Standing up for Nature
Oscar writes: In the cloud forest of Peru these Blue-capped Tanagers were ubiquitous and regularly passed through the scrub just outside my room at the research station I was staying at. One afternoon I just stood and waited and before long I had a group of these birds posing on gorgeous lichen-encrusted branches for me!…
Oscar writes: While I was in Peru I spent a week at a research station nearly 3500m up in the cloud forest. One of the birds I most wanted to see was the Grass-Green Tanager, purely because of their colour! I was therefore delighted when this one perched up no more than 5 metres from…
Oscar writes: I only live 15 minute’s drive from Richmond Park, so find myself there fairly regularly each Autumn for the Red Deer rut. It’s not uncommon to come across over 100 photographers on a weekend, but on the morning this was taken it was considerably quieter. I found this stag strutting his stuff in an…
Oscar writes: Last winter I spent several days photographing Cormorants in the centre of London at a spot where they would fish throughout the day. The picture I really wanted to get was one where a bird had a fish in its beak. It was harder than it sounds, however, as within a…
Oscar writes: this image is one from a project on Foxes a couple of years ago. I stumbled across them by chance more than anything, and over the next few months was able to build up a nice portfolio of images of them as they were very confiding. This was taken fairly early on. Nikon…
Oscar writes: A couple of summers ago I was on holiday in Scotland, and managed to get to the Isle of May, an island which harbours a large seabird colony, for a couple of days. You only get a few hours on the island, so after I’d spent some time photographing the Arctic Terns, which I’d…
Oscar writes: Another taken on the Isle of May. Before the boat docked at the island we could hear the calls of Arctic Terns at their breeding colony. Unfortunately you had to walk along a path through the colony to get to other parts of the island. They are fiercely protective and will dive-bomb intruders, so…
Oscar writes: This is another photo taken last year in Peru. Towards my end of my time there I spent several consecutive evenings at the top of the canopy tower. At roughly the same time each evening, groups of Blue-and-Yellow Macaws would fly from the forest past the tower on their way to roost in the…
Oscar writes: I had been photographing a Bittern in the reeds for a few hours. I was having a quick look on the back of my camera at the image I’d just taken, and when I looked back the bird had moved right to the edge, obviously about to fly. Despite the early warning,…
Oscar writes: On the day I took this, most of the water on my local nature reserve was frozen, forcing the majority of the ducks to congregate on the small areas of open water remaining. The coots, one of the most territorial of the birds there, kept getting into scraps with each other but they never…