The landscape photos below show the view from and then of the hotel that Sarah and David stayed in at Hamn i Senja.  The wildlife photos show: a reindeer (it's pushing it a bit to call this 'wildlife' because the reindeer are farmed even though they roam freely); a stoat (there were plenty of stoats in the area around Hamn though seeing them was a bit of a lottery, photographing them even more so!); a meadow pipit, beautifully perched on a series of fence posts; a pair of black guillemots with one displaying to the other; a purple sandpiper in breeding plumage (we get them in the UK during winter when they look a little less well-marked); finally a drake red-breasted merganser in flight.  Both the red breasted merganser and the goosander are quite common in Arctic Norway, thouth they are never very approachable!
David and Sarah have just returned from a trip to Norway.  They visited four areas: Tromso (with Sommaroy and Senja); Varanger; Alesund and Hardangerfjord (with Bergen).  The first two of these areas were partly focussed on wildlife so over the next few weeks David will post some photos from these parts of the trip. Below we see photos of Tromso with its colourful waterside buildings; a beach on the island of Sommaroy and a mountain peak (Husfjellet) and fjord on the dramatic island of Senja. The photos of wildlife show a common gull calling (these really are the commonest gull in Norway); a black guillemot landing on the sea; a male pied flycatcher displaying to its partner (though it looks like it's trying to measure the broken branch); a pair of kittiwakes having an aerial battle; a stunning male bluethroat in song; an oystercatcher posing next to a rusty old mooring ring; and finally, for now, a male willow grouse (the equivalent of our red grouse).
Over the last couple of weeks, during the evenings, David has been photographing some fox cubs that have been using one of the fields on his smallholding. The vixen has had an incredible six cubs and though she has occasionally come out with them (see top right photo below) she usually goes hunting on her own.
David spent a morning at Penhale with friends in search of grizzled skippers.  They found a few, most were quite flighty but this one, found early in the morning, posed on a cowslip and stayed still long enough for a few photos.  On the right is the larva of a drinker moth, this was quite a big beast, maybe about 4 cm long.
David has some photos in a new exhibition at Penlee House, Gallery and Museum in Penzance, open from 7th May to 4th October.  The exhibition entitled 'Birds: The Art of Cornwall's Birdlife' features artwork in various media from the artists of the Newlyn School to contemporary artists including Kurt Jackson and some photography by David.  Here is one example, this shows black headed gulls in flight and was taken with a shutter speed of 1/10th of a second giving it a creative feel, very much like the impressionistic painting that it sits beside in the exibition.
It is nice to see some birds doing really well.  Each year the number of firecrests breeding in Cornwall seems to increase, and this is a fantastic little bird.  In fact it is the smallest bird in the UK and getting a photograph of a singing male is not easy.  This is David's latest effort.
David has been photographing the bullfinches which visit his feeder.  They sometimes fly a predictable path from a tree to the feeder allowing David to pre-focus his camera at a set spot to capture them in flight.  But even with 30 frames per second and pro-capture it is a bit hit and miss!  As an example of the technical details the female in flight (right) was taken with a 200mm lens, shutter speed 1/8000th sec and aperture f6.3.  The required ISO was 3200 so some noise reduction has been applied.  David is using a hide for these photos and the birds are coming very close (the images are only slightly cropped).  To be honest these bullfinches are almost tame enough to feed from his hand!
As promised, here are some of the photos taken recently from the photography hides established by Alan McFadyen of Scottish Photography Hides, in Dumfries.  Alan is an incredibly ingenious and industrious man, David and his friends who went with him are very grateful for his help, generosity and support throughout their visit. The photos show: kingfisher emerging from a dive with a fish (fast shutter of 1/8000th sec); kingfisher diving down (slow shutter of 1/100th sec); red squirrel with hazelnut; red squirrel jumping towards camera; great spotted woodpecker carrying a hazelnut; male sparrowhawk; pine marten; badger. This is a very small selection of the images David took.  If you belong to a photo group and would like to see more please contact him for a talk.  Later in 2025 David will put together a talk featuring images from this trip as well as Spain and his summer trip (more on that in a few months).
After coming back from Spain in January and while still in the grip of winter, David headed up to Dumfries in his motorhome.  There were three aims for this trip.  The first was to visit family in the north west but photographically he wanted to see the barnacle geese and whooper swans that gather around the Solway Firth every winter and he wanted to visit the Scottish Photography Hides as he did for the first time last summer (more on this in the next post). These photos show: barnacle geese flying over RSPB Mersehead; Threave Castle in an early morning frost; hills and sheep near New Abbey; a pair of barnacle geese; a whooper swan in flight and a whooper swan reflected, both at WWT Caerlaverock. Some of these photos and an account of his experience will feature in an article in MMM (Motorhome magazine) next winter.
Spain, the last post.  David's final day was mostly taken up driving from El Taray back to Alicante for his flight back home but he did get a profitable hour at the same wetland as on day 1.  The photos below show a cattle egret and a pair of shoveler ducks mating.  Since this is the last post about our Spanish trip David feels he should again thank Yani for her excellent guiding and recommend her without reservation.  Here are her details: Yanina Maggiotto, website: www.visitnatura.com If you would like to know more about David's trip please do get in touch with him through the contact page of this website.
Spain, days 7, 8 and 9 were spent at El Taray near Toledo in central Spain.  The habitat here is steppe and marshland.  We concentrated on reedbed birds though with bird of prey feeding stations we saw lots of birds of prey, mostly marsh harriers.  The photos show marsh harriers (Male and female); little grebe; water pipit; moustached warbler; Cetti's warbler; grey heron; fox; chiffchaff; buzzard.
David has been spending some time at his pond photographing a male grey wagtail and a wren which are coming to feed on meal worms.  He has also been experimenting with the pre-capture facility on his new camera which enables some photos to be captured before he starts taking photos....sounds weird doesn't it?
Day 6, Spain.  The least productive day of the trip.  The morning was spent in a goshawk hide and then we were driven to a different location in central Spain.  Unfortunately the goshawks didn't show, they had other things to do that morning.  Being a single-bird-hide there wasn't much of a supporting cast but David did get nice shots of a female black redstart and a woodlark.
Day 5, Spain.  Arguably the best day of the trip.  We spent the day in the golden eagle hide, but it was much more than that!  Even with golden eagles on show David relished the opportunity to photograph Dartford warblers which were attracted using meal worms.  The photos show two images of a golden eagle; a male black redstart, an Iberian grey shrike and both Sardinian and Dartford warblers.  There were other birds but to see those you'll have to book David to give a talk to your group!
Day 4, Spain.  A slightly less manic day with a morning spent photographing birds at a wetland site and the afternoon in a quarry hide.  Photos show a greater flamingo, crested lark and a black wheatear, female.
David had a day out with a few friends starting at Newquay where they photographed birds on the boating lake and finishing at Holywell for sunset.  There wasn't a very colourful sunset but it was a lovely day.  Below are photos which show a cormorant in breeding plumage and a female long-tailed duck.  Below those are two photos of the same scene at Holywell dunes, one with a neutral density filter to give a longer shutter speed, the other without (the difference is subtle and can only be seen in the movement of the sea and the foreground  marram grass which is blowing in the wind, but which is better?)
In a small break from the Spanish photos here are a couple of sparrowhawk photos.  On the right we see a photo that David took today, on the left is a photo of the same bird last year.  This is a young male sparrowhawk (now probably one and a half years old) and you can see how its moult has left it looking more like an adult.  Hopefully the breast of this bird will become even more colourful over the next year or two.
Day 3, Spain, was spent in a hide in the mountains near La Yesa.  This was an important day for David because the target species was the ring ouzel.  The area in front of the hide was tricky for photography because the birds came very close and often in large numbers, so getting a 'clean' shot was the issue here.  Having said that, we certainly couldn't complain about the activity, it was sensational and we saw many more species than 'just' the ring ouzel.  The photos show ring ouzel (male and female), mistle thrush, hawfinch, crossbill and crested tit.  We also photographed woodlark, rock bunting, greenfinch, song thrush, blackbird, redwing and others.
David has just got back from a bird photography trip to Spain along with friend, Malcolm Bishop.  They spent 10 days visiting bird photography hides and nature-rich areas guided by local expert Yanina Maggiotto.  Yani put together a fanstastic trip for David and Malcolm, she organised the hotels, hides and various visits as well as collecting them from Alicante airport and driving them to all the locations.  Her organisation and knowledge are top class, she is highly recommended, learn more from her website: www.visitnatura.com See Malcolm's images at: malcolmbishopphoto.wordpress.com/blog/ Over the next few weeks David will post a selection of images from the trip on a day-by-day basis.
Day 2 was spent in a bird photography hide called the Losa Hide in the mountains inland of Valencia.  It is a beautiful location.  We were told to expect Sardinian warbler, blue rock thrush, rock bunting,  black redstart,Thekla lark and more.  This is exactly what we saw and photographed.  The 'more' in this case is a dunnock doing a wing-flapping display and a male serin bathing.
On the first day Yani collected David and Malcolm from Alicante airport and took them to their first hotel near Valencia.  Along the way they stopped at a public wetland nature reserve near Alicante where they saw some local specialities including white-headed duck, ferruginous duck and red-knobbed coot.  These photos were taken from two public hides which allowed reasonably close views of some species.  In the photos we see: kingfisher, drake teal (one wing-stretching, one portrait), red-knobbed coot with neck-ring, drake shoveler (wing-stretching) and a drake white-headed duck.