Loss of habitat (Part 2)

The continuing story of my project to get an image of a singing Skylark in flight with the heavy machinery that is destroying it's home in the background. (Click here for part 1)

I've been back several mornings to try for this shot with varying amounts of success but ultimately I haven't got the shot I want. The Skylarks are very tricky, you have to be in the right place at the right time as they lift into the air very quickly and are too high, for the shot I want, before you know it. I quite often catch them perching up on vegetation and singing which would be the next best thing to the shot I really want. When I do catch them in flight they are invariably in the wrong place or too high to get the background I'm after.

Perched Skylark

Above is one of the perched Skylark images which I quite like but the orange fence in the background obscures the excavator behind it so you can't really see what it is.

Skylark in flight

Above is a Skylark in flight, a few more meters to the right and slightly lower and I might have had my shot.

Meadow Pipit

I'm quite pleased with the above image. Yes it's a Meadow Pipit and it's perched but everything else is good.  There are a couple of Meadow Pipits in this area and they are regularly perching on the fence with the machinery in the background. This one is even singing and I managed to get quite close to it.

I've seen the Skylarks bringing food back in the last week so they presumably have young in the nest. Will this be the last year here?

Loss of habitat

No I'm not wild about the loss of habitat for some of our favourite species and when it's happening on my local patch it's even more frustrating.

For a few years now a housing development has been going up between Great Denham and Bedford. This has been eating into the meadows which hold breeding Skylarks, Meadow Pipits and in recent years Lapwings. These species are red and amber listed so why are we building on this area?

As the building work spreads we have lost the breeding Lapwings this year and there is less and less area for the Skylarks and Meadow Pipits, especially as this year the land owner has decided to cut some areas of the remaining meadows on a weekly basis! I think this is for the forthcoming country park which is part of this development. Great a country park you might say and I agree to some extent as at least it saves a bit of the land for wildlife. The problem is it looks like this country park will be more of a park, with sports pitches, than a country park. They've already ploughed a large area, seeded it and planted a few trees around the edge. As much as I like trees and woodland we already have large areas of Bedfordshire being turned into forest, what we don't have is lots of wild flower meadows and the associated species, so why change it? The new managed grass areas need to be cut once a week to keep the grass "nice" which must be costing quite a bit. In these times of austerity why not just leave it and cut it for hay once a year?

Anyway (steps down from his soap box) while I was walking across the meadows yesterday I thought of an idea for a photograph in which a singing Skylark would be pictured against the backdrop of the building work. I went back this morning and had my first attempt but the Skylarks weren't playing ball, then a Meadow Pipit "parachuted" in on a song flight and settled on the fence marking the boundary of the building work.

Meadow Pipit

I quite like this next one where the bird is looking out over the building site but I really needed to be closer to the bird and further from the digger.

Meadow Pipit

I tried to get a bit closer to the Pipit but it took off again on another song flight and I nearly walked off until I saw it come down further along the fence, on one of the posts so I thought I'd try again.

Meadow Pipit

Unfortunately it didn't hang about long and I lucked into this shot as it took off, it's not the greatest posture but it's close to what I was looking for, just the wrong species, not singing, too far away and too close to the background!  

Meadow Pipit

Anyway I'll be back to try again, I found a better location to shoot from, it just needs a Skylark to take off from the right spot and it'll all be good. I know, I don't want much do I?

Incidentally that digger in the background is currently stripping the area where the Lapwings nested last year, it almost makes you weep.

Aigas Autumn 2012

Aigas Autumn 2012, a set on Flickr.

Here are the photo's from my recent trip to the Aigas Field Centre in Scotland. I attended the Nature Photography Masterclass with Laurie Campbell. Thanks to all the staff at Aigas and especially Laurie for his patience throughout the week.If you want to improve your nature photography skills then I heartily recommend you look at the new dates for 2013.

It's great to be fully focussed on photography for the week and I picked up lots of tips on areas such as macro and flash which I haven't done a lot of in the past.

Check out this link for details http://www.aigas.co.uk/programmes_by_date.asp