Christmas squirrels - Switzerland

Hi all,

I recently came back from a skiing holiday in Switzerland. While I was not skiing, I was off in the local woodland taking photographs. This mainly included red squirrels but also included some small birds such as crested tits. Luckily, the squirrels weren't at all timid, meaning I was able to photograph them using my 50mm lens, although the majority of photos were take with my 300mm zoom.
The squirrels would often come running towards me in search of food.

On the first day I photographed them, I didn't bring any food with me so they ended up being disappointed. Darker forms of the red squirrels could also be seen.

The squirrels were coming so close I decided to experiment with my 50mm lens. Even with this lens they were difficult to photograph due to how close they were coming.

To give you an idea of the proximity

Later on, I managed to get my hands on some on some hazelnuts, being sold specifically for feeding to the squirrels. Whilst looking for squirrels, I found a tree stump with a sprinkling of snow on and a small fir tree growing next to it. I thought that it would work well as a Christmasy photo of the squirrels if I could get one to sit there long enough for a photo. I placed a hazelnut in a hole in the top of the tree stump in an attempt to attract the squirrels to the stump. It took a while but I managed to finally get a photo.

I later found a bird table in the woodland with plenty of bird seed on it. Here I saw many small woodland birds, flitting back and forth to get food, but my favourites were the crested tits that visited. These were the first I had ever seen so I was keen to get a shot of them. The light was awful that day (lowest ISO being 1250 at relatively slow shutter speeds) and there weren't many natural perches with decent backgrounds. I couldn't set up my own perch so I settled for a small branch that was sticking out just behind the table and stood in a rather uncomfortable position for quite a long time in order to get a nice background. To add to the long wait, my camera decided to stop focussing for a while meaning that when the crested tits finally landed on the branch, there was nothing I could do at all. The shutter didn't even fire when using manual. After a lot of frustration I finally got a shot.

A couple of days later, I went back to the woodland to photograph the squirrels again. Unfortunately the squirrels weren't showing as well as they had done on the first day and the light was even worse. I still managed to photograph them but in a different area. In particular, on a fallen trees' roots. This created some interesting opportunities.

Thanks for taking the time to read this post and I hope you all have a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

All images © Samuel Aron.

Hyde and seek

Yesterday, I met up with some other photographers to photograph the birds in Hyde park. Although lighting was generally rubbish, I was pleased with some of the results. The title is referring to the look for the owls (especially the little owls) which kept themselves quite well hidden and probably would have remained so without help.

We started off at the Long Water. Here we saw a few species of gulls and ducks, including shovelers. Now and then you could see coots sparring, cormorants flying past and great-crested grebes diving but I stuck to the more common species as these were a bit too far away for me.

From there, we moved to an area where we could feed the birds which included parakeets, great tits and of course, pigeons. I tried hard to get a photograph of the parakeets in flight but proved too difficult  for me without a tripod (very stupid mistake not bringing one). I had to settle for the perched birds.

From there we moved on to the little owls. The male and female were in neighbouring trees though proved difficult to find at first. They were both high up but the females eyes staring down at me were hard to miss. 

The tawny owl was next on the list of things to see, which we were shown by a local birder. This is a female looking very snug.

All images © Samuel Aron

Spring in Scotland

Hi all,

I got back from Scotland last night and had a nice time. I did lots of photography although in hindsight I probably should have spent more time revising for my GCSE's.

On the first morning, while taking the dogs for a walk along the beach I managed to spot something very unexpected...an otter. It was very far away but I was sure of it. This was the first wild otter I can remember seeing. Originally, I thought it was a seal as the only part of the otter showing was the head, but as the animal dived down, I saw the tail flick up out of the water. It was only when the otter came out of the water onto a large rock off shore that I was certain. I took as many photographs as I could including these two.

On the second day, again whilst walking the dogs, we spotted a couple of dippers next to a large waterfall on a river near Golspie. The next day, I set myself up near where we saw the dippers. While I did see them, they kept their distance and lighting was terrible. Both dippers were collecting nesting material around the rocks but decided to stay close cliff wall. I hope to photograph them again next time I go up there.

I decided that I should spend more time revising after this so I decided to photograph the birds in the garden rather than going out further a field. This meant that I could take photos during my breaks. The feeding station I had set up attracted lots of common and some more unfamiliar species to me, for example, siskins, of which I had only seen in my garden once a few years ago. The siskins were by far the most difficult birds to photograph as they were constantly flitting between branches. They were also by far the most aggressive towards other birds, despite their small size. Same with the goldfinches which would also attack other birds if they came near the same feeder as them.

It was a brilliant trip but unfortunately I will most likely not take many more photos until my exams are over, or the half-term, depending on my timetable. 

I hope that everyone has had a good easter.

All images © Samuel Aron

Up-close and personal

Hi all,

I told you there would be more photographs of frogs. The sunny weekend weather has brought them out into the open more. Last weekend, I spent a good few hours photographing the frogs on the ponds surface. They had become much more active. There was also a good deal of frog spawn to be seen which meant one frog in particular was constantly on guard.

I took many photographs of this frog as all the other frogs were being scared away by it.

Some others did appear for a while but only a short while.

Today, I have been using my newly bought Aquapac for photographing the frogs underwater. This is my favourite image that I took underwater. It shows the mucus slime on the frog clearly, plus the reddish colours of the frog.

I will try to photograph some other subjects soon but for now I will keep with the frogs and try and improve my underwater images.

All images © Samuel Aron

FROGS!!!

Hi all,

Recently, the frogs in my garden pond have started becoming more active. This means that I have started trying to photograph them more.
I first noticed that they had returned to my pond when they started moving about at night.

For this shot, I was aiming to show the frog in a wide-angle view but the frog jumped down the path in the middle of the exposure, meaning that it was shown twice in the same image.

The following images are from this weekend.

I'm hoping to photograph the frogs more throughout this spring.


All images © Samuel Aron

HAPPY NEW YEAR! - 2013 review

Hi all,

I hope you all had a brilliant Christmas and a just as good new year.
I haven't posted anything recently or done much photography either due to revision so I decided to do this one post before I get back to work.
I will do the review month by month and do a little summary, accompanied by a photograph.


JANUARY

Nothing could sum up January more than the mass of snow that we got around London. I immediately went out to go and photograph my local wildlife in the snow but one of my best shots, I think was of a great tit, sitting on a bare branch of a pine tree in my garden. This was actually one of the few photos that I got of a bird, while it was actually snowing.

FEBRUARY

One thing that I did do a lot in February was visit a local nature reserve called Stocker's lake. I had been there before but usually been unsuccessful as far as photography goes. However, when I visited this time, there was lots going on. Many bird species, including some rarities, visited the lake during the winter months. One of my favourite shots from February showed a group of two coots sparring with two more coots about to join in. The fight was quickly over but it was amazing seeing this other side of coots. 

MARCH

In March, I found out that I had one my first ever photography competition. I managed to gain first place in Young Garden Photographer of the Year with my image of a long-tailed tit. The image itself was actually taken a year before I entered but I hadn't started entering competitions at that stage. 

Unfortunately, the green on this photograph has been enhanced by the blog.
Better quality can be found on my website, 500px or Flickr.

APRIL

During this month, I was invited by my friend Josh (who also does photography) to go with him to norfolk for a day. There are lots of fantastic reserves in Norfolk to go to so it was difficult deciding where to go. We ended up going to Titchwell Marshes and had a brilliant time. Not only was the weather good but the birds showed really well. We saw avocets, godwits, ruff and even a black redstart. I took so many photos that day that I actually ran out of of space on my memory cards. My favourite picture that I took that day wasn't actually of a rare species though. Instead, it was of a preening pheasant, showing off all it colourful feathers in the sunshine.

MAY

In May, I went to Yorkshire for a week. During this week, I to a visit to the Bempton Cliffs. While I should have been revising, I couldn't resist. There was so much to see. I had never seen so many gannets in my life. I managed to catch an image of two gannets interacting while on of them was in flight.

JUNE

I did a lot of macro photography in the Summer using my new lend reversing ring. I loved seeing all the insects close-up. This red damselfly was  on a plant next my garden pond. I tried to get underneath so that the shadow was shown and used a home-made diffuser to fill in the details underneath the insect.

JULY

Towards the end of July, I went to Scotland for a few days with my Dad as we had not been yet that year. The weather was reasonably good while we were there with only one day of rain and the rest of the time it was sunny. My favourite image that I took up there was of a Bottlenose Dolphin breaching in the Moray Firth.

AUGUST

As the Summer Holidays were drawing to a close, I took another, yes, another trip to Scotland. I saw a lot more this time around as I spent more time there. Because I saw so much, I'm going to have to upload more than one image for this month. On the way up, we stopped off at Loch Garten. I knew that this wasn't the best time to see the ospreys but I didn't actually go there for the ospreys. My main interest was the red squirrels. They showed really well and I got images of two different squirrels.

I also spent two mornings photographing seals on a beach near where we stay. They were also great to photograph. The first morning, they were all on the sand. I spent nearly an hour trying to get close enough to photograph them as they seemed quite timid and there was no way of hiding myself. But I eventually got there. I took many images but I was fondest of an image of one seal yawning with another in the frame, making it look like the seals were having a conversation.

The second morning they were out on the rocks so were even harder to approach. Not only that, but the tide was coming in so I didn't have a lot of time. The seal below wasn't actually holding that position. It was in fact shuffling itself round to get into a more comfortable position I presume. :P

SEPTEMBER

I had been planning to go to Richmond park at the end of September to see the rut as last year I was too late. There was no morning mist unfortunately so I had to make do with the given conditions. Luckily though, there was a lot of activity and I managed to get this shot of a bellowing stag staring right down the lens.

OCTOBER

Scotland for the third time in a year! The weather was lousy though. Nevertheless, me and my Dad took a visit to the Tollie Red Kite feeding station. It was amazing seeing the kites like this.

The background has been slightly softened to reduce noise.

NOVEMBER

I started visiting my local park again in November to see if I could get any shots of the resident Kingfishers. While I did see them, I didn't get any decent shots. I 'm still trying to get a shot but this friendly Robin kept me company while I was there.

No remote shutter release or bait. Just a very friendly Robin.

DECEMBER

I didn't do much photography in December but I did go on a skiing holiday in Switzerland where I saw black Red Squirrels. A first for me. I didn't have my slr with me so I had to use my compact camera.

So that's 2013 gone. Ahead of me I've got my GCSE's but I hope to keep doing photography.


Happy New Year everyone!