I got up a 5am to see this…
As a newbie to wildlife photography, I have taken to following every wildlife photographer on Instagram! Jokes aside, apart from a lot on inspiration from these accounts, I have been trying to find local wildlife photographers near me that I could potentially meet up with as having a tog buddy helps you get out more, well at least that is what I am hoping…
One account that I follow is @meifodman, a local photographer, and he has some AMAZING images. One of the many images that caught my eye was his image of a kingfisher, and as this is right at the top of my photography hit list, I set out to try and find it…
This is my first attempt at an evening wildlife excursion and after parking up and getting to the river, my first decision was, what side of the river do I choose? There is a footpath on both banks, and as the farther side looks a bit more accessible, I head down there.
Rather than stop at the very first place I find, (aka right next to the bridge…) I have a stroll down to see what other potential locations I could shoot from. I find a dip in the bank near to an old washed-up tree - an ideal spot for a perch, and as I am about to drop into it, a kingfisher zooms off upriver, so I am in the right area at least.
There are sand martens aplenty here, but I am still struggling to capture them in flight and due to the way the riverbank is bent, their borrows are obstructed from view. I decided to wait it out and see if anything arrives, crossing everything in hope that it will be a kingfisher 😂. Whilst waiting, a female mandarin duck flies past, and I manage to get an image of her in flight, whilst it is not the best image, it is a start, so I take that as a small win for this evening.
I wait for a bit longer to see if there is anything else, but the light is dropping fast (much faster than I thought it would), losing the light that fast really flustered me and I felt a bit out of my depth, so I decided to head back to the bridge as there are no trees obstructing the last of the light there.
I set up right next to the bridge and got to watch the pied wagtails and sand martens catching the flying insects, which were abundant this evening. I did manage to get a couple of nice images of the wagtails before the last of the light went. At this point I had made the decision that I would get up early to come back here in the morning, so in preparation for this, I walked down the river, to see what other spots there may be for me to visit. The sun would be rising on this side of the river so, I knew that this side would be best as I didn’t want any of the images to be back lit. There was one potential sand marten spot right at the bottom, where the footpath veered away from the river, but I was drawn to that washed-up tree I was at earlier. There was a spot in font of it, where I would be able to conceal myself a bit under the trees, the only downside would be that I was quite high up from the actual river, so would be relying on something landing on the tree for my images.
The next day, I had my alarm set for 5am!!! 5AM!!! On a Sunday! The only time I would get up that early would be to get to an airport, so I am definitely getting the wildlife photography bug. I eventually dragged myself out of bed and made it back to the village before 6am. The morning was an absolute stunner, with some light mist adding to the atmosphere. Unsurprisingly, I saw absolutely no one as I headed to the river and my chosen spot for the morning.
One thing that was put to the test was the waterproofness of my boots, I think maybe wellies would have been a better option this morning as the grass was long and there was dew aplenty, hopefully by bag for life would be enough to keep my butt dry!
On my way to my spot, A kingfisher came whizzing up river, hopefully it would come back and pose for me 🤞. I set up and waited it out, I saw a male mandarin duck and there were plenty of wagtails and sand martens (still no luck on the sand marten action shots). I did get a few glimpses of the kingfishers as they zoomed up and down the river, however, none landed nearby and getting an action shot I is nigh onion impossible, however, the pied wagtails at least made use of my fallen tree, and I got some lovely portraits of them in the morning sun, with the 3rd image of the wagtail being my particular favourite … 😂
At around 7am, David aka @meifodman on Instagram arrived at the other bank. Having messaged each other from across the river, we decided to meet up back at the bridge as he very kindly offered to show me where there was a high chance of seeing some hares!
We had a bit of a walk to do to get to the hare hangout spot, but once there we could straight away see them in the field. Whilst we didn’t get that close for any ‘keeper’ shots, I did get some nice environmental images that gave me a taster of what I would be able to capture another day.
We also walked down to another part of the river, where we saw an amazing male demoiselle, sunning itself in the dew-covered grass. At the river, we saw an oyster catcher, which I was not expecting, having wrongly associated them with the coast, more wagtails, a sandpiper and another kingfisher sped past.
After a while we headed back to the village and on the way had what I can only describe as the BEST ENCOUNTER EVER, with a tiny field vole. It has got to be one of the cutest things I have ever seen. It was in the grass in the middle of the footpath so after we got some images of it, we ushered it along so it was back in the hedge where it would be safer (hopefully) from any predators.
All in all, I had a lovely time on my first evening and crack of sparrows wildlife photography outings. Whilst I didn’t get any images of the kingfishers and only a few very distant images of the hares, I know I will be back here again over the next few months with more chances to capture images of some of Britain’s most iconic animals.