Crested Tits
No trip to Speyside would be complete without time spent in the forests filming Crested Tits. They will readily come to feed on a bag of peanuts and the more severe the weather all the better for your photos. However, make sure you go before mid March because in most years by then Crested Tits […]
Winter Mountain Hares
If you are going to visit Speyside in winter then in addition to Ptarmigan you have to go in search of Mountain Hares. The good news is that you do not have to scale Cairngorm mountain to find the Hares, in fact a better option is the Findhorn valley, where you do not have to […]
Cairngorm Challenge
In previous years the early part of the year has seen us heading up the slopes of Cairngorm in search of Ptarmigan. When the Funicular Railway was working it was relatively easy to reach the summit and I was once stood on top before 10.00am!! Those days are long gone with the railway out of […]
Top Ten
Despite covid, bad weather and finally injury its not been a bad year for the camera. Thousands of photos were taken and it is always a difficult job to pick ten of the best. However, pride of place this year goes to two of our rarest Grebes. I finally got photos of the Black Necked […]
The Stormcock
The Mistle Thrush is Britains largest song-bird and is also known as the Stormcock. This name emanates from the Thrushes habit of singing at the height of a storm. Unfortunately,. from a photographers point of view it has a very annoying habit – it stakes its claim to a berry-laden tree and chases off all […]
Temperature Inversion
When we have a High Pressure in Winter it is the best time to go out and film temperature inversions. These occur when the temperature in the valleys is colder than that on the hill-tops. Mist and cloud is formed in the valley bottoms with glorious sunshine above. It is a fabulous natural occurrence and […]
Garden Visitors
Still with mobility problems so I have spent most of the last two weeks watching the feeding birds in the garden. On most days we have had twenty or more different species taking food which for the size of the garden is amazing.By far the largest bird has been the male Pheasant who first appeared […]
Snowy Redwings
Monday’s snow and ice was perfect for catching up with feeding Redwings. So far this winter there have been very few about but I managed to locate half a dozen feeding on Haws on one of Rochdales busiest roads. In-between passing buses, lorries, cars and people they fed and provided me with the photos I […]
Almost Extinct
When I started filming birds fifty one years ago the commonest moorland bird was the Twite or Mountain Linnet as it was locally called. You could walk the moors in July and come across half a dozen nests without really trying.The whole Pennine population must have been well over a thousand pairs. Last week the […]
Rooftop Lapwings
The practice of Lapwings roosting on the roof of Industrial Units has been going on locally for more than thirty years. In fact it started in Manchester and has now spread throughout the whole of Britain. My local flock peaked at 350 last week and may well increase further as Winter progresses. From the camera […]