Standing up for Nature
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…
Oscar writes: The recent 4 or 5 days of cold weather in the UK saw me spend most of that time at my local nature reserve hoping to photograph Bitterns. Unfortunately I didn’t have much success, and one morning spent over 4 hours lying on the frozen ground hoping for this bird to come out…
Oscar writes: While walking through a heathland last year I came across a family of Stonechats moving through the heather. I positioned myself slightly ahead of them and waited for them to come closer, which, luckily for me, they did. This image shows the two young birds perched on top of a clump of…
Oscar writes: This bird was repeatedly fishing from in front of the hide I was sitting it. The usual problem with birds is that they’re too far away, but it certainly didn’t apply here! Instead the bird often plunged into the water so close to the hide that it was too close to focus…
Oscar writes: While I was in Suffolk I wanted to photograph a Bittern against a backdrop of reed heads in nice light. On my third morning I was waiting for a female to pass by me on one of her feeding flights. I’d been standing there since dawn, and it was only an hour before…
Oscar writes: These Kittiwakes were nesting offshore but would come to the islands on the scrape to collect nesting material This was taken just as one was coming into land. Nikon D800, Nikon 600mm f4 AFS-II lens