Strange mating ritual - laying eggs in tandem!

Yesterday I was fortunate to watch what seemed to me to be a very strange example of insect mating behaviour. On sunny days I keep an eye out for dragonflies at the pond and yesterday noticed a small red coloured one buzzing around and resting on the lily leaves. When I came back with the camera I saw that there were now two of them flying joined tail to head - they were flying in tandem. I was mystified. They couldn't be mating because the business end of the dull coloured one at the back was too far from whatever the red one at the front had in the way of wedding tackle. That was strange enough, but then something even stranger began. The red one, whom I took to be the male, seemed to be thrashing the water with the brown one. The two together were using a whipping action to bring the tail of the brown one down to the water for a fraction of a second - again and again, moving round the margins of the pond. I had seen dragonfly egg laying before and this was clearly what these two were up to, but why on earth were they doing it together? The male could not have been passing sperm so why was he there?

I got on the internet and looked it up. Whoever named the species must have been having a bad day for names:  this small red damselfly turned out to be exactly that - a Small Red Damselfly. Interestingly they are rare so this was quite significant. I also found a name for the behaviour "Oviposition in Tandem" but no explanation. The only  bit of evidence I could find was an extract from an experiment which seemed to show that the female gains nothing from having a male gripping her head with his tail. It must therefore benefit the male - presumably it is to prevent other males getting to her before she lays his eggs.

The next time I stood by the pond with the camera ready one male looked as if he was standing guard. He was perched at the edge of a lily leaf scanning the air above and around the pond with his enormous eyes, twitching his head from side to side. As soon as anything moved in his territory he was off chasing it. If it turned out not to be a female small red etc. he would return to his look-out post. If he caught a female the two would fly around the pond in tandem. I couldn't tell whether this behaviour always leads to egg laying, but it seems a reasonable assumption that the grip of the male would trigger egg laying behaviour.

I would be interested to know if anyone else has come across this - or seen on of these handsome little beasts.

A day not wasted

I'm in Pembrokeshire, and a strong warm wind from the south is blowing drizzle across the shore. It's been a depressing day, which began with the expected news that the boat which would take me from Martin's Haven to Skokholm Island will not go today -  it's too windy.  That means I've lost one of the 4 days I have booked to stay on this wild, bird-rich  island.

I have a choice. I can sit here at Martin's Haven in the campervan watching the drizzle or I can go somewhere else and watch the drizzle.  I go somewhere else: Milford Haven and wander round the docks. In the afternoon I walk down the track to Marloes Mere fully expecting to see the duck, the one duck which is always to be found at any nature reserve with water. There were more than one but too far away. The hide is empty but for me and so is the water in front of it until slowly, gracefully, a family of swans appears. Two of the cygnets pose for photographs so my day improves.  

I go back to the campsite and decide to walk round the headland - the last bit of mainland Pembrokeshire before Skomer Island and the Atlantic. The cliffs are high and there's a big grey seal looking like some dead thing floating in the water way below. I have my camera with the big lens with a rain cover, but the big grey seal just lies there and won't pose for photographs and the ubiquitous small brown birds remain just out of range in the mist.  

Then I catch a glimpse of a gannet out at sea. By the time I get to the headland it has gone, but that's OK.  Where there is one there may be another. If it's fishing it may come back. I  have already some pictures of gannets but not good ones and this graceful bird is still on my top ten wish list to photograph.

So I wait. I find a place where I can see a good arc of cliffs and I wait.

This is what wildlife photography is all about. You learn how to anticipate the behaviour of your target. Gannets patrol in wide circles - like this one: it's too far out but I centre it in the view finder and follow, keeping my thumb on the autofocus button. It moves away, but there is a second gannet so I focus on this one as it swings out in a wide arc and comes towards me. 

It's in focus and I'm shooting: click click click. It's still coming towards me and I keep shooting. My heartbeat is rising. It's STILL coming towards me and IT'S STILL IN FOCUS! click click click click. 

Bliss. I have the shot. Somewhere in amongst the 30 or so shots is the best shot yet of a gannet. I punch the air! What a great day.

A Moment of Triumph

For much of the time since I last wrote here it's been like living in a tunnel. Ahead and behind is the same. Look back and all you can see is dull dark days with the rain falling. Look ahead at the weather forecast and the picture is the same. There have been some bright days when we have emerged from the tunnel for a brief respite, but then once more everything is drenched. The water pours in from next door, flooding the garden, or comes in from the road to do the same.

We had another dose last night, but that was probably because it was 29th of Feb and it got left over from another universe! Now there is more light and its colder and drier. We had a dark spring in December and will no doubt have light winter in March.

When I can't do gardening or bird photography or walking I sit here writing, and for the first time in my life I believe I  have a chance of success.

Months ago I decided to try to write a commercial thriller. I read lots of "how to" books and articles, pinched ideas from all over the place, used my own character as a basis for the main character and started to put it together. With few expectations I put the opening chapters of "Lucas and the Girl from the Sea" on "Youwriteon", a peer reviewing website I had used before, deciding to use my middle name Stewart as a nom-de-plume. To get your own work reviewed you have to review and give marks to a randomly chosen sample from another member.

 The first few reviews I received were quite encouraging and pointed out a few obvious problems with the first draft, so after much re-writing I pasted up a second draft. I was clocking up credit points by doing review after review, but reviews of "Lucas" in return were very slow to arrive. Gradually they began to mount up and they were good. At one point my cumulative score was 4.5 out of 5 and to my astonishment I found myself at nr 3 in the "Top Ten". From April onwards the best of the top ten get reviewed by commercial publishers so there is quite an incentive to get there.

St David's day was rapidly approaching and the big question was "had I scored enough points for the computer to put me in the top ten for the month?" Yesterday morning we all had to wait until 11am for the top ten for the month of February. I was at number one!

 http://youwriteon.com/charts/best-sellers.aspx

Please click on 'Lucas' and let me know what you think.

Some changes

This weblog has gone through several metamorphoses, and the most recent one is mainly devoted to my travels this year around Britain, mostly alone in the camper van. The main focus of these trips has been on bird watching and photography so there will be lots of photographs, and the occasional bit of nerdy technical stuff about optical gear. At the same time I am trying to improve my writing technique so the words are important. I do very little to publicise it so don't expect much in the way of comments - although they are very welcome if you feel inspired.

Unless the very mention of camper vans, birds, and photographs acts like a crucifix on a vampire then I hope you will find something to enjoy.

The Brotherhood of the Canonites

Visiting bird reserves not much more than a year ago, I would laugh at the old men festooned with great heavy lenses and telescopes and tripods and backpacks and binoculars. I would travel light - just a pair of compact Hawke 20 x 8 binoculars, and a  small compact camera with a x30 zoom.
Why should I get anything heavier and a lot more expensive when I can get pictures like these, all taken with the Sony HX 50?

Now I'm one of them. I'm a Canonite!

How on earth did that happen? Perhaps the first part of my downfall was getting a book on wildlife photography for Christmas - page after page of gorgeous sharp images, and lots of technical information about cameras, lenses, tripods, and all the rest. I realised that the more distant pictures I had been so pleased to capture with my little camera didn't show up so well when close cropped on a big screen. None of them were really sharp. Before the HX50 I'd owned a Sony Nex 5 inter-changeable lens camera. with its large 25mm sensor it took great pictures, but the longest lens I could get was a 200, and I found I was constantly swapping lenses to get different views. I didn't want to go down the multi-lens route again so perhaps a "Bridge" camera would suit me. Even the best of them are quite cheap and have long zoom lenses. I spent hours trawling through photography web-sites until the awful truth dawned that hardly any of them had a sensor bigger than my little Sony.

There was one though - the Panasonic FZ1000 - which had a 25mm censor and was very well reviewed. The only problem was it did not have the big zoom - only about x16. However, that was still the 35mm equivalent of some massive lump of glass costing thousands. I bought it, and it was excellent. Here are some of the pictures:

Lat last  year I'd set aside a chunk of capital to buy a patch of land behind the house. For various reasons I decided not to buy the land. It was very disappointing because I loved the idea of  having more land to plant and develop, so as compensation I decided to blow a small amount of it on what every bird-watcher aspires to - a telescope. The big idea was to bypass the big lens cameras and use the telescope with a compact camera or phone to take pictures - it's called "digiscoping"

Again I did plenty of research and found that those with ED in the name were much clearer than the cheaper ones without. I had almost decided to go for an Olivon 80mm ED on Ebay but got chatting to one of the staff at RSPB Newport Levels, and he sold me their Harrier ED model. I stayed the night nearby and next day carried the telescope and my tripod on a long walk to a distant hide (much longer than I needed to I later found out.) Using my Lumia 930 phone which has a very good camera, I was bitterly disappointed with the results. I found it very difficult even to use the telescope - it moved too much.
Now believing I had made a bad purchase I went back to the RSPB man who had spent so long and done such good selling job on me. He was very reluctant to offer a refund and in the end convinced me that I had made a good purchase. The trouble was he then sold me a much sturdier, heavier tripod!

As I got to know the telescope better I got better results with the phone camera and really enjoyed using it to watch and identify the more distant birds. All the time I was learning more and more about bird photography - especially from this very helpful website:

http://mikeatkinson.net/index.htm

I had reached the limits of what could be done with telescope and phone, and found I could rarely get close enough with the Panasonic. The more I learnt the higher my aspirations grew. By now I had developed a good relationship with the excellent Carmarthen Cameras. Their after-sales service is all  you could ask for, and they are willing to spend any amount of time demonstrating and advising. To keep this relationship going I would regularly buy from them even though I knew I could get the item cheaper online. Every week I would get their email message and in September we were all invited to their open day on the university campus in Carmarthen. Most of the stalls were manned by experts from the camera companies so we were able to try out a great range of stuff and get the inside information on it. I tried out some of the big lenses on DSLR camera bodies and could scarcely believe how heavy they were. My main contact at CC is Joe so I cornered him:

"Listen Joe, what I really want is a single device which does it all - identify and photograph birds at a distance and nearby, and not need a wheelbarrow to carry around. Is there such a thing?"
"Yes - it's only just come on the market - the Nikon Coolpix P900. It has the biggest zoom on the market - up to 80 times magnification."
"Wow - what's the quality like."
"Excellent. Go and try it out - on the Nikon stall."
I did and I also tried out the other combination I was thinking about - a Nikon DSLR body with another new phenomenon the Tamron 150 - 600 lens. I could see advantages with both, but I was not ready to spend yet more money. The thought would not go away though and some weeks later  I went back to the shop, armed with my own memory card and laptop. I would try both combinations on the card and compare the images on the laptop. That should sort it out.

Joe and his colleague spent at least an hour with me. I'd just about decided to blow the extra money and get the DSLR and Tamron lens. Even though it was a lot heavier and more cumbersome than the P900 it did have a bigger sensor and more glass means more light means better pictures.

"Right" I said, "I'm going to get some lunch. I'll examine the pictures and come back later."

To my surprise I found that a mid range direct comparison of the same scene on both combinations gave the advantage to the P900. Joe was convinced it was the right one for me but they were so popular it was difficult to get hold of one. The one I had tried was promised to another customer. He went away to talk to the boss and came back saying:
"I've done a bit of a fiddle and I can let  you have this one. I'll just have to hope we get a  replacement in time."
So that was it - my third camera in a year. It looked and felt great, though the viewfinder was far from brilliant. With the big lens extended if  felt and looked  like a proper piece of pro kit. (Men with big lenses extended . . hm.)  I was really looking forward to giving it an exhaustive trial at the wonderful Leighton Moss reserve in Lancashire, near where Thelma and I were planning a short holiday. These are some of the pictures:

While the quality at the extreme range is surprisingly good (the crow) , the only way I could get really clear pictures was to get close - 10 metres or so. Birds in flight were quite a problem because the autofocus was not very fast.

Throughout my life I have learnt by doing. It's not the best way - far better to learn from someone else's mistakes - but it's what I do. I was not that happy with the pictures I was getting and a phrase from this blog kept going round in my head: http://mikeatkinson.net/Tutorial-3-Equipment.htm

"Make no mistake, if you're spending under £1000 on a bird photography lens and you don't buy the Canon 400mm f/5.6, you will regret it!"

So, finally I bit the bullet and followed his advice. I sold the Nikon P900 for only a little less than I paid for it, bought the Canon EOS 70D body and the 400mm lens. My first proper trial was at the Newport Wetlands. I'd stayed in the van near the hides and was able to get pictures in both evening and morning light, and it was just as the evening light was fading that I saw a group of godwits take to the air. With the high motor drive on, the speed set at 500th, aperture 5.6 I was amazed to find that the autofocus snapped onto the flock immediately:

This was the breakthrough. It's the fast autofocus and relative lightness which gives this lens the edge. There's no image stabilisation so you have to keep the shutter speed high when hand holding, and if the autofocus struggles you know the light is too poor. It has limitations, but for me it looks like the right compromise and I love using it. Thank you Mike Atkinson for good advice! I am now a fully paid up member of the Brotherhood of the Canonites and proud of it.

Here are some more pictures:

So, I've come a long way this year. The next  big challenge is to reduce my reliance on reserves and ready-made hides. I plan to do a study of the jackdaws in the village, the dippers on the river and red kites at the nest. That should keep me busy next year.

Anyone reading this - have a great Christmas!

The Pink-Foot Spectacular

12 December 2015

Snettisham

Having stayed the night as a guest of her majesty - not under restraint but in a caravan site on the Sandringham estate - I decided to drive home since the weather had deteriorated. However, I had seen  something about "pink-foot walks" which took place at Snettisham. The pink foot name has nothing to do with sore feet but relates to one of our less common wintering wild geese, the Pink Foot. Evidently at dawn, when the tide is high, you can see huge flocks of geese and waders taking to the air. With not much phone signal I was struggling to get the internet but managed to find out where Snettisham was -  only 10 miles away. Then with great difficulty I found the tide tables. High tide was at 7, and it was then 6am. First light would be around 7.20. The next thing was to find the weather forecast, but I just could not get the right page to load on my phone. Expecting rain, I was prepared to give up the whole idea when a thought struck:

"Hang on you prat. Why not look out of the door!"

I did and saw a clear sky just beginning to lighten a little, but still showing a few stars. The rain would no doubt come later. I had time for a  warming breakfast of porridge and coffee on a rough lay-bye just before the RSPB car park, which was barred to high vehicles. It was 300 metres to the car park and as I loaded up camera, binoculars and the other bits like phone and spare batteries, there was just enough light to see the path. It turned out to be a 1.5km walk from there to the first hide, but that was OK - it already felt like an adventure, and I welcomed the exercise in the cold morning air.  After what seemed like a long time skirting various fishing lakes, the path climbed up the side of  a dyke and I looked forward to a view of the Wash or at least an expanse of salt-marsh. What I saw brought me down to earth with a bump. There, right in front of me, was a caravan park. On and on went the path through the caravans, round more lakes - former gravel diggings for the air-fields of the last war, now brackish lagoons, littered with broken concrete and decorated with a row of small houses in all sorts of styles. Clearly this part of the reserve was not one of the stunning  wild places so beloved of the writers of RSPB leaflets.

Eventually I got to the shingle beach. The sun was beginning to rise behind me and in front was the vast expanse of water, mud and sand which is the Wash. Already swans and a few geese were flying over and way out over the sand I could see flocks of waders shining suddenly as they all turned together. There was a group of people up ahead and I guessed they were on the "pink-foot walk". We all stood looking out to sea and listening to the soundscape of bird calls.

Then something happened. Away to the west a black cloud rose. Moving like a flowing liquid it spread  up and out across the water. As it moved we began to hear the most extraordinary sound. It was sibilant, continuous, like a giant miles away slowly breathing out; like an endless wave breaking along an endless shore, and within it were faintly musical tones.

This was obviously a flock of birds and was making the sort of looping and swirling shapes made famous by the great starling roosts in the cities. This flock was not starlings, but a much bigger bird  - countless thousands of Pink Footed Geese. The flock was moving rapidly towards us and as it came, the mass dissolved into skeins - hundreds of interlocking and ever changing V formations. The noise grew but was never loud - you felt the geese were not shouting, but murmuring to each other. They flew over our heads and made towards the growing light in the east - on their way to feed on sugar beet tops  provided for them by benevolent farmers, who get help to compensate for the damage they do.

Thank you geese and friendly farmers  for a spectacle I will never forget. The tedious prospect of the long drive home was lifted.

Breckland to Birdland

11 December 2015

Just before you get to Downham Market the flat lands give way to a much more natural looking landscape - The Brecks. This is the top end of a  400 square mile area of sandy and chalky soil spanning Norfolk and Suffolk. It's the driest part of Britain (one of the reasons I'm here), the most flinty and it has the biggest lowland forest at Thetford. Brecks were temporary fields in soil too unfertile to grow crops every year. The area was once a veritable rabbit factory with dozens of guarded warrens sending up to 20,000 rabbits each to market for meat,  and supporting a fur industry.

Much of the old heathland has been "improved" of course with commercial forests and arable farming, but this northern part is an undulating mix of pine trees and small fields. Most of the old houses in north Norfolk seem to be made of round flints set in frames of mellow brick. Clearly the planning authorities insist on this vernacular style for new buildings too:

The grandeur of the church in the little village of Cley suggests a long history of prosperity, perhaps partly based on wind power:

Fascinating though it is I'm not here for the history. This trip is strictly for the birds, and Cley is Birdland Central - the legendary heartland of the twitcher, the place with a longer list of rarities than anywhere else except possibly the next village along the coast - or the next. Cley Marshes nature reserve dates back to 1926 and was the blueprint for many later establishments.

I spent the afternoon and the next morning on the reserve, mostly standing or sitting in hides, festooned with optical  gear, and waiting. At the most distant hide late in the afternoon - that's 3pm at this time of year - I met Carl Chapman, one of those fortunate people who make a living from nature watching. He told me where to find a bird I hardly knew existed - a red-necked grebe. I said I wasn't really a twitcher  - "Ah, no it's not just for the sake of seeing it, but it is easy to photograph - just hangs around the harbour at Brancaster Staithe."  He mentioned a rough-legged buzzard too, but I was not confident I would be able to identify that one. There was little to see from the hide but we had an interesting conversation before it became too gloomy. He runs wildlife tours and has a blog about Norfolk birds.

There were plenty of Marsh Harriers patrolling up and down, but none came near enough to improve on the pictures I took the day before:

I decided to come back at first light  (8am) the next day. It was dull and cold. An occasional harrier would be seen in the distance but the only break in a long 2 hours was when a flock of Brent Geese flew over.

I'd had enough of Cley so decided to go to the RSPB reserve at Titchwell. The road went through Brancaster Staithe so I drove down to the harbour to see if the grebe was there. The man with the tripod and telescope had to be a bird man so I asked him if the grebe was there.

"Oh yes, just over there - but it's just dived."

I went back to the van, got the camera and tripod out and set up near where he was. Bird watchers don't attract much curiosity round here - they're part of the scenery. I focus on the patch of water where the grebe went down and hey presto - there is it, bang in my sights. Because my lens has no image stabilisation I usually have it set on 1/500 second to freeze most of the movement, but with a tripod I can try at lower speed. I also fit the x1.4 extender to the lens which gives it a bit more reach but on a gloomy day also cuts down the amount of light reaching the sensor. With the bird too far away and with poor light none of the images I take are really clear, but for the record this undistinguished looking creature is the rare Red Necked Grebe - in its drab winter colours:

 

The only other rarity I saw  was a Water Pipet which had turned up at Titchwell Marsh, further north-west along the coast. There was a small group looking intently across a lagoon when I arrived at the screen. I asked them what was there - "The Water Pipet - here have a look." I peered through the telescope and there was a little bird a long way off looking just like any other pipet. I had to try and photograph it but by the time I got the tripod assembled it had disappeared and I missed a nice shot of a godwit in flight. Lesson - it's a good picture I'm after whatever the subject may be. Rarities are only of interest to me if they are in their natural habitat.