May 2011    Photographers Resource - Monthly    Edition 89

Garden Wildlife, Bluebells and Windmills

• Editorial

• Feature - Garden Wildlife

• Photographers Diary

Following on from last months newsletter where we covered garden and flower photography we have decided, due in part to an amazing experience we have had in the past couple of weeks, to take a look at Garden Wildlife. Whether you live in the country, town or city there are many gardens available from your own personal space to community gardens and town parks, and as well as the statues, floral displays and green open spaces there will also be wildlife. Wildlife from frequent to occasional visitors, from large to the very small, from insects, mammals and birds. Whether the garden is large or small there is wildlife in it. Our main feature this month takes a look at Garden Wildlife, outlining some of what you might see and photograph through to how best to photograph it and some possible tips on how to get over some of the problems. Most of us having our own gardens mean that we do not have to travel far, but if you are able to get out further a field then don't forget all the wildlife in the countryside and the wildlife of the month section below gives you some ideas of what to look out for.

Bluebells should now be out in abundance in most parks and woodland spaces and living in Gloucestershire I am near to the famous Forest of Dean where within specific regions of the forest you can find many carpets of bluebells on the woodland floor and much of it near the roadside so is not difficult to get to. There is a drive from the Speech House Hotel in Coleford to Moseley Green where you can see carpets of them. In the Bluebells piece below you will find how to go about photographing, what to look out for and how to go about getting some good images using a combination of articles on this website, but also there is a list of some of the best locations throughout the UK where you can go to see and photograph them.

May is also the annual National Mills Weekend when many windmills and watermills, some which are not normally open to the public, open their doors for you to see how they work. The Windmill piece below gives you all the necessary links and also takes you to our Windmills  section where you can find one near you, as well as more information and history on some.

May having two sets of bank holidays, one at the beginning and another at the end means there are many activities and events for you to get out and photograph. From the mad cap hysterical to the historical and many country events. Around 100 are listed within our current month 'May' diary page and a highlight tour is given in the diary piece below.

Feature

Garden Wildlife

Whether your garden is large or small or even just a window box, in the country or in a town or city there will be garden wildlife around. The one advantage of having your own garden is you don't have to go anywhere, you can sit in your own garden space, or even in your house just looking out and you will see something.

You can start with the minute and very tiny such as aphids, ladybirds, caterpillars, beetles, flies and other types of bugs. Flora displays will attract bees, butterflies and other pollinators. If you have a pond then this will attract, frogspawn, tadpoles, frogs, dragonflies, damselflies, pond skaters and more. If there is no pond even a water feature will attract some of these.

So what sort of wildlife might you find in your garden, and you will be surprised. In the past month we have had a mother fox and two cubs in our very small back garden and we live in the middle of Cheltenham in Gloucestershire. The cubs spent most of their day in a very small gap between the back of our garage and the perimeter wall. Mum would usually be curled up in a ball on a small grass heap under our very large back hedges when we got up in the mornings, and once the cubs had been fed she would disappear for most of the day, returning in the evening to once again feed them and then curl up on her favourite spot for a good nights sleep. As the cubs got a little older they were a bit more adventurous and would peak out of their hidey hole when she wasn't around and play with each other on the path that runs down the side of the garage. When they were a little more confident that we were only looking from inside and not coming out, then they would come out onto the grass and play with each other, chase the leaves and grasses as they moved in the wind, catch little flies and creatures to eat and to remove some of the plant labels out of my plant pots, the strawberry plant labels seemed to be their favourite. This was a magical time for all the family and of course we were busy taking photos of them.  We photographed them through our large windows and in editing are able to remove any flair that has occurred, although mostly the images are good as taken. We have not seen them over the past few days, so can only assume that they were now big enough for mum to move them on, so we are a little disappointed but pleased that they choose our garden to have their first look on the world around them.

Young Foxes resting outside their Den

Living in the town we are not limited on wildlife, the foxes have been a treat this year, but other years we have had grey squirrels. We have a very small pond in our front garden and this year the frogs revisited and laid loads of frogspawn, and these have now turned into tadpoles and are gradually getting bigger as each day passes. I have also spotted this year pond skaters on the surface basking in the sunshine. Last year the odd damselfly also visited.

Amongst the garden we also have the smaller creatures. On my flowers during spring and summer I generally see a number of bees, snails are always having a go at the leaves of my plants, and we seem to have a large number of them all over the garden. I even had a macro session indoors with some of them, take a look at photographing snails to see how I got on. When photographing small wildlife like snails there are a number of considerations to take into account and many of the skills and techniques you will need are covered by macro photography. Caterpillars are also large in number in my garden this year, they particularly like my Basil plant. I think it was a caterpillar of a moth, but I have seen a number of butterflies about as well, from full whites, to the Orange Tip that is white with orange tips on its wings, to the Small Tortoiseshell. Whether it is a bee on a flower head having his fill of nectar and at the same time collecting the pollen to transfer to another plant, or a spider creating her web to trap the small flies that are about in their thousands in the early evening, they will all provide glorious images if you can take the time to stop, watch and learn their routines. Observation of small wildlife is not only done with the camera, but initially with your eyes as some move quickly and you need to keep up, while others are slow movers and you need to spend the time to work out where they are going next, take a read of Bird and Animal Behaviour to get an insight into how to interpret their behaviour and how you can use this information to get those photos you desire. You will miss more than you get, but it's great fun and the satisfaction obtained from seeing and photographing the miniature world is magic.

Bee on Lavender Stem   Christian Roberts

Moving on,  in the evening our hedges seem to attract large numbers of flies, but then that is good for another common wildlife site in our town garden, and these are bats. Many a dusky evening when I am upstairs in my study do I see the small bats flying speedily outside my study window. They are too fast to easily photograph, but their flash passes do catch my eye.

Unlike when we lived out in the countryside we do not have bird feeders in our garden, but we do have very large deep hedges, and our neighbour has very large apple trees so these are great places for the birds to hang out.

The first year we moved into this house, to my surprise I also captured a male pheasant, who had landed on top of our hedge. Having just then moved from the country where they were a common site, it was the last thing I expected to see so far in the centre of town. As I said previously we moved to the town from the countryside and there we lived on the outside of a small village, with a steam railway line running down the side of the garden. We had our own small orchard in the back and being surrounded by fields and wooded areas the wildlife we attracted there was great, but again most of our images were taken through windows. So what did we have visit in the country garden, well there were:- Badgers Foxes Rabbits, whole families with many young, their burrows were in the railway embankment and fields behind Pheasants also see Pheasant Gallery Partridges, both red-legged and grey Grey Squirrels - take a look at How to Photograph Squirrels for some tips on how to get the best of them Field Mice Shrews Grass snakes in the compost heap Many Garden Birds that were attracted by the feeders we had out, but as well as all the ones found in our town garden, listed above, we also had:-

Red Legged Partridge Red Legged Partridge Gallery

Regular visitors included:- Blue Tits Greenfinch Chaffinch Siskin Great Spotted Woodpeckers - whole families visited our bird feeders for the peanuts. Green Woodpeckers - liked the provision of ants in our grass, we had many anthill spots. Occasional Visitors were: - Bullfinch Nuthatch Mistle Thrush Starlings Crested Tit Dunnock Goldcrest Redwings and Fieldfares during the winter months Pied Wagtail Swallows nested in our barn during their summer visit Sparrowhawk - this one took a fancy to a woodpecker for dinner one day. Most of the images we were able to get were taken from inside the house through windows. The wildlife didn't mind coming close to the house to get the food put out for them. In fact the birds got so used to the camera peering out of the window at them,

Great Spotted Woodpecker Woodpecker Gallery

they were happy for us to open the window and get images of them through here as long as we didn't do any sudden movements. Taking images through windows throws up it's own challenges such as flare, contrast and reflections. There are steps you can take when capturing the image such as making sure you are positioned not to frighten the subject, but out of sight of any reflections, don't photograph into the light and others. However if you do take an image which is affected by flare, like the one on the left below, then it can be improved if you do some editing in your digital darkroom, like the image on the right.

If you are not lucky enough to get the wildlife up close to your house, then it is possible to set up a hide outside in the garden. You will need to put it up a few days in advance of using it so that the wildlife gets used to it's presence but once set up you should be able to have many a peaceful day sitting out and capturing your garden wildlife.

So wherever your garden, in the town or country, you should be able to find an abundance of garden wildlife to photograph.

Bluebells

Whenever Britain runs a 'Favourite Flower survey', Bluebells usually come very high on the list. It is said around 70% of the worlds Bluebell population is within the UK and perhaps this month it is worth a trip to your local woodland or one of those in our Bluebell list to see what is out and if you can capture that purple carpet. It is said now that they are appearing in many parts of England and Wales and the Woodland Trust's database of 14,000 woodlands, all open to the public, should allow you to find one near you, especially if you enter your postcode into their Bluebell Wood search. You will also find many at some of the larger Historic Houses.

However there are some that feel the British Bluebell is at risk due to a number of factors, but including the destruction of it's native woodland habitat for agriculture or being converted to coniferous woodland, but also the threat of interbreeding with Spanish bluebells, which were introduced into the British garden in the 17th century. This has resulted in one in six bluebells seen in our woodlands today being a mixture of British, Spanish and a hybrid of the two.

May is usually the month for Bluebells, however like many species in the plant world when something comes or goes is more dependant on the weather conditions rather than necessarily the time of year and you definitely cannot have them produce to a time schedule to fit us. Bluebells appeared in my open garden during April this year and in fact now are going over and looking a bit sorry from themselves. However generally in woodlands they will be later flowering because by its very nature a woodland has trees and this creates cover even without their leaves on. As May continues the trees leaves will come back and will make the woodlands darker, so try and get out early to get them.

By their very name bluebells are a blue/purple colour and many photographers struggle with getting their colour captured accurately, but it is not impossible. Using your cameras White Balance settings is the best way to get it correct and if you have a  PRE setting within your white balance settings then combined with a white balance target will give you the best possible results, auto will not do. However remember when using PRE it is setting the white balance for the lighting conditions you have in that location, if you move even to another part of the wood then set it again for that new position.

Within the woodland you will also probably need to increase your ISO settings or work with a tripod and when doing long shots of carpets of bluebells you will need to take into account your depth of field. If you want to get close up then take a look at how to best achieve a macro result by using macro lenses, but also possibly using other close up methods.

For more on how to go about photographing bluebells take a look a Where to Photograph Bluebells.

Windmills

The second weekend in May each year is National Mills Weekend where more than 300 water mills and windmills, throughout the UK, open their doors to members of the public. This year it is the weekend of the 14th and 15th. Some of the mills taking part are not normally open to the public, as they are private homes or businesses, so it is an opportunity to get to see inside and close-up to a windmill near you. During this weekend many of the mills that are normally open to the public will be running special family events and activities including demonstrations and the chance to buy flour and other produce.

This year the mills open include not only those that produce flour, but also a silk mill at Whitchurch in Hampshire, a woollen mill at Trefiw near Conwy in Wales and the country's largest water-powered cotton mill, Quarry Bank Mill, at Styal in Cheshire. Some of the working mills are more than 300 years old, yet many are still efficiently doing the job they were built and designed for into the 21st century. Going to the National Mills weekend website will give you details of those that will be open and taking part. How to photograph windmills looks at what the variables are, how to get over exposure problems, the best way to deal with colour balance and perspective. Of course with Windmills in particular being large structures that rise into the sky, being able

Quarry Bank Mill, Cheshire

to make the building stand up straight is also important and you can try to do this at the point you take the image if you can get far enough away, or you can do it later in your digital darkroom.

We also have a very large section on Windmills throughout the UK, where you can get more detailed histories, images and other information in relation to some of those taking part. But even if they're not taking part why not take a visit anyway and see what part they played in our food and textile heritage.

The June diary is now in the 'next month' slot with May moved to in the 'this month'. Both months have a lot of opportunities for everyone.  Some highlights that are of particular interest in May are:-

With May having two sets of bank holidays, one at the beginning and another at the end there are many different activities and events taking place throughout the country and our May diary lists some of those that we think are or could be of interest to photographers. We start off the month with a number of the more

unusual and quirky English traditions such as the Beltane Festival at Thornborough Henge in Yorkshire. The festival is associated with fire, courtship and the renewal of nature following spring. Beltane was traditionally celebrated throughout the north of England and beyond as a season of 'hilarity, merry-making and good humour'. Or the Tutti Day - Hocktide at Hungerford in Berkshire where two Tutti men carry decorated poles toped with an orange around the town and exchanges oranges for kisses or a penny fine from the women in the street. In Cambridgeshire they have the World Stilton Cheese Rolling Championships where teams roll large Stilton cheeses down the high street of the village.

Cheese Rolling

With spring, May brings the start of the walking festival season, with many held around the country some are self-guided routes and in some areas guided walks are also offered. With the 9th of May being the start of National Walk to Work Week, a chance to leave your car at home and stroll into work.

 

Kites Antony Theobald

In the air, Balloons, Kites and aircraft start to take advantage of the good weather, with the lighter mornings and when the air is right balloons launch. This coming weekend see the Swindon International Kite Festival, this year being held at Lydiard Park, nr Swindon in Wiltshire. Air shows are also starting up again with such events as the Abingdon Air Show in Oxfordshire on the 8th and the Southend Festival of the Air in Essex at the end of the month. Country shows and equestrian events also grow in number over the coming months, and in May alone you have the smaller events like the Hereford Spring Carriage Show and Devon County Show, through to the Windsor Castle Royal Tattoo and Malvern Spring Garden Show in Worcestershire and one of the largest annual floral events of the year, the Chelsea Flower Show starting on the 24th. On water you have such events as the CLIC Sargeant Dragon Boat Race Challenge in Gloucester Docks on the 15th, the Welsh Waterways Festival and National Trailboat Festival being held on the Neath Canal in Wales over the spring bank holiday weekend. Sail Caledonia is a week long series of races by 25 boats powered by sail and oars along the 3 main lochs of the Great Glen Way and the Caledonian Canal from Fort William to Inverness in Scotland.

Over the spring bank holiday weekend at the end of the month some traditional events include The Hunting of the Earl of Rone where over the 4 days the Grenadiers, Hobby Horse, Fool and villagers hunt through the village for the 'Earl of Rone', finally finding him on the Monday night. He is mounted back-to-front on a donkey and paraded through the village to the sea. He is frequently shot by the grenadiers and falls from the donkey only to be revived by the Hobby-horse and Fool, re-mounted on the donkey, and carried onwards to his fate. At the final shooting on the beach, he is not revived, but thrown into the sea. How about visiting the Festival of Fools at Muncaster Castle in Cumbria, a week long celebration of Jesters, clowns, magic and circus acts, or the World Custard Pie Championships in Maidstone Kent.

For the petrol heads, Truckfest starts off it's new season at the East of England Showground in Peterborough with loads of trucks on display as well as the main arena action with Monster Trucks somersaulting, monster truck displays from USA and a jet-propelled truck. At the end of the month you have the Overlord Military Spectacular in Hampshire where 100's of military vehicles, re-enactors and a number of living history groups bring the past to life, while on the 30th it's the start of the Isle of Man TT Races.

May is the month of babies, from baby rabbits to fox cubs and most birds are feeding their young, all the species of the animal kingdom are building up the confidence and tummies of the next generation. But it is also the month of mass bird immigration with large numbers of our summer visitors such as Swallows, Swifts and Martins returning to our shores to give birth to young and soak up our glorious summer sunshine.

Wildlife photography in May has just got easier with the longer days of daylight, the large number of parents and young out looking for food, many visiting our gardens so we don't have to travel too far. The warmer weather is also a bonus when you want to be out and about catching those that are around early in the morning or later in the evening.

 

Ponds, lakes, rivers, canals and other water outlets are also full of life, with tadpoles now sprouting legs, dragonflies and damselflies doing aerobatics over ponds and landing on water plant life to team up and mate, or just to take a rest. Damselflies are colourful and in the spring sunshine their iridescent bodies sparkle as they fly, however you have to be quick they don't sit still for long. Mayflies are also emerging from the riverbed and explode into the spring sunshine hovering just above the water during their very short life. At night badgers will be out feeding and making the most of any food that has been left for them in gardens. While bats, having now come out of hibernation, will be out feeding on the smaller insects and flies. The miniature wildlife and insects are also out in abundance and if you look on leaves of plants you will see colourful caterpillars and butterflies, but also ladybirds after the small aphids. Amongst woodpiles or in woodland you may also come across beetles such as the cockchafer beetle.

Damselfly

 

In the plant world there is also plenty of colour and mass blooms on show. The white blossom of Hawthorn is all along the roadsides and across fields. Also on the roadside and across the fields you will see the yellow flowers of the cowslip. Elder, Cow Parsley and meadowsweet will also be in full bloom. In the meadows colourful flowers will be emerging such as the Fritillaries and others. You can see the Snakeshead Fritillary at the North Meadow National Nature Reserve in Cricklade, Wiltshire. Trees are now starting to get back in colour with their differing shades of green and are now providing shelter for the plants on the woodland floor and for the birds in their canopy's. Carpets of bluebells will be in full bloom under the tree canopy. With many flowers and blooms now starting to adorn gardens, parks, woodlands and roadsides May is also the start of the Welling Dressing season, a tradition that takes place in the English countryside. This tradition has continued from Pagan times when a well, spring or other water source was decorated. In some communities around the UK this tradition still takes place and the most well known area is Derbyshire, where many communities make it a special event and have other activities taking place such as flower festivals, carnivals, Morris dancing and more with these activities continuing until September.

Cowslip

See Wildlife Photography in May for more wildlife opportunities this month.

Where to Photograph Bluebells

Photographing Small Wildlife  

Wildlife Photography in May

Bird and Animal Behaviour

European Rabbit

Grey Squirrels

Great Spotted Woodpeckers

Green Woodpeckers

Redwings  

Fieldfares

Pheasants

Red-legged Partridge

Grey Partridge

Grey Squirrels  

How to Photograph Squirrels

Snails

Photographing Snails

White Balance Settings

White Balance - PRE setting

White Balance Targets

ISO

Depth of Field

Macro Photography

Other Close Up Methods

How to photograph windmills

Perspective and making buildings stand up straight

Bluebell List