I was returning along the footpath beside the river after a session with the little grebes, when I came across this youngster standing beside the river. When I stopped, and then moved closer, it showed no alarm or any inclination to fly away, so I took this shot from within arm’s length of the bird.
Presumably, it had just left the nest and not yet acquired the suspicion of humanity held by the other riverfolk.
At one point, the footpath passes between the river and a large shallow lake. A pair of little grebes has bred on a lake for the last few years, but have always built their nest on the far bank, where the ground is wooded and rises steeply. It has been very difficult to get a view of the nest there, but this year, they are raising a second brood from a nest which is just a few yards from the footpath.
Many people have passed me, sitting on my stool with my long lens on a tripod, and looked around the lake to see what I am after. I think that very few actually saw the nest. Even when I pointed it out to the few who asked what I was doing, they had great difficulty seeing the little bird sitting on its mound of vegetation.
As I walked along the river, a group of ducks were dozing and preening in the sunshine. Breeding over, raising chicks to independence completed. I remember a similar feeling, a long time ago. Job done.
Didn’t turn out that way, though. Humans ain’t ducks.
We spent a week on holiday in France with our daughter Carol and her family, in the area of Riberac. One evening, we went to a night market where we had a very pleasant meal, followed by a wander through the streets in which the market stalls were set up. There were many people atending this popular event, not all of them tourists.
I have spent some time recently working on a new approach to photographing badgers. With a flashgun on the camera, the lighting is boring, creates harsh shadows, and makes elements closer to the camera than the subject, such as the ground or vegetation, unpleasantly bright or even burnt out.
My new approach is to use off-camera flash, and multiple flashes. This photograph is lit by a flashgun attached to a tree branch, snooted to limit the spread of light, and a flashgun on the camera to light the shadows created by the key light. Having balanced the two light sources satisfactorily, the next problem was the lack of control over where the badgers would emerge. The only solution is concentrated observation at the same sett in order to anticipate the behaviour of the animals.
