Photographing my local hares has been somewhat challenging and having been on multiple occasions, at different times of the year, they have still eluded me. Not to be put off however, I decided once again to try again one early morning at the beginning of October.
It was incredibly cold, with the first ice (and so far only ice) of the year, on the windscreen of my car. Once I arrived at my parking spot, I layered up and headed off thermal in hand to get into position before the light came up,
I had done a recce one evening in the week, and somehow managed to miss the rather large heard of cows that were in all the hare fields! Thankfully I was able to avoid them and get into position on the main field with my back to the hedge. I had seen some hares through my hand-me-down thermal I got earlier in the year from my Dad and knew that there were hares here. It was just a case of sitting and waiting and hoping for the best.
With the light being low, I set my camera up on a gimbal, and used my 3D camo hood to cover my face. There were an awful lot of Herons in the field, I don’t think I have ever seen so many in one place before, but the first animal to photography were the Red Kites that were flying overhead. One had perched in the tree opposite and was shortly followed by a second and third! I think that these were a family of Kites as two of them were more lightly coloured and it was a pleasure to hear them calling and flying around the valley with the backdrop of a stunning sunrise.
It wasn’t just juvenile kites in the area, one of the Grey Herons nearby also had the looks of a juvenile, with its prominent grey plumage.
One of the younger kites landed in the field, where I managed to get some video footage, before switching back to photos just as a Fox stalked past the kite! While it disappeared out of view, it was amazing to see it in the background of the images and could be a new photography target for me as I have not yet had the chance to photograph one of these beautiful creatures properly.
After getting a bit cold and with absolutely no sign of any hares, I did a loop around the fields to see if they could be in one of those. Unfortunately, with no sightings, other than some of those cow-pat hares showing up in the thermal scope, I decided that rather than just head home, I would pop down the river for a walk to see if I could spot anything there.
Immediately, I spotted a White Throated Dipper! I set myself up under the bridge and managed to get some images of it, before it flew off up the river. While these are not really anything to write home about, due to the perches and backgrounds being a bit messy, it was nice to be able to get some images.
The day was still early, so I strolled up river in the hopes of finding a spot to sit and wait and see if any wildlife came my way. I was quite hard to choose a spot to sit, but ended up on a log on the banks, watching over a large tree that had been washed down river many years previously, in the hope that something would perch on it.
As I waited, I spotted a grey squirrel down at the waters edge and climbing on a different fallen tree and I managed to get an environmental image of it that I am quite happy with.
With no other signs of life – apart from the many sheep in the field, I decided it was time to head back to the car, I slowly made my way back down the river and spotted something out of the corner of my eye, with my camera in hand, I was able to get a closer look at it, and to my surprise it was an Otter, not only that but a family of otters playing on the rocks around the bridge! What an amazing sight to see.
I carefully got my camo mask back out and on, and crept a little closer, to get into a better shooting position as the otters were underwater.
The cubs were playing on the rocks, taking it in turns to climb up and jump back into the river, while they were under, I was able to creep a bit closer and using the aps-c mode got some closer images of this. While these are not the best images out there, with the focus of the 200-600 not locking on 100% to all of the frames as the otter made its dive into the water, being able to witness this behaviour first hand and locally was the stuff of dreams.
Over the course of 20 minuets I had these otters all to myself, watching them hunt and consume so massive cray fish, and just be in awe of these stunning creatures that I 100% never imagined I would be seeing, let alone taking images of at the river.
The moment was eventually ended by a passer-by on the footpath that follows the other side of the river, coming down to sit under the bridge to have a cigarette, absorbed so fully in what he was looking at on his phone, fully believe he had no idea what he had interrupted. Sitting down exactly where, moments earlier the otters had been feeding.
I took this as my own cue to leave, and headed back to the car, heart full with what I had just witness, especially as this came at a time that I needed it most for my own personal reasons, that I won’t go into in this blog post.