Short-eared Owl Invasion

I’m told there hasn’t been a short-eared owl seen in this part of Surrey for the last 30 years. I can’t be sure that this is true, but the presence of 3, 4 or possibly 5 individuals on the local water meadows this winter is highly unusual and they’ve become local celebrities. The human observers frequently outnumber the owls several-fold.

Short-eared owl watched by human observers

It’s been a bumper year for voles, both in the UK and in Scandinavia where our crop of over-wintering short-eared owls originate. Consequently the owl population seems to have exploded and many of them have flocked to these shores to escape the icy conditions back home.

Short-eared owl in flight

Papercourt Meadows where the owls perform each afternoon is a gloriously serene stretch of the River Wey near Send Marsh, round the back of Ripley village.

Double rainbow over Papercourt Meadow Nature Reserve

Surrey Wildlife Trust graze one of the plots for conservation and the owls appear to like what they find in the grasses.

Short-eared owl montage with prey

With any luck the shorties will be resident with us for the remainder of the winter.

Oak Denizens After Dark

The English oak (Quercus robur) provides wonderful habitat for numerous creatures, but in the depths of a (relatively mild) British winter, they tend to keep a low profile. Wait an hour or so after dark however and the trunk of an unassuming oak tree suddenly becomes an insect super-highway:

Oak bush-cricket, harvestman and winter moths montage

A particularly interesting creature is the flightless female winter moth, which emerges from the ground and climbs the nearest trunk to liaise with the flighted male moth at altitude. She then lays her eggs high up in the canopy.

Female winter moth climbing oak tree

Male winter moth lying in wait

In a “good” year hundreds of female winter moths may be seen to climb the trunk of one tree in a single night. This is not necessarily good news for the tree however, as the caterpillars rapidly denude the leaves after emerging in the spring.

Taking photos of small wild creatures in the dark presents a few challenges!  To light these subjects I used an LED lamp mounted on a Manfrotto variable friction arm attached to my tripod. This is a lot more predictable than using flash in inhospitable outdoor conditions, but does require a relatively long exposure time. Many of these bugs will freeze in the bright white light required for conventional photography – not necessarily a bad thing for macro work, but it can alter their behaviour in an undesirable way. This young leopard slug was quickly in defensive posture for example, and remained so:

Young leopard slug

It’s also cold, dark and a little spooky in the woods after dark in December, so requires several thermal layers and a degree of commitment!

A Dorset Christmas

Dorset Wildlife Trust’s new collection of Christmas cards for 2011 includes one of my recent landscape photographs:

This was the wintry view from Swyre Head in the Isle of Purbeck looking west to Kimmeridge Bay, and Lulworth beyond, back in December.

This design and others are available to purchase from the Dorset Wildlife Trust’s online shop in packs of 10, with profits going to the charity.

The snow did not settle for long, and by the following afternoon was in rapid retreat.

Images of Durlston

I was delighted to be voted Winner in the Spring / Summer 2011 ‘Images of Durlston’ photo competition earlier this month, with this image of a juvenile peregrine patrolling the clifftops:

Juvenile peregrine in flight on clifftops

Durlston Country Park and Nature Reserve is located on the south coast of Dorset just outside Swanage.

I was fortunate enough to be a regular volunteer at Durlston for more than 2 years. This shot was taken on a brief return visit in July of this year, with a Canon EF 100-400mm lens and a bit of luck.

Two peregrines fledged in the area this year and could regularly be seen from the coast path over the summer - alternately terrorising the nesting seabirds on the cliffs below and testing their new wings in mock aerial combat with each other, and with their increasingly unamused parents.

Boldermere Hobbies

A former boating lake beside the A3 dual-carriageway in Surrey around rush-hour is not the first place you’d go looking for hobbies in the UK. But a pair of these young raptors fledged at Boldermere Lake this summer on land managed by the Surrey Wildlife Trust.

I’ve had good views of hobbies in Dorset before as they pursue their favoured dragonfly food, and whilst it’s reasonably easy to capture them eating their prey mid-flight, snapping the fleeting moment in which they close in and grasp their nimble prey is another matter.

On this particular gloriously warm and sunny September afternoon I sat by the lake shore and waited as a pair of birds arrived from the neighbouring heathland and began one of many bombing runs up and down the lake in front of me.

A handful of shots managed to freeze this aerial ballet between predator and would-be prey for a moment:

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When one of the hobbies paused from the fray in the branches of a pine overlooking the lake it was even joined by a sparrowhawk, which must have been studying its technique with some envy:

Hobby and female sparrowhawk

To the victor, the spoils:

Hobby with dragonfly prey

Talbot Heath Inquiry

Talbot Heath lies largely unnoticed on the outskirts of Bournemouth. Once upon a time it formed a seamless part of the famous expanse of heathland familiar to Thomas Hardy and his contemporaries. Nowadays it’s sliced apart by bypass and railway to north and south, and nibbled away at by encroaching residential developments to the east and west. The sea of heathland has become an island here.

Most of the locals clearly love this precious green (and brown) open space but its close proximity to human habitation regularly puts the heathland flora and fauna at risk from fire and other degradations. The effects of arson in particular, but also the predations of local cats, litter and path erosion present a considerable threat to this Ramsar and SSSI designated site.

The local council in their wisdom recently approved a planning application to extend a housing development in the north, onto farmland which currently serves as a buffer between urban and heathland areas. This decision was controversial for several reasons, but especially because it appeared to override a government directive which prevented new developments within 400m of heathland sites.

The RSPB and other conservation bodies became worried that this development might set a dangerous precedent and the decision eventually went to a Public Inquiry. As part of their submission to the Inquiry I was asked to document the site photographically for the RSPB and their partners at Natural England.

Following 3 visits to the site in late spring 2011 I delivered a library of 300+ selected images, depicting the Talbot Heath landscape, its flora & fauna, human visitors, and urban effects.

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Upton Heath Fire

In the scorchingly hot, dry month of June 2011, Upton Heath near Poole in Dorset caught fire. I happened to be on the Arne peninsula at the time, and recorded this video footage from the opposite side of Poole Harbour:

Fanned by strong winds, the fire spread rapidly to become the largest heathland blaze in Dorset for decades.

Upton Heath was home to some of the UK’s rarest wild creatures, including the smooth snake, sand lizard and dartford warbler.

Over the following few days I documented the aftermath of the fire for the RSPB and Natural England, with permission of the Dorset Wildlife Trust’s team on-site:

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