Category: THE PHOTOGRAPHS: by Tim Melling, Oscar Dewhurst, Paul Leyland, Guy Shorrock, Brian Leecey

Tim writes: Hobbies are quite thin on the ground where I live in the Yorkshire Pennines so I was pleased when I came across this juvenile Hobby locally.    Hobby is a falcon, one of four species that breed in Britain, the others being Kestrel, Merlin and Peregrine.  But all others are resident, with Hobby being…

Tim writes: this was a close encounter with a female Black Bear.  She had twin year-old cubs with her too (see below) but at this point she was so close I could only manage a head and shoulders shot.  I stumbled across them by the roadside at Coal Harbour right at the north end of…

Tim writes: white-chinned Petrel (Procellaria aequinoctialis) is a large petrel with a wingspan on nearly 1.5m.  Within the petrel family, only the two Giant Petrels are larger.  I have always thought that it was inappropriately named as its white chin is such a trivial feature.  Its plumage is the colour of dark chocolate apart from…

Tim writes: the Weddell Seal was named after a seal hunter called James Weddell (1787-1834), who also had the Weddell Sea named after him.  These Seals have the distinction of occurring further south on the planet than any other mammal.  That’s because they usually live on permanent ice that is attached to land, using holes…

Tim writes: this is a Gentoo Penguin photographed at Neko Harbour on the Antarctic peninsula.  This far south the place is full of snow and ice, but penguins usually climb to bare ground at the top of hills to nest as most species will not nest on snow.  The two main reasons for this seemingly…

Tim writes: this is the rare white morph of the Southern Giant Petrel (Macronectes giganteus).  I have tried and failed to find out how rare this white morph is, but I have only seen about 6 during two trips to Antarctica, whereas I have seen thousands of brown ones.  Usually white morph birds have a…

Tim writes: the Falkland Steamer Duck (Tachyeres brachypterus) is a flightless duck that is endemic to the Falkland Islands.  They are called Steamer Ducks because they paddle across the water surface using their wings in the manner of a paddle-steamer.  Charles Darwin described this movement much better in his Voyage of the Beagle (1833) “These…

Tim writes: Southern Elephant Seal (Mirounga leonina) is the largest species of pinniped (seals and sea-lions) in the world.  It is 40% heavier than Northern Elephant Seal and more than twice as heavy as a Walrus.  The largest ever male Southern Elephant Seal was 6.85m long with an estimated weight of 5000kg.  Research has shown…

Tim writes: Striated Caracara is now a very rare bird.  It breeds on a few islands off Tierra del Fuego but is commonest on the Falkland Islands.  But the numbers on the Falklands are massively depleted so the population there is only around 500 pairs.  They are totally indifferent to humans, which led to their…