Tag: Tim Melling

Tim writes: this shows a courting pair of African Clouded Yellows, with the typical yellow-coloured female on the left.  The female differs from the male in having spots in the wing border. This was taken with a Nikon D500 with a 300mm f4 lens at f5.6 and a 1.4x converter 1/5000 at ISO 1600

Tim writes: this is a Sea Otter (Enhydra lutris) propelling itself through the calm water and creating a small wave with its head.   They can weigh up to 45kg making them the heaviest member of the Weasel family.  They are even heavier than Wolverine and much heavier than Giant River Otter, which is a bit…

Tim writes: I love the challenge of photographing birds in flight and I spent most of my time at Bempton Cliffs pointing the camera at flying birds.  The great thing about Bempton is that the cliffs are so high you can photograph birds from above, and isolate them from the background.  Guillemot wings move so…

Tim writes: this is a recently-fledged Bald Eagle.  In fact, it is so recently-fledged that it still has the thread-like plumes still attached to the end of its flight feathers.  These usually fall off after the first couple of flights.  The background is the temperate rainforest of western Canada with clinging clouds.  I much prefer…

Tim writes: iiving in the Pennines I see lots of Dippers.  But they seem to prefer shady, wooded rivers to ones on the open hillside.  So I was really pleased to stumble across a pair that were nesting behind a small waterfall in full sunshine out on the open moorland.  I sat quietly and the…

Tim writes: I managed to catch this female Grizzly Bear with a little gentle sunlight on her head and shoulders.  Sunlight is in short supply in the deep valleys of British Columbia as it takes ages for the sun to rise above the mountains.  Add to that the fact that Grizzly Bears are most active…

Tim writes: I’ve long wanted to photograph a Blue-winged Teal in flight showing its trademark blue wings.  But you can see that the speculum (the shiny panel at the back of a duck’s wing) is green.  Ironically it is the green speculum that gives rise to the name in Green-winged Teal, yet both species share…

Tim writes: the scientific name Apus apus comes from the Greek “a pous” meaning without foot.  Swift legs are so small that it was once believed that they did not have any feet.  I remember the old Reader’s Digest book of birds illustrated Swift feet showing all four toes pointing forwards.  But in fact the…

Tim writes: on 31 July 1741 Georg Wilhelm Steller came ashore on Kayak Island and became the first European naturalist ever to reach Alaska.  Steller, a German, was a member of Vitus Bering’s expedition which had been sent by the Empress Anna of Russia to search for North America (although unbeknownst to them, the Empress…