Wildlife photo walk from home.

While the videos and blog post have still been coming out, I haven’t actually gone out photographing since the end of January when I was on my winter wildlife tour in Scotland. There have been a few factors that have led to this, not least the fact that it has been a very constant grey here in the UK for most of the winter. However, with spring around the corner, and a glorious sunny day ahead, I am up out with the camera, attempting a local wildlife photography walk from home.

I head off from home about 07:30 with just my camera, shoulder strap and my Osmo Action 5 pro mounted on my head to see what we can see and, hopefully, photograph. With the sun out and the birds calling, it was a beautiful start to the day. In the trees and hedges off the road I was walking, there was a lot of activity. I found it a bit challenging to get going, as the sun was in front of me, so I tried to focus off to the side a bit, to get my first images.

The reflexes were a bit slow off the mark first thing, but I did mange to get the walk off to a good start with a grey squirrel in the trees ahead of me.

Next up were a pair of great tits that were foraging amongst the leaf litter and trees. I managed to get an image of one down on the ground, before it moved up into the trees. I am quite happy with both of these images, however, they both have quite distracting objects really close the camera, which I feel lets them down a bit, but it does give me something to work on, to try and pay more attention to what else is in the viewfinder other than just the subject, but this can be difficult when dealing with wildlife as you have no control over where they are or where they will go.

Moving on down the road, we come to a more open area where in the past there have been loads of rabbits, however the last couple of years have seen there numbers drop off. I regularly walk this route and pass at a similar time of day when I go running, and haven’t seen any rabbits out at all, until this morning! As I wasn’t expecting them, I wasn’t ready or in a good position, I continued pass, and moved into the woods (I have permission from the landowner to photography over their land) to tried and get a better view, but unfortunately the rabbits had moved on, and though I waited a while, with the day drawing on, I chose to continue on up into the woods. I did see a robin, up high in one of the nearby trees, which was nice to see and listen to.

In the woods I stopped and waited at some of the lager trees, to help give me a bit of cover. I managed to get this image of a dunnock, that was searching through the leaf litter for its breakfast. I really like this image, but it was a shame that the dunnock wasn’t looking towards me, as I feel that would have really made this image go from OK to good.

The crows were not happy with my presence in the woods, and made their displeasure very vocal, so I continued on to the top of the woods and back out into the fields. I did see a rabbit right across the way, but with no cover for me to approach behind, I left it and moved on, following the line of the woods along the top.

Here I saw a woodpecker at the top of some big ol’ trees. Unfortunately, I missed the first one I saw, but luckily for me, a female few in, on the closer tree and started to feed. This was brilliant to see, though I have these beautiful birds regularly visiting my garden (it may even be these actual woodpeckers), it was great to see them out in a more ‘wild’ environment.

I then moved on to where I had seen some stonechats over winter on my walks with Skylar. There was no cover here, which was causing me some issues, however, I did manage to get one image of a male stone chat on the dead ferns, before he moved on. It was a bit distant to make it a real keeper, but it was nice to get a photo of one.

I worked my way down a line of trees where I saw a thrush, as well as a buzzard off in the distance. Walking back up the other side of these trees, I was able to get some images of another great tit, again this one is a bit busy with branches, I was able to move around to get a bit of a clearer view, but there was just this one pesky branch out behind it that I couldn’t get around. I know I could use generative AI to remove this in post, but I like to keep my images as ‘real’ as possible which is why I don’t generally crop much (though I will shoot in crop mode, as that is still in camera), and don’t remove things like branches that others may do.

When I was almost at the top of the hill, I did start to wonder if I would see some of the bird of prey that I usually see soaring low over top, which was just when not one but 3, buzzards that were on the ground and hidden from my view by a bit of a rise in the hill, took flight away from me. I was not expecting to see them down in the ground and was not at all ready for this, so I am taking that as a learning experience, to be ready next time!

I made my way over the top, towards another path, and had a bit of a stroll down, amongst the beautiful flowering gorse bushes. I LOVE these bushes, the flowers on them are just beautiful and when in full bloom smell amazing! I waited here for a bit, to see if any birds would land on the gorse, but alas, my knees were not happy with my stance, so I moved on after about a 10-minute wait. I did get to see a chiffchaff, giving the morning it’s all, but again was hampered by some inconvenient branches.

I walked into and around the next field, hoping to find some more birds in there, but alas it didn’t come together for me there, I did stop to sit and listen to the morning’s songs and just take in the beauty of the day, while I hadn’t been that successful, it was brilliant just to be out in the sunshine.

I started to walk back towards home, and came across a black bird in one of the trees close to the path, but again was hampered by a branch in front of the bird. On my way down through the woods, I was hoping to see nuthatch or tree-creepers, which I know are there as I have seen them regularly on my dog walks. I did get to see one tree-creeper, on a distant tree, and waited in the hopes that it would make its way closer, however it had the opposite idea and moved onto a tree even further back.

On my way home, I did get to see and photograph a dunnock on the farmers, freshly-ish preened hedge, as it landed pretty much in front of me, and I am really happy with these images, even if it did decide to land right next to literally the ONLY out of place, non-preened twig!

While my morning walk was over, I decided to head out again that evening to try my luck with the rabbits. Hoping that they had read the script, I headed out to wait and see what I could capture. The wind was not in my favour, for where I was hoping to set up and wait for them, so I moved up the hill a bit to wait it out there. It was a beautiful evening, but after waiting for over an hour, I decided to call it a day and head back as I was 1) getting hungry and 2) the light was pretty much gone, and would you know it, the little rabbits were out, just of view from me! Oh well, it just means I have to go back and try again!

While my images are not what I would call keeper images, I had a lovely time out in nature (and the sun), with my camera and have come away with a couple of goals that O would like to work on. The first one to capture an image of a bird – any bird, on the flowering gorse and the second, to try again at getting some decent rabbit images, while this place may not be the best for the image I have in my head, due to the grazing sheep keeping the grass growth at a minimum, I can use this for practice for when I do find an area that I feel will work for the images I have in my head.