Its that time of year to look back and reflect on what I’ve seen and photographed. No trips abroad this year, and I largely visited places I have been many times before, but I certainly found some new things and improved my shots of others.
The year started, as it often does with me, inside with a photo aquarium. The Pygmy backswimmers Plea minutissima were plentiful in the pond, so I got some out to try and get better shots, with some success.
My bird feeders were nice and busy on cold days. I had a visit from a greater spotted woodpecker, but it constantly moved and the light was poor, so my quest to get a decent shot of one continued. I did have some success at getting a blue tit in flight though.
I also had a visit to Sheppey to catch up with my friend and great photographer Phil. He had a buzzard visiting his hide regularly at the time and I managed a few nice shots, including this one
While on Sheppey I also visited a top spot for short eared owls, with the bonus of meeting the top photographer Jules Cox again. The owl performed 1 great pass as we used our cars as a hide, but didn’t come back after some idiot pulled up between us and jumped out his car and walked around!
Back at the feeders, there seemed to be a large increase in the number of birds one day and the swarmed over the (salt-free and made for birds) peanut paste on this mossy log.
I February I had some success using the photo aquarium with a Broad bodied chaser nymph.
I also managed my first good stacked image, but more on that later.
I managed a few other decent pond life images that month including a swimming water scorpion
I have wanted some decent frog and toad images for a while, so after a tip off from a friend in March, I headed to some ponds in a woodland. In one pond there were toads and frogs breeding and this exhausted female dragged her self out right in front of me with a male on board and a second one (not visible holding onto her legs. She was so close I got out my fisheye lens and got this shot.
I also tried a couple of times for the bitterns at Minsmere, with no lucky photography wise. I did however get this nice shot of a muntjac deer.
I have largely ignored feral pigeons in the past, but this one posed rather nicely.
The local fox was about all winter, but I could not get close, so was baffled when a couple of other photographers were getting shots of it very close up. I was even starting to doubt my own abilities! Sadly it turned out they were feeding it, leaving it vulnerable to attack from dogs and idiots who like harming animals in this public park, and sometimes they were feeding it right next to a road (which while it has a 10mph limit and not busy, does have idiots roaring along it) All efforts (being spoke to by wardens, signs being put up etc.) to convince them to stop have sadly fallen on deaf ears. To be clear I am not saying you should never feed/bait wildlife, but in this location it is endangering the foxes.
I did in the end manage a shot (without food) by waiting until just before dusk when the park was pretty much empty and lying on the grass next to some cover to obscure me near his usual route. He walked towards me and briefly stopped when he realised I was there/what I was. Its a bit of a crop but I like it.
In April I helped with a number of newt surveys and we found a great diving beetle Dytiscus marginalis, which despite being the commonest of the 6 Dytiscus sp., I had never really photographed them before.
It was the start of the insect macro season, so I was pleased to get a couple of shots of the Rhingia hoverflies including this one showing those extraordinary mouthparts.
In mid April a couple of adders were seen, at least 1 male and female. The male was persistently trying to court the female who seemed disinterested. I was able to observe them on and off for a few days before they moved off to their summer hunting grounds. Before they did I got a few shots of them in situ with my 300mm tele. This shot is one I’ve wanted for a long time.
Scorpionflies are one of the signs that spring has really got going and one of my favourite species. Due to their flighty nature they are not the easiest species to phootgraph and I hadn’t got a shot I was really happy with till this year
I also got this grab shot of an orange tip when it briefly perched, which is probably the best of this species!
In the last weekend of April I popped back over to Sheppey to see my friend Phil. I sat in a hide on the edge of a waterbody and was pleasantly surprised when a spoonbill walked past!
I also, rather fittingly, got a decent shot of an adult mayfly in May.
In early May I got a cuckoo at Rainham and was quite pleased with the OK shot. But I got shot I wouldn’t have dreamed of while visiting Colin the cuckoo!
I have been trying for a shot of a marsh frog calling with is vocal sacs inflated for years and finally managed one at Rainham in May
On the last day of May these Orange-vented Mason Bees posed for me on a pond dipping table.
I was lucky enough to have frogs breeding in my pond this year. Every so often I would get some out and I manged quite a few shots of them swimming, this being my favourite.
In the last week of June I decided to switch from Pentax to Nikon. Except I didn’t, I switched to Olympus! I immediately felt the benefit when I shortly after went for a walk around RSPB Rainham Marshes and the extra reach meant I got this singing male reed bunting.
I had a holiday to Cornwall in July and went out on a boat with Marine Discovery Penzance, where we saw dolphins, my fish ever sunfish and lots of manx shearwaters.
Back in Essex soon afterwards I was surveying an RSPB reserve for scarce emerald damselfly. There were good numbers I’m glad to say, but also many other odonata species. Black tailed skimmer are hard to photograph well as they tend to sit on the ground. This one not only perched on a rush with a clean background, but put its head up too!
An added bonus was this southern migrant hawker dragonfly that was patrolling the drying ditches.
Due to issues mentioned above, I didn’t really spend much time photographing foxes this year (after the previous photo). I did come across him standing in the car park on a quiet evening, and got this using all 600mm of reach (and cropping).
I was covered by license allowing incidental photography of great crested newts this year, so when I found and adult surveying in August I got a few shots before returning it to the pond.
I did the same with this tadpole.
This juvenile green woodpecker was a nice surprise one morning.
In August I went to meet up with my friends Dave, Stu and Gill for the weekend. August 12th we were up on the North York Moors driving through grouse moor country. Thankfully the glorious twelfth was being celebrated elsewhere so when we finally found some wildlife in the heather monoculture it stayed put. It was very pretty to see the pink carpet, but there was little else other than red grouse.
At the coast we visited a seal colony. By lying patiently and waiting as the tide came in I had seals swimming ridiculously close, enabling me to get shots like this.
The second day was spent at Bemptom/Flamborough Cliffs. Sadly the gannets didn’t play ball, but the kittiwakes did, including this wonderfully marked juvenile.
I spent my birthday at RHS Hyde Hall, where I got this little grebe in water reflecting the purple loose-strife.
The tadpoles had been leaving my pond as froglets in summer, but I didn’t really com across any with the camera until August, when I tried out the Auto stack feature on my Olympus EM1 Mark II and was pleased with the results.
I came across some lizards on the boardwalk at Rainham Marshes so tried some auto-stack images at 840mm, which came out OK.
I went looking for Wasp spiders at the end of the month, and using the swivel screen and auto-stack I got this shot looking directly up at this female sitting in her web feeding.
In early September I went looking for hornet robberflies at Thursley Common. I saw 2 all day and neither posed well, but I got loads of beewolf photos, like this one. It is I will (eventually) blog about at a later date.
With my Oly set up I can shot at 840mm while dangling the camera just above the water from a boardwalk, which I did a few times to get marsh frogs at Rainham, like this shot
I had a few goes at Migrant hawker dragonflies, and got a few Ok shots.
I also got a close up stacked image of a raft spider.
On a trip to the New Forest I photographed my favourite fungi, the devils fingers
Back in Essex, I was surprised when I found this slow worm cold and in the middle of the path. It must have been dropped by a predator when it shed its tail.
Thanks to my friend Nick, I finally got a decent shot of a water vole.
I mentioned earlier about stacking an image of a broad bodied chaser nymph. Well it got highly commended in the BWPA competition I pleased to say.
In November I got another shot I’ve been after for years, a nice shot of a cormorant drying its wings.
Buoyed by my success in the BWPA, i decided to try the focus bracketing mode on my OLy with pond life. This lesser water boatman came out well.
In December I popped up to Norfolk to look for parrot crossbills, got bored after half an hour and went looking for otters. I’m glad I did!
I continued experimenting with pond creatures and focus bracketing. This saucerbug came out well.
At the start of December the woodpecker came back to my feeders. The first visit I was set up for small birds and coulnt fit it all in, the next visit it was too far away as I had my short lens on. The third time I was ready!
I had a furry visitor to the refection pool.
And finally, just before Christmas, one more species I’ve been trying photograph for years. Water mites behave like little wind up toys, never stop beating their 8 legs as they contantly swim, and at only a few mm across this makes it very hard to get a shot. Well I found 2 that seemed happy to just crawl around, makes getting a shot much, much easier.
If you made it to the end of what I laughingly refer to as a ‘summary’ of my wildlife photography year, well done.
And happy New Year!
If you have your own best of/top 10 etc of 2017, leave a link in the comments and I’ll compile a list.