The Cat Survival Trust

I was recently invited by The People’s Trust for Endangered Species to cover a members event visit to the Cat Survival Trust near Welwyn, Hertfordshire. I’d read a little about the Trust and was curious to find out more about their work as well as meet their resident cats. PTES group in discussion with Dr Terry Moore Female Puma To give you a quick history the Trust was formed in 1976 to save unwanted cats from zoos and private collections and try and find new homes for them. It has also established an important breeding programme for rare species. Crucially, since 1992 it’s...

On Dolphinwatch

When I was out in Ireland recently the highlight of my trip was undoubtedly the day I spent with out on a boat at the mouth of the Shannon estuary with the guys from DolphinWatch Carrigaholt. They run superb nature-watching trips which I can’t recommend highly enough, it’s a superb area for wildlife with an extremely knowledgeable and friendly crew. As we patrolled around Loop Head at the end of the peninsula it wasn’t long before we found the resident group of Bottlenose Dolphins. The group we encountered numbered between 10 -20 indviduals. The real highlight was when we...

Another Big Cat Sunday

Having been away in Ireland and not seen her for a week, I decided yesterday to take my daughter to Marwell Wildlife for a family day out. Train rides and face painting were the order of the day, but me being me the camera came too! And just as well, the light was lovely and the feline residents of Marwell were out to play. To be honest this was a bit of a throwback. I don’t really do zoo photography anymore. I used to love it, but the restrictions annoy me and the challenge for naturalistic images in perfect light mean I’d rather spend time out tracking down species in their own...

1 Sunset, 3 Moods

I’ve just got back from the beautiful west coast of Ireland. I was very fortunate to be staying in the pretty  coastal village of An Cheathrú Rua in the Connemara region of County Galway. One night we had a very beautiful sunset so I hurried to the coral beach at around 10pm to capture it. The following images are 3 exposures of the same composition, using different shutter speeds and processing techniques to produces 3 dramatically different images all taken within 15 minutes of each other. 1. The Dreamscape Nikon D2X, Nikkor 18-70 @18mm, 2 secs, f/18, ISO 100 This image uses the...

Titchfield Haven National Nature Reserve

I enjoyed a beautiful summer’s morning on Sunday at Titchfield Haven National Nature Reserve, Hill Head, Hampshire. It’s an excellent coastal wetland environment with a large number of resident and migratory bird species. The reserve has a number of excellent hides which allow the patient viewer to experience some fascinating behaviour. I particularly enjoyed watching a group of half a dozen cormorants, they are definitely expert fishermen! I spent a fair while watching a Little Egret hunting against the far bank (sadly too far distant for any worthwhile photos), but the shallow...

A Tog’s Life: Planning for the next photo trip

Photographers don’t have holidays like normal people. Even if you are enjoying your summer break and heading off for your own pleasure rather than client work, you can’t book the flights and accomodation and then settle back in anticipation. The work is just beginning.. Part 1: Location Planning In mid-July I’m off to the beautiful west coast of Ireland, specifically Connemara, the rugged, mountainous part of County Galway that lies between Ireland’s biggest lake, Lough Corrib, to the east and the Atlantic Ocean to the west. I’ve never been beyond Dublin...

Woodland Photo Adventures: The New Forest

I am exceedingly fortunate to live in close proximity to southern England’s greatest area of wild landscape, the New Forest. It’s also one of the most historic having been created as a royal forest around the year 1079. For those of you who have never visited it, the forest encompasses roughly 140,000 acres of forest, heathland and grassland extending across the Hampshire/Wiltshire border down to the English Channel coast. It’s a beautiful environment to walk in and enjoy with a great variety of flora and fauna, but here’s a typical scene. The forest contains...

The Hawk Conservancy Trust

Last week I avoided the rush and headed on a sunny Monday morning to one of my favourite conservation centres in the UK, The Hawk Conservancy Trust near Andover. I was brought up very near there and I realised on the way that this was my 30th anniversary visit, having first been as a little kid in 1980! It’s a great day out in lovely surroundings and I bypassed the caged species to head straight for the hide that overlooks the meadow at the far end of the centre. Wild heron feeds are the first attraction of the day and it was great to see two indviduals swoop in for a mid-morning...

Guest blogging on photo-africa.com

I was really pleased a couple of weeks ago to be asked to write a guest post on www.photo-africa.com The site is run by Gerry van der Walt and has a group of regular contributors like Morkel Erasmus, Kerry de Bruyn, Shem Compion and Grant Marcus, whose work I really admire. If you have an interest in African photo adventures then it’s a really good site to read regularly and I hope I can get out to the fabulous Madikwe reserve in South Africa soon to shoot with them. You can also check out my post “2 Leopards and 1 Tiny...

What is fraudulent wildlife photography?

In the last few months there have been a few instances of disapproval, even outrage at the work of some wildlife photographers that their images are “fake” or “a fraud”. The latest example is over the work of Jonathan Griffiths,whose collection of non-native big cat images shot at a captive breeding centre in Canada has divided opinion. I prefer not to pass judgement too easily on anyone, I’d rather spend my energy on my own images, but this issue keeps coming up and I feel its time to put my opinion on the record. As far as I’m concerned there are two...