As is tradition now, as 2016 is drawing to a close, I’ve written a review of the year. Its been a mixed year, where for reasons that will become apparent below, I’ve not been able to get as much with the camera as in previous years, but I’ve had few nice wildlife experiences, got a few ‘ticks’, taken a few nice photos and had the biggest (and best!) change in my personal life.
The year started on a bit of a downer, with my Pentax K-3 once again malfunctioning it was still with Ricoh-Pentax repairs having been sent to them a the start of December 2015 to repair the same shutter fault that was ‘fixed’ back in May. I had asked for a replacement, but heard nothing, despite numerous enquiries from the shop I bought it from (SRS Microsystems) on my behalf. Then finally in the last week of January they decided that they were not going to replace the camera and tried to claim I had damaged, so had to pay for the repairs! Strange that it had an identical fault to last time, but apparently needed a different part to repair it! Eventually the good folks at SRS got them to repair it for free, but it would be a while until it returned.
This meant that I would annoyingly I would be without my K-3 for my photography trip to Yorkshire to see my good friend Dave, so I had to settle for taking my old Pentax K-5 with its inferior AF (autofocus) and resolution. That inferior AF really became apparent when trying to photograph the Mediterranean gulls in flight. Thankfully I got this shot before I threw my camera off the cliff in frustration!
Later that day in Scarborough Harbour I was photographing a shag in silhouette, when I managed to get it diving.
On a previous visit to Yorkshire, I had waited hours for a purple sandpiper to come close enough, only to have a dog walker walk between me and the bird as it came close. No such problems this time as I had to good opportunities, with this probably being the best shot from them.
On the way back from Yorkshire I caught up with the Fish Twitcher himself, Jack Perks. We went for a quick fish hunt on the River Trent and he set me up on his photographic aquarium, where I finally got a shot of a 9 spined stickleback.
At then end of February I finally got my K-3 back and took it to Red Kite spot in Oxfordshire to test out the AF where all work fine thankfully.
With my higher resolution camera back, I got back into my pond creature macros, capturing this caddisfly larva eating a dead leaf.
As the evenings got lighter in March, there was a brief window after work where the foxes would be out in light (providing there was no-one about) and one evening it panned out well and I got some nice shots like this one.
On a day in London, I visited Regents Park and managed to finally get some nice photos of one of my favourite birds, the great crested grebe. I even got it fishing!
While photographing some water beetles I got this nice shot show the UK’s biggest insect, the Great silver water beetle, next to a medium sized 1cm long Rhantus diving beetle.
Unfortunately soon after this my camera issues reoccurred. Confident that my Pentax was behaving, I had treated myself to the Pentax high end telephoto zoom 150-450mm. The camera shutter had misfired a couple of times, but I had dismissed it (denial?). On my first trip out with the new lens I managed to fire about 10 shots with it before my camera completely died. In the 25 months I had owned the camera I had been with out it for 4 months, so I demanded a replacement.
Thankfully a friend lent me his K-3 as I had an important event on its way and would be without my best camera for it.
Before that though, a first for me appeared at my place of work, a purple heron!
As for that important life changing event? Well on the 17th April my wife gave birth to my first child, Willow, all 10lb+ of her!
Mercifully she is a good sleeper and healthy, so the long sleepness night have not really happened (yet!) and I have largely been functioning normally during the day at work!
Obviously from this point on the opportunities to take photos were drastically reduced, but I still squeezed a bit here and there. By the start of May, the good folks at SRS had got me a shiny new replacement K-3 and I finally was able to try out the 150-450mm. And sometimes it seems the wildlife knows you are in need of a good days photography, as the grass snake posed nicely in the pond as it swum around during lunch.
Followed by the fox posing by the railway in the evening
I also managed to get out to the badger sett in early May to have a go at getting the badger in bluebells shot I wanted. The end result was not as good as hoped, but its a start!
I managed one shot of a dragonfly emerging, sadly this broad bodied chaser had just emerged before I arrived and this was the cleanest shot I could get in the bank of reeds where it was.
One species I that was on my ‘to get list’ was the microscopic jellyfish and sea anemone relative, a freshwater Hydra. I had seen them in the past, but never managed a good photo, so after some research I collected some duckweed and left it overnight. the next day I could just see a number of the small green medusa hanging from the duck weed. Using a macro lens, with teleconvertor and extension tubes I got some nice photos like this one.
Also in June I got wind there were man orchids growing about 15 minutess drive from my house, a new species for me.
I had a visit to my friend Phil’s where I had a good session in his wader hide, but the hare poking its head up in a field of crops was the highlight.
Though a close second was this hobby just sitting on a ploughed field.
June ended with a nice family holiday to Yorkshire, where a trip to RSPB Bempton was disappointing for gannets and fulmars, but these swallows made up for it.
Thats the first half of 2016…part 2 next…
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