Going Batty!

Last weekend I spotted some bats (Pipistrelle) out in the evening up at the stables so over the next few nights I tried getting some photo's of them in flight. I started off letting the flash do its own thing on auto and managed a few bats in frame but nothing to get excited about. Having to preset the focus to a point and wait for the bat to hit the mark is pretty hit and miss but the location has potential as the bats are feeding over the muck heap and therefore restricted to a fairly small area.

Flash on auto.

Laurie Campbell first told me about photographing bats in this way when I was at Aigas Field Centre on one of his master class weeks. I didn't have an external flash gun at the time but having invested in one last year I'm now equipped to give it a go. I contacted Laurie for some advice on camera and flash settings and he reminded me that it was the speed of the flash that freezes the movement of the bat so I needed to manually set up the flash so that the flash duration was around 1/5000s. A bit of Googling for the flash duration of my flash gun revealed I needed to set it to somewhere between 1/4 and 1/8 power. This effectively reduces the flash duration as required but has the knock on effect of reducing the effective range of the flash.

The next night I tried 1/8 power but struggled to get enough effective range from the flash.

Flash on 1/8 power.

The following night I tried 1/4 power which gave me a bit more range and a little flexibility in the camera settings I could use. This was much more successful and I managed 3 reasonable images including 2 bats in one frame which was quite impressive given there were only 3 bats out!

Flash on 1/4 power.

2 bats chasing one another.

Clipped wing.

Last night I continued with the same settings and got one shot that I am pretty happy with.

I think there is plenty of room for improvement here but I'm quite happy with the improvements made over the course of the first week. I'll be looking for some other locations to try in the coming weeks.

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.

The last from the badger sett

Sadly this will be the last from the badger sett for a while. I found the following clip on the camera from last week and consider myself very lucky that I had a camera to collect today:


It's a real shame as I had the most badgers in one clip that I have had at the sett, 4, in a nice clip where they were all grooming. They couldn't have lined up better if I had asked them! There was also some more close personal attention for the camera this week, but by the badgers this time:


A Muntjac also decided that the camera needed a clean up:



I returned to the sett today to collect the camera before the group of morons paid a return visit so here are a couple more badger clips and a male Muntjac with a missing antler from last night to finish off with:



Pretty gutted that I have had to remove the camera from the sett, I considered getting a big chain and padlock but suspect cretins like those would probably just smash it if they couldn't have it. I'll have a word with some of the people I know to see if I can find another sett that is a bit less accessible to the public.

Back to the Badger Sett

Last week I finally got around to putting the trail camera back up at the Badger sett and this morning I collected the card and checked out the results. On my first visit a noticed a lot of new earth works around the sett including a new hole out along one of the well used trails. One of the original holes appeared to have collapsed but there was obvious signs of activity around the main holes where I have had the camera before. This time I chose a new part of the sett where there was some fresh sign of digging. The Badger here seems to have taken a shine to the camera!





You will have noticed that I finished off with a short clip of a Fox which stopped briefly as it passed through.

Not sure if this is the best place for the camera, the vegetation cuts down the view a bit, but I'll give it another week and see how it goes. Might try that new hole along the trail next week to see what is happening there.

News from the sett

This last couple of weeks at the Badger sett has seen quite a lot of interest in the camera. The best 2 clips follow:

Recent weeks has seen a lot of charging about by the Badgers. There seems to be a bit of a territorial dispute going on. This last week it turned into a war:

The rats were also present on and off and a Fox, see clip below, made regular visits over the 2 weeks.

Strange Bedfellows

Some more footage from the Badger sett last week and after the first Brown Rat the previous week there were plenty of clips last week with several even going down into the sett. Looks like they may be living side by side with the Badgers!

I moved the camera last week to get a much lower perspective and it worked out really well with one of the Badgers showing some interest in the camera and giving us all a good view while doing so.

There was also another first for the camera when a Bat flew past. Not sure about the species.

And finally those Brown Rats, one coming close to the camera and then a brief shot as one disappears down into the sett.

Grey Squirrel, Rabbit and Fox were also caught on camera last week.

Latest from the Badger Sett

It's been a while since I had the camera up at the Badger sett so last week I went over and positioned the camera to look down one of the holes. Happy to say there was a lot of activity.
The first section of the video shows a couple of the Badgers meeting up and scent marking each other. There are some weird vocalisations from one or both of them as well.
The next section shows what looks like an intruder being seen off. There was lots of this sort of thing going on, not sure if there is one or more new kids on the block so will have to keep an eye on things to see if I can work it out.
This hole looks quite small compared to some around the sett so I was interested to see how easily a Badger fit down there, as the clip shows, it looks a bit of a squeeze.
Having said that the final part shows a Badger taking new bedding down the hole backwards with no problem at all.

Other animals that visited the sett this week were 2 Muntjac deer (female and male), a Brown Hare and a Brown Rat:

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