Steppingley Reservoir Red Kite Visit

I had looked at maps to decide on where it might prove worthwhile to take advantage of the sunshine, and settled upon Steppingley Reservoir. I had not factored in the bitter wind, so when I arrived I was not as prepared for the cold as I should have been. Also upon arrival, I realised this was a spot I had previously visited, and had been slightly disappointed, but nothing ventured; nothing gained…

After a preliminary walk to the entry to the fields, the first decision was to add to my clothing, as the windchill was already getting to me! I added a woolly hat and a hooded jacket and my fingerless gloves with silk gloves underneath, then gathered the lightest carbon fibre tripod with the Acrotech head as this would offset my intention to use my heaviest lens, the Sigma 150-600mm Sports. Also, I took along my electronic shutter release due to this tripod’s choice due to the lesser stability.

I negotiated the downhill track taking to the grass alongside, to avoid caking my boots with claggy mud and at first investigated heading towards to thicket to skirt to the left around the banked reservoir, but soon retraced my steps and crossed the brook and headed for the right and some newly dug channels and then climbed the bank and headed right at the top. I came across a couple of anglers and asked how they were faring, and learned they had only recently arrived themselves, they were able to suggest where I might find a good chance of spotting the local wildlife, which they said included deer and in the fields they had just spotted some hares. I thanked them and made my way around anticlockwise, before heading towards the bank on the far side to enter the woods. I passed another pair of anglers, one of whom had caught a single fish which somehow had been considered of less import than having some late breakfast! I left them chuckling amongst themselves and carefully made my way down the bank again and entered the woods.

I had barely entered the path into the woods when I spotted two small muntjacs which immediately took fright and headed deeper into the thicket, I never saw them again. As I once again took to the grass margins of the track, I spotted red kite circling above, and then a small farm vehicle approached me, I hailed it in greeting and the driver pulled to a halt and switched off the engine, I asked whether there was much wildlife to be found hereabouts, and he said there was some, but was not able to elucidate much further and soon restarted the engine and went on his way – at least I learned I was not to be evicted!

For a while I attempted to get some shots from the cover of the woods, but this was far from easy, so I eventually moved to end of the track where it opened onto the field, and found that some of the birds were interested in prey within the field, so were far lower. I wished I had made this decision earlier, as the sun was becoming increasingly hidden by clouds. It was interesting to note that there was a high concentration of pigeons that moved en masse from one end of the track between one tree in the field and somewhere beyond me, every ten to fifteen minutes. Later another observation I made was that sometimes the red kite would adjourn to a clump of trees at the wood’s edge and the crows were not be fazed and remained in the same branches, the only lesser bird I saw chased by the kites was a jackdaw. Part of the reason the kites were often down at ground level was some carrion in the field, and on one occasion I saw one of their number with a small bird that was being devoured on the wing, but I could not be certain where it had been caught.

With the sun increasingly cloud-covered I retraced my steps to the reservoir, and continued widdershins and before leaving, spotted the two anglers I first met so I went to see how they had fared. I learned their names were Paul and Jay, and we chatted and found they had been less fortunate than me, having caught no fish at all. Like me at Marsworth, they had befriended a robin and had fed him some of their bait, so I took a shot of him as he took the occasional nibble. I showed them that shot and others I had taken of the kites and we chatted before I set off back to the car. I made the trip at a good pace which meant I was far warmer when back at the car than when I had set off!

Day Before Nikon Gigrin Farm Visit

Monday was scheduled for a trip to Gigrin Farm near Rhayader in Wales, and I was lucky enough to be joining the organiser of the trip, Wildlife Photographer Chris Gomersall. Although this is under the auspices of Nikon UK, I had learned that the trips are camera-type agnostic, so sporting Canon equipment did not place me at a disadvantage or any additional cost burden. The red kite do not have any prejudices either, and they are not the only species of birds that attend the feeding station as I was to learn.

I set off with a clear GPS SatNav route to follow to meet up with Chris, but it did not account for a road closure close to my first destination, Potton – a bridge is being repaired, and this meant I had to phone Chris to find an alternative route to reach him. I arrived only five minutes later than we had arranged and we loaded the car with my camera gear and clothes and set off for Wales avoiding the motorway roadworks, breaking the journey at Telford. Along the way we both got the chance to know each other better and discuss a wide range of topics, not all related to what lay ahead at Gigrin Farm. One surprising incident was when Chris spotted a buzzard sitting happily on a road sign on our side of the road, he mentioned it to me and had I had a camera to hand it was so close I could have filled the frame using a wide angle lens!

We met rain and numerous light-controlled sections of roadworks even on these lesser roads, but arrived well in time to get our gear into the Brynafon Hotel and have some time at the afternoon feeding up at the farm where we took up station in the high hide. We were really lucky with the changing weather as during this ‘bonus’ time we were blessed with a rainbow that stayed for quite a while whilst the birds were still feeding.

We met up with one of the morrow’s delegates at the hide and learned he had seen a spectacular display at Aberystwyth of a Starling Murmuration, which decided us on the hour’s drive to coast to see whether we might be so lucky, but though they appeared briefly it was a very small flock that visited us! But the high tide and the skies still invited us to take pictures.

We joined up again with Daan and his wife at the hotel and suppered together enjoyably, all of us eager to repeat and improve upon that day’s shooting.

Sunny Interlude – Flight Theme

 

It is extremely frustrating that when a free moment occurs the weather turns foul, so when the sun appeared to be coming out between showers for a change I decided I just had to go out for a drive and see whether any red kites were aloft. Normally this would mean I end up photographing friendly robins or hot rod cars, but not on this occasion – I did actually catch sight of a few elusive kites, but the first few times, by the time I was out of the car having found somewhere to park, they had soared high or simply flown to another, more distant hilltop, so since low-flying aircraft are once again newsworthy hereabouts, I grabbed a few of them in passing.

 Parking was not as easy a prospect as in the past since many of the likely spots were quagmires or were alongside deep, full road width puddles that passing cars would use to cover my car with muddy and grit-laden water. This meant often lengthy walks to a suitable vantage point. Once again I became aware that wildlife is fully cognisant of the limitations humans, in particular photographers, have when trying to get close to them! I started from Tea Green, via Lilley Bottom and Whitwell,  returning by Peters Green.

One advantage of windy and showery weather is the different light that plays upon the landscape and the differing cloud shapes that occur. A horse-riding mother was being accompanied by her cycle-riding son as they took advantage of the break in the afternoon weather, and they were silhouetted against the bright road surface as they climbed the hill beyond me, making a striking shot.

On my journey back via Peters Green, I again spotted a lone kite flying low, but only managed a couple of shots before it disappeared beyond the tree line, but a young lad bid me “Hi” as he came from his cottage to walk his dog, I returned the compliment, but after several minutes I turned around and he had gone no further than a puddle a few gates down, and was squatting down with what at a distance, looked like a paper boat that he seemed to be photographing, so as the kite had decided not to return, I strolled closer and we chatted. It turned out he was studying A-level photography at St Georges’ School, and he had a project that seemed to involve fire and water, so he was taking closeups of burning newspaper floating on the puddle’s surface. I gathered from this conversation he was actually more interested in film, but this course seemed close. He was familiar with Photoshop, but I felt that he might consider Lightroom as this was likely to benefit his still camera work and provide him with a different way of handling the post processing, so I suggested he look at the 30-day free trial for his Mac. I wished him all the best and returned to the car and home.

When I was doing my post processing I spotted a very distinctive end of wing feather on one kite over Whitwell, and realised I had photographed this same bird around a year ago over Tea Green!

Hertfordshire Hedge Layer

I was on the road towards Dagnall, and parked up because I spotted that some hedge-laying was being carried out, and I thought I would simply capture a few shots of the work, but, having parked in front of a gate, I spotted a red kite very low above some bushes across the road. So, my subject for the camera was in that moment no longer the hedge!

I then concentrated on trying to capture the red kite, but although I persevered, it and later its five colleagues, never came anywhere near so close. It was during this time that I heard the sound of a motor ticking over nearby, and I soon realised that my parking of the car obstructed a pickup hoping to leave the field. I rushed over and apologised to the driver and duly moved it out of his way. I returned to trying to capture shots of the kites. By now it was getting ever colder and also the sun was spending more of its time obscured by cloud, so I gave in and returned to the car.

I then noticed that the man to whom I had been talking was now parked up along the road I was about to return on, and he was the hedge layer! I parked against the verge beyond his vehicle and turned on the hazard warning lights and asked whether he minded my taking photos of him, he had no objections, so I tried to get a few shots as he worked the wood that was on the back of his pickup into the hedge. We chatted as I did so, and I learnt that he claimed to be no expert but that the style of his laying was known as Hertfordshire hedge-laying, and that the farm for which he worked had been doing a new section of the boundaries each year, and maintaining past years’ work; all in the aid of providing habitat for wildlife and keeping the fields secure.

I hope to return later on a finer day in the hope of capturing some decent shots of the kites and buzzards that seem to be local to that location.