Wildlife Photography

Librarians with a website and a digital SLR, your nightmare has come true :-)

Travelog

Another day another trip wildlife watchingSo this time we went a little further afield than our usual spots in Coventry. It is now quite an adventure going outside of the Coventry metro area, as you cannot be sure that you will be able to afford the petrol prices when you get to where you are going.

Bradgate Park was the destination this time, a mighty 30 miles from home, or about £15 in fuel as costs are now :-(.

Bradgate Country Park is the site of the former home to Lady Jane Grey, the young girl beheaded a couple of centuries ago for trying to claim the throne of England. Also, and more interesting to us, it is the home to herds of Red and Fallow deer, and what lovely creatures they are.

Last time we visited we were met by very large herds of mostly Red deer, with a few Fallow thrown into the mix. This time there were only a couple of Reds, and a smallish group of Fallow, mostly young males. We suspect that as it is calfing time around about now, they were all in the deeper woods birthing and/or caring for newborns. I think another trip may be on the cards soon.

It was a delightful day, apart from a couple of kids being silly and trying to chase the deer. Have you seen the size of a Red deer stag? Dangerous is not the word. We told them off, politely and the kids were then as good as gold.

The Fallow herd hovered around Cropston Reservoir, generally looking gorgeous, and tasty as a couple of wags pointed out (as in Venison), and we took a couple of hundred shots of them.

Lovely place, lots of people, deer you can approach and photograph, and a generally great place to be.
A trip to our favourite local wildlife spotThe love of my life is at work, doubtless working her little fingers to the bone, and here sit I, in pain and bored to tears. So I went to Brandon Marsh Nature Reserve, a lovely spot which is full of wildlife and natural things on the edge of the madness that is urban Coventry.The weather was not looking that good, warm sure, but alternately cloudy and then sunny and then looks like thunder on the way, you know how things are in the British springtime. Took my Nikon and 500mm lens anyway (they usually stay at home when it looks like rain).It was really lovely, managed to take a couple of dozen shots, mostly of the wild flowers and a couple from the bird hides, of a Redshank, and then the battery went flat. Being a fool, I forgot to check the level before getting in the car :-) silly man.Anyway, put the Nikon away and off we go with the Samsung 10mp compact. and I found loads of beetles mating and generally looking pretty in their flourescent green and red coats. So I spent a happy hour getting stung by nettles and photographing insects of differing species.Great fun.See the gallery page for photos.May Bank HolidaySo this last weekend we went to Wales, our long time homestead of Aberystwyth. The weather was quite atrocious, but we had a good time anyway. We drove over in our little Mercedes, and the trip was not too bad, almost no holdups at all.We stayed with our friend CEK, in Bow Street, near Aberystwyth (it's on the farthest reaches of the west coast), and took the opportunity to have a good trawl around our old stomping grounds of Aberystwyth, Llanbadarn Fawr Campus, and Nant yr Arian, Red Kite reserve.We also drive for what seemed like days in the most awful weather, through the Elan Valley, and I think it's fair to say we thoroughly enjoyed it. When you live in Wales you get used to being cold and wet

.Unfortunately we had to cut the trip a day short, as Kevin was unwell so apologies to Jayne H, for not meeting her as planned, next time...........Photo album relating to this trip here