Standing up for Nature
Tim writes: Walruses spend quite a lot of their time loafing around on the beach together, especially the males. We were watching one such inanimate group when a few decided to take a swim. They then became curious about who was on the beach watching them. I lay flat by the water’s edge and waited…
Tim writes: The Northern Brown Argus occurs across northern Europe and the mountains further south but the form that occurs in Scotland occurs nowhere else. This beautiful (and little-photographed) form has a white spot on the forewing and the under side spots are white without black centres. These features are controlled by a single recessive…
Tim writes: I photographed these wild Scarlet Macaws at Corcovado National Park at the extreme south of Costa Rica on the Pacific coast. They are enormous birds, usually fly round in pairs and show a dazzling display of red, blue and yellow. They are also extremely noisy so usually give you some warning that they…
Tim writes: Like Desert Island Discs, if I had to choose just eight species of bird to be stranded on a desert island with, Nightjar would definitely be on the list. It took me ages but I finally succeeded in finding a nest of my local Nightjars in the Peak District moors. This is quite…
Tim Melling: San Ignacio lagoon on the Pacific coast of Mexico’s Baja Peninsula is one of a small number of lagoons where Grey Whales go to mate and give birth. They feed in the Arctic during the summer months then make a huge migration thousands of miles to reach the breeding lagoons during winter. Baby…
Tim writes: As a teenager I remember reading E B Ford’s New Naturalists book on Moths, where this species was on a plate labelled “Moths with Restricted Distributions” that showed fifteen of Britain’s rarest moths. The first moth in this plate was the beautiful Netted Carpet from Windermere. Since that day it is a species…
Tim writes: This photograph looks more like a painting. The colours in the water are reflections from Newcastle’s swing bridge and the surface of the River Tyne was just lightly rippled creating a wobbly mirror effect. The juvenile Kittiwake is almost incidental. Kittiwakes began nesting in Newcastle in the 1960s which was quite a thing…
Tim writes: This was taken on a dull, rainy day at Salisbury Plain on South Georgia where hundreds of thousands of King Penguins breed. This was just one small section of the enormous crowd. I think Salisbury Plain is the second largest King Penguin colony on the planet after St Andrews, just a few miles…
Tim writes: Living all my life in the north I see lots of roding Woodcocks but this is the only half decent photograph I have ever managed to take. After sunset males start to become active and perform spectacular display flights known as roding. This special flight has slow motion flickering wing beats accompanied by…
Tim writes: I have always wanted to photograph a Hummingbird in flight and it isn’t as difficult as you might think. They often visit hummingbird feeders but that does not look anywhere near as good as one feeding on flowers. This was taken at a resort at Savegre in Costa Rica where hummingbirds were numerous…