How to cheat at wildlife photography…

By asking the question, how wild is the wildlife if they start realising that you’ve got suet coated mealworm and look out for you?

My student daughter and I have set ourselves a challenge to improve our photography this summer. She is bold and brave, and beautiful (says her doting Mum), so she focuses on wild birds. I tend to prefer landscapes and sailing boats because they either don’t move at all, or don’t move as fast. Birds, on the other hand, let me get my camera set up and then fly gleefully away.

Add to that the fact that Harbourside is now being maintained for wildlife, so there are gorgeous wildflowers, butterflies, dragonflies and it’s no wonder that the starlings, sparrows, blackbirds, tits in various colours, and robins are arriving in force.

I like these small birds. I like their cheekiness and intelligence and when you see how many of them are on the Red List of birds who are in popular decline in the UK then I, at least, think something should be done. Encouraging them into my back garden where my two cats laze the day away isn’t a good idea to encourage their survival, so I have a bird table in the front garden where they come and one robin sits on the living room window and sings at me in the early morning until I nip out and add just a few extra mealworms for him.

So we had the mealworms, we had the desire to take better pictures, and yes, I can tell you that it works. On the third day, we tried it, they arrived when they saw us coming! And, as you can see from these pictures, they’re gorgeous and I am so lucky to have this space a mere twenty minutes walk from home. Normally, I show you the lovely views. Today, I’m going for the area by the car park where they’re training the visitors. It’s all reclaimed land and was made using landfill rubbish sixty years ago. Today, it’s a Site of Special Scientific Interest and is loved by walkers and cyclists. That’s one of the reasons why it always makes me feel better. We can co-exist with wildlife, and we can all be better for it. That, I like to think, is a sign of hope in what is all too often a sad old world.

Here’s hoping that today is good for you and all those you love, and my heart goes out to all those in the places where terrible things are happening.