bittern finally appeared.
The last week or so of the month was my trip to the Cairngorms. On the way up I stopped at Seahouses for the eiders.
In the Cairngorms at Loch Garten I got some lovely shots of small birds, including my best ever siskin
AND my best ever long tailed tit.
Up Cairngorm Mountain a pair of ptarmigan came nice a close and I got my best shots of those too!
I tried some pond dipping and found my first ever Northern Damselfly, in nymph form of course!
On the way back I stopped off for my first 2014 visit to Bempton Cliffs and got my best ever shots of tree sparrow.
In April I found a patch of garlic mustard which was productive for a number of insects, especially the orange tip butterflies, which unusually for this species were quite happy to pose.
I also ran my first Photography tuition workshop, on wildflowers and insects. I spent a day the weekend before scouting out Norsey Woods and got my best ever shot (are you noticing a theme yet!) bluebell.
I finally got a decent shot of a wood ant with its mandibles open too.
On the last day of April I managed to see 5 species of dragon and damselfly at Wat Tyler CP, not bad considering I have only previously seen large red damselflies in April, and never 4 spotted chasers, but 1 had emerged on that day:
In May the top find in Wat Tyler Cp was a pair of emperor moths which i rescued from being trampled on a path. Here is the male before I released them.
I also found a male scorpionfly, one of my favourite insects, feeding on a dead insect.
This fox came very close, enabling a lovely close up with my 300mm lens
But the biggest wildlife event in may was my stay on Skomer. I took So many photos and a lot of video. Ive edited the video together, but I have a winter of editing the photos from Skomer ahead of me. Here are some shots I took
Manx shearwater (first for me)
On my way home I stopped off at Gilfach farm to photograph the pied flycatchers.
In June I had my second visit to Bempton Cliffs and got some lovely Gannet shots.
I also visited the Cairngorms again and managed to see my first white faced darter.