Owls in Bluebells

Little Owl in the Bluebells

Another week on, and the bluebells are at their peak. We have managed to schedule a bluebell afternoon for some of our regular photographers to the Centre, so I went over to the woods for a few hours last night to scout out some positions for them.

The light was varied, the weather was perfect one moment then dark the next, windy another and we even had snow! But with Izzy's and Lucy's help we managed to find some great locations for later this week.

I only took the tawny owl, eagle owl and little owl down as they are the most likely to be seen in bluebells woodlands in the wild. Sure, the snowy, barn and short eared would make lovely photos... but I like to make them a little more natural, despite of course all being set up. 

Yes, I know I missed the long eared off that list... unfortunately Archimedes is moulting heavily at the moment, and although fine in himself, just doesn't look his best :-)

It was Tyrions first experience of the woodland, but he took to it well. 

As well as the owls, we took down Hugo the hedgehog for some pics too. 

Hugo is a star, one of the best hedgehogs we have ever had. He really is a poser for the camera, and loved being out in the woodland.

Of course, we had to find a spot for Ethel too... always the end of our photo days, always popular, and she looked beautiful in amongst the bluebells... despite it being pretty dark by this point.

Thanks for looking :-)

Bess in the Bluebells

Bess in the Bluebells

Well, I'm still waiting for the adders to start dancing... and while waiting the bluebells in our woods have started to emerge. Not quite at their peak yet, but certainly good enough for some photography.

We had a group that was lucky enough to be booked on to a photographic day with our owls earlier this week, so I wanted to check out the bluebells for myself to get an idea of some places where we could set the owls up to add a bit of colour to the images. I didn't have time to have a real good session, and no help to pose owls, so I took Bess along to be an honoury owl for the morning :-)

The good news is that the bluebells are looking good, not at their peak, but still good. The bad news is that in terms of spread, it is the worst I have seen them! Normally a carpet of blue falls over our woodland, but this spring sees it more sparse with only small patches here and there.

This means no nice wide lanscapey type pictures, but for just the bluebells a few close ups were white nice. I think we have more white bluebells this year than before, so I took a couple of those too.

In the patches we do have though, it is possible to create some nice photos that add colour to the images.

We have our competition winner from a couple of years a go visiting this afternoon for exclusive photo day, so I am sure we will make the most of them today and hopefully I will be able to share some owl photos in the bluebells with you next week.

But Bess was a good model, posing nicely, and seemed to enjoy it down there.

Thanks for looking :-)