Tyrion

Tyrion, the Little Owl

A couple more of Tyrion, our new little owl chick, for you. He is growing fast! Hopefully part of our flying team but the end of the summer.

When first starting to train, and before they can fly, it is nice to get them to run along the ground towards you when you call them. This is from one of my first attempts. Unfortunately we tried again a couple of days ago, but he now half flies half runs... good really, but means no more running photos.

And you all know I like a good portrait.

Below is a slo-mo video of him running taken on the iPhone.

Thanks for looking :-)

Introducing "Tyrion" the Little Owl

Tyrion, the Little Owl, at 3 1/2 weeks

Meet Tyrion, our new Little Owl Chick!

He was hatched out here at the Centre earlier this year, and is a huge success for us in being the first little owl we have bred, and a commendation for our new aviaries. Our breeding pair of little owls have been here for three seasons, the first in their old aviary, last year moved around a lot during the season due to new accommodation being built, and finally this year with all things settled we had success!

You have seen this photo above before, but it is one of my favourites. It really shows off how little he is on top of the gate. Of course the lovely iron work of the gate helps make the picture.

With most youngsters, but especially ones we rear, I normally try to do a few photo shoots for the record. These then act as souvenirs too for us keepers, and gets the animals used to cameras. So far with Tyrion we have had two shoots. Another hopefully in the next couple of days, and then a final one when he is fully feathered in a week or so.

They really do grow quickly, and are fully grown and looking like an adult owl in roughly 10 weeks! Incredible when you think about it. They normally start out as little ugly balls of fluff, but then develop in to beautiful owls... a real ugly duckling transformation.

I have never shot black and white, and very rarely change a photo to black and white. But I liked this one above, but it just didn't feel right in colour, so I tried a change and like it more this way.

These ones are from our second shoot, maybe a week later than the first, and you can see the difference already. Much more sure of himself and stable, bigger and more feathers.

We try to take our owl chicks away before 3 weeks old if we want to train them to join our flying team. You can take them later than this, but it is much more difficult, far easier to get them young and really imprint them on yourself. All our flying owls think they are people in little owl suits :-)

Getting him started at an early age! Always good to have a peeking owl shot.

Little owls often look really grumpy, good to see that Tyrion has mastered that look already!

I normally get the fisheye lens out at some point on a photo shoot, it doesn't always work, but when it does it gives a unique looking photo.

You can't beat a good old portrait though :-)

Keeper Lucy is rearing Tyrion, and will soon begin the flying training. Hopefully by the end of the summer he will be a fully fledged member of the flying team!

Thanks for looking :-)

June's Catch up.

Little Owl Chick

Just a quick post today to share a few pics from this last month. We have a new little owl chick, first time we have bred them here at the Centre, and we are currently rearing him to be part of our flying team. I have spent a couple of shoots with him to get some record shots of the little one growing, and will do a post sharing some photos of just him probably later next week, but thought I would show this one above. 

This is of him when he was only about 2 and a half, 3 weeks old. It is so far my most popular photo on my Facebook page, and I particularly like it because it shows off how small he really is. And boy, what a great gate he is perched on! :-)

Another reason I shared the little owl photo early, is because the others in this post are not great... but it shows you a work in progress.

Drogo, our new male pine marten, is becoming great at positioning for photography. I am now trying a few different things out and playing with the light a bit. Not really working at the moment, but you can get an idea of what I am trying for.

This was perhaps the closest to what I had in mind, the lens flare was deliberate, but unfortunately the light fell in an area where it was impossible for me to avoid the obvious pen background. I'll think of something though, may be a case of getting him used to some false background or allowing the grass to grow longer along the back. 

 Finally, a couple of photos of frogs. Can you spot the difference?

Above is a marsh frog, and below a pool frog. Some of you may remember we had some young pool frogs in where our water shrews are now. Reared from a young age, when bigger we released them in to our water vole pond. They had been rather shy, but this year have really become bold and are out quite a lot to be seen.

No I am in know way an expert in frogs, and I still get confused about the differences between marsh, edible, pool etc, but there are two thing here that show you its a pool frog. Most obviously the beautiful vivid green/yellow dorsal stripe down the back (although some marsh frogs can show similar too, I did say it was confusing! :-) ) and when you know what you are looking for, you may be able to see that the pool frog also has a more pointed and longer snout than the marsh frog? Can you? Course you can, have a closer look :-)

Oh finally, let me share a video with you of me feeding the pine martens.

OK, for those interested in "Instagram" i recently discovered it, and am actually enjoying using it. I have only uploaded photos I have taken on my phone currently, but am running out fast so will move on to my other photos too to keep it going. If interested, drop by and have a look. You will find me as @themattbinstead I'll mention more about that on my next post. 

Thanks for looking :-)

Owls in Bluebells, 2015

Tawny Owl in Bluebells

Last week we had an owl photographic day booked in. Lucky for those that came, it coincided with our woodlands being a wash of violet with the bluebells at their peak!

We made the most of them, and placed a few of the owls in the bluebells throughout the day. I joined in for the tawny, little and long eared owl. Here are a couple of my photos. Above is Florence, one of our tawny owls.

Little owl, Scrappy, in the bluebells.

Archimedes the long eared owl. Decided to fall asleep, so not seeing his eyes I went for an wider angle shot.

Scrappy again, showing how small he really is amongst the bluebells.

And earlier that week, while checking out the bluebells, I took a couple of Bess with the fisheye lens.

Thanks for looking :-)

2014

Dancing adders

Happy new year to you all! I have three posts which will appear quite quickly in the new year, most likely over the next week. This first post is just a brief review of 2014 in terms of what I photographed. I am sure I have missed a lot out, and have not necessarily put in my best/favourite photos, but ones that remind me of what I did throughout the year. I have also limited it to 10 photos just to make me think a bit when selecting them.

Next up I will be sharing my favourite photos of 2014, and then introducing a new project I have been asked to participate in... very exciting, and it will lead to a regular weekly blog post for a couple of months. More on that later though, first lets look back on last year...

Every year the first thing I look forward to, if we don't have any snow, is the dance of the adders. I experimented with the macro lens this year and got some lovely shots I was pleased with. Above is one of my favourites, although I feel my back catalogue of this behaviour is still better. I am still waiting for that one really special photo of this event... maybe this year.

Stoat

I try and sit in on at least one BWC photo day a year, and one BWC Owl day a year. This gives me a good opportunity to get some fresh photos for the office to use, but also see how the day goes from a visitors view. Above is one of a stoat I took and is now used for the cover of this years leaflet.

Little owl

On the owl day I joined in on the above is one of my favourites, Scrappy peering around the edge of our stone wall set.

Bee swarm

Our bees swarmed a couple of times last year, and having a lot of photos of them all in a mass from before I tried something different. Changing the angle slightly came up with something I really liked.

Fallow deer

I was asked by the owner, David, to help with a project he is doing for a children's educational DVD and book. For the book he needed specific photographs, so with a list in hand off I went. It was the first time I have really taken photos to demand, but it was good fun and I learn't a lot from it. I am sure it will happen again in the future if the book is successful, but above is one of a fallow deer grazing.

Ironically I don't think the above photo was used, but it was one of my favourites front he shoot.

Harvest Mouse

Lucy "found" some nice corn over the summer, so we spent an evening photographing the harvest mice. You can look back in the archives for these photos, but this simple portrait above is one of my favourites.

Common Dormouse

While doing some routines in with our dormice this summer, we noticed one was up... very unusual, so after checking that they were ok I made the most of this rare chance to take some photos.

Emmy and Buster

Later in the year we had another otter cub born, little Ol' Buster. He has just started to come out more regularly. This photo above is of him on one of his first days out.

Tawny owl

Winter is always a good time for photography here. Although the days are shorter, the light when out is usually a little softer... especially in the afternoon, and you often get that nice red glow. We have done many owl days for ourselves and Andy Rouse, and Andy has recently decided to offer half and half days. I took this one late afternoon while testing the best times to use certain perches for the light. Previously we saw this location as a potential place to put the tawny owl, but were running late in the day.

Otters playing through the ice

Finally, the other day, I took this photo of Emmy and Elwood playing and chasing each other throughout the ice. Something I tell people every winter, but have never been able to show them... By luck I had my camera with me a couple of days ago while they were chasing each other, so I took a couple of snaps. Not the best, but it shows what I want.

Next week I will post my favourite images from 2014 before sharing new photos taken this year, and announce the new project I have been asked to help with.

Thanks for looking :-)

Little Owl Wall

The Wall

The "Wall"!..

Often mocked and belittled, but much loved after spending just a little time with it. It has been through a few incarnations over the past few years, and currently above it is on its third lease of life.

We use this as one of our sets/perches for our little owl on our owl photographic days, and the reactions are often quite fun from the photographers. Some get on with it and seem to see the potential from the start, others seem to take some photos out of pity and just to not make us feel bad and I have even had some in the past not take any photos at all. But given a little patience and imagination, and it really can be a great set which leads to some nice photos.

Little Owl, Scrappy

Of course you can get some nice closeups of one of our little owls, Scrappy in this case, sitting nicely in the gap in the wall.

He loves his wall

But it's real beauty is shooting from an angle. If framed right this can look as if it is a section of a long wall going off in to the distance.

Scrappy doing his "Harry Worth" Impression

Angled even more extreme and you can get some quirky little portraits.

Little Owl Peeking

And it has been built, thrown together, in a way that in can be used from both sides.

Evening Little Owl

Not bad for a pile of a few old stones.

Thanks for looking.

BWC Owl Day

Snowy Owl

Following on from my photos taken on an open day, here are a few photos I took on an owl day I joined in on a couple of weeks ago. This is for the third of three bits I am writing, the pics from the second (a BWC Photo Day) I will post in a week or so.

As with the open day, the weather was not great. It didn't rain... which would of stopped the owls all together, but there was no light for most of the day with very little light for the rest of it! However, we of course soldier on, and overall I was pleased with a few of the ones I got.

Snowy Owl Feathers

We always start off with the snowy owl and the short eared owl on our owl days, as they are the ones which are more likely to get fed up sooner. Don't get me wrong, they are both still used to cameras and do settle, but they also call time sooner than the others.

Hedwig, our snowy owl, is always difficult as his natural setting would deb in the snow. But we place him on the ground for some more natural pics and put him on a large post for some portraits. The portrait above is not necessarily natural, but it makes a nice picture and we find a lot of photographers that come on our days are just interested in that.

With the light particularly poor first thing I took a lot of more abstract stuff, and was particularly pleased with the close up of the feathers above.

Short-eared Owl

Once Hedwig has had enough, we move on to Fawkes out short-eared owl. This is another ground nesting bird, and so we try to find areas in the rough grass to make it a bit more natural. In amongst the more marsh type reeds and tussocky grass. However, on the day there was a lovely patch of daisies and I just couldn't resist a "pretty" picture of him surrounded by them.

With all our owls we try to place them in two or three different places for you to photograph them. Some more natural, and others for simple portraits, and we are always open to new ideas of where to try them.

Short-eared Owl

I think Fawkes is a stunning owl, and short-eareds are possibly my favourite owl in the world. On a post he makes for a beautiful portrait.

Long-eared Owl

Usually next up on our list would be one of our tawny owls, but with the light so dire we decided to stay more in the open and brought out Archimedes... our long-eared owl. He was having a bit of an off day and was very sleepy, so we didn't see much of his eyes.

Long-eared Owl

When a bit of light did appear for the briefest of moments, we rushed in to the woods with him to place him on one of my favourite sets. Unfortunately again... his eyes remained closed, but I did manage to get these two in a short period when he was alert. The close up above...

Long-eared Owl

... and a much wider one too. I have photographed Achimedes here so many times, I was looking for something a bit different to what I normally do. I'm not sure if this really worked, but still it is good to try!

Tawny Owl

Staying in the woods it was time for the tawny owl, and we used Florence. Our tawnies are often the stars of the show, and I could happily photograph just them all day! There are so many options as to where to put them that we really need to keep an eye on the time to make sure we don't spend to much time with them.

Florence Preening

All our owls settle fairly quickly, but Florence is such a pro now that she immediately forgets that the cameras are there and just watches the world or even preens herself.

This is where we usually call for a break, and stop for some lunch and a swap around with the owls. After the quick change around we are then ready for the afternoon of owl photography.

Little Owl Peeking

This normally starts off with our little owl, Scrappy! He is such a character, and makes for some amazing photographs. I built a little stone wall a couple of years a go (re-built a few times since), and most people laugh when they see it... but framed int he right way it offers some great photo opportunities. I will do a post later in the week showing just the wall.

One of my favourites of the day was this one above of Scrappy half hidden half seen in the nook in the wall.

Wild Fox

While photographing Scrappy in the wall, we had a visitor who wanted to join in! He didn't stay long after seeing us.

Little Owl

Often we just place the little owl on the ground too. They eat a lot of invertebrates, and so it is not rare to see them on the ground beetling for food.

Barn Owl

Next up are the barn owls. You have probably seen lots of barn owl photos from our owl days before, we have a beautiful old gate which we perch them on, and a hide we can get them peeking around as above.

Barn Owl in Flight

The barn owl is one of two owls we fly on the day too. We also fly the tawny owl in the woods if it is light enough, or down one of the tracks more in the open if the light is not too great.

Barn Owl Panning

With movement I often try to do a bit of panning with a slow shutter.

Ethel, European Eagle Owl

We then finish the day with Ethel, our European eagle owl. Again ground shots in the dead bracken look quite nice, and we also have an old rotten tree trunk which makes the perfect perch for her to sit on.

All the photos above where taken on the same day, on one of our owl days, and with no advantages over what you get if you come along to one of them. Overall I was very happy with what I got considering the conditions, and extremely pleased with two or three of them.

For the article I have been asked to use a variety of photos over the past year to show what is possible in different situations for both this and the BWC photographic day. I may well post these pics later in the year too to show you what was used.

Thanks for looking.