Some pics from Rivelin valley

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Menade du: Jag har under 3 dagar försökt igen att fotografera kungsfiskare

 

Earlier this week, for 3 days I had been trying to photograph the kingfisher but unfortunately without any good results. It also seems that it is about to leave the place for good, as it today did even show itself once. I couldn't either find it on any of the other ponds.
Anyhow, some good news, the dipper has come back to Rivelin! It is building the nest, and it has lots to do as it last year got flushed away. I'm look forward to taking pictures of them later in the spring and summer.
Since I have not been able to photograph the kingfisher I have tried to take pictures of other things while walking around. No remarkable images but fun to try to find some other stuff too sometimes. Spring has truly arrived quickly this year and every day the temperatures have been around +10C. Flowers like crocus, snowdrops and daffodils are already flowering everywhere and it feels incredibly good to see some green again.
By the time you read this, I'm already in Kalix in Sweden visiting my brother and his family. We're going up to the mountains and snowmobiling which will be awesome. I will try to blog from Kalix too, but no promises :)

 

                                                                      

Dipper watching their nest

Kingfisher

At last, the storms and rainfall seems to have died out, and I have ventured out on photo adventure again :)
As you probably have seen on the news, it has been Very windy and rainy here for the past few months. To be honest, some of the days it has been ok weather for few hours, but I have since not had the energy and inspiration to take photographs.
So yesterday and today I have been down to a valley where I 've seen the kingfisher the whole winter and it was still there. Yesterday I didn't manage to get any good pictures of it at all, so I tried again this morning and it went much better. I positioned myself so that I could photograph it while it was sitting on one of his favorite branches that are quite high up above the water. You can clearly see that it is one of its favourites because of all the marks from its claws. Obviously I had the camouflage on otherwise it's impossible to get closer than 5 - 6m.
During the three hours I was there, it only sat on the branch 3 times! I would have liked to be there longer, but my back was beginning to hurt as I was standing the whole time. The camera was on the tripod rather high up so I could get on the same level as the kingfisher.
I will try next time, perhaps already tomorrow but it depends on the weather, to try and get some pictures while it is hunting and diving into the water.
                                                                         

The Kingfisher sitting on one of its favorite branches



The colorful Kingfisher

As mentioned in the previous post, I have been trying to get a good close-up of a kingfisher down in the Rivelin Valley. They are a bit easier to see during the winter months, not sure why, so I have for the past few years focused on them during this period of year. Like this time, I have stalked that poor bird to take a photo for the past two weeks but it didn't really want to land close to me. Its only 15cm, so you need it close, even when I use the 550mm! 
So couple of days ago I went down to the valley rather early one morning and was hiding in front of one of its favourite landing twigs just 5m away which should make it more that just a dot on a pic. The tripod was up, as the camouflage and the wait began.
After an hour my feet and butt got numb, even though I was sitting on a rather comfortable pad. After another half an hours the kingfisher chose to show itself, but only by fishing on the completely opposite side to where I was.
Just for a moment it landed on a twig close to me, of course on one which I didn't have the focus on, and I thought that was the chance I had that day. It got scared off by me moving around underneath the camouflage.
As any dedicated (read insane) photographer I waited for another four hours while loosing all the feeling in my legs, and then It was suddenly back and sat on the perfect spot that I had focus on!
Yes it takes a lot of patience to take good pictures of wildlife, and I'm not sure everybody is actually aware of that, but it is definitely worth it.

I was out today to the same place, wanting to take a picture of it fishing. Unfortunately it came by the pond only to show itself, stayed for around a minute before leaving to never came back.
No, I didn't stay and wait for it for four hours :))

Until next time, have a great week!
                                                                  

 

Bugs and forest flowers

This morning I took the opportunity to go down to the Rivelin Valley before the rain comes.
Overcast weather as it is today usually fits excellent to photograph flowers and insects because it gives a more even light.
So it was that I occupied myself for couple of  hours. Now it's nice in the forests with all the small flowers anywhere in the Rivelin Valley.
I photographed with macro lens and Nikon 3Ds with iso 1000 because it's so dark down there and hand held.

Signs of Spring

Yesterday I walked to Rivelin Valley, my idea was that I would shoot dipper and gray wagtail.
But it seems that the dipper will not nest there this year, because I did not see them at all.
There is another thing that shows that they are not in place namely droppings on the rocks, they always leave traces behind and since it has not rained in a long time so it should be a lot of tracks of them.
I think the late snow and cold that came a while ago maybe did them a bit worried and decided to check out another place.
Sadly for me, because I had been looking forward to follow them throughout the summer.
The Grey Wagtail I found in a place which is located quite far away, but they did not seem to have found the nesting place yet, so I do not know where they will end up in the end.
However, I found some sign of spring, the frogs had woken and the males was playing for the females :)) even the flowers down in the ravine had started to come up properly.

 

Finally better weather

Soon, a week has passed since I came home from Sweden and I've hardly been out and I blame the miserable weather.
Started with thick fog for 3-4 days then came the cold, wind and snow as well.
But today it brightened up a bit so I went down to the Rivelin Valley where I usually go to shoot dippers and other birds.
But I only got out the door when it started blowing and snowing heavily, but the weather forecast had promised better weather so I continued.
The rest of the morning was a bit mixed weather with blizzard, sun and everything in between.
Did my usual round and was looking for the Dipper, but I could not see them.
Tried to shoot treecreeper and longtailed tit instead, they're not the easiest thing to take on, they are constantly in motion.
Then I proceeded to the place where I usually turn back, when I saw a big bird flew away, and this is the first time I see a bird of prey here in the woods, it was a buzzard. 
It was nice to see the buzzard probably it's here to hunt ducks in the river.
On the way back home the dipper had arrived so I followed them for some time before I went back home.

Camera equipment: Nikon 3Ds Nikon 200-400mm f4 lens and Kenko 1,4 telekonverter.

Dipper

Tomorrow I will go to Sweden for 2 weeks and to visit my brother up in  Kalix (Norrbotten). Should be great with real winter, and with 1 meter of snow, the plan is that we'll try to shoot a bit of everything but I really hope that we get the opportunity to photograph the northern lights, but much depends on the weather.
We will also drive snowmobile's and maybe go out to fish, fishing  is not so funny now because of that you have to first dig through the thick snow cover and then maybe it is about 70cm ice on it, a sweaty job in other words.
Well, it will be fun anyway to visit the northern part of Sweden again.
I will try to blog from there as well but it may not be as frequent.
But in the meantime here are some more pictures of the dipper that I managed to get right close last time a was down to Rivelin. Managed to even see goosander down there in one of the small ponds and that is not happening so often, I also saw a Kingfisher but it wasnt so cooperative this time.

Camera Equipment: Nikon D90 and Nikon 200-400mm f4 lens.

Grey Wagtail

Today I took a walk down to the Rivelin Valley in the stunning fine weather with sunshine and clear blue skies.
The goal was  to find the dipper, but unfortunately, it was not there when I was there.
So I went around and looked for kingfisher instead, managed to find it in a swamp area but it did not want to be photographed today. But instead, I saw a gray wagtail which was a bit surprising, because I thought they disappeared to warmer countries in the autumn.
But good for me because then I got something to shoot today, I was able to get it as close as 3-4m which rarely happens during the summer months if you do not have camouflage.
Maybe it was  too busy to eat rather than looking for me, because it ran back and forth all the time. It certainly was not still for a single second, which made it rather difficult to photograph especially with my D90 which has not really so fast autofocus.

A walk in the rain

Today it was time for a walk in the pouring rain, I chose to go down to the Rivelin Valley.
The rain started last night but already the little river had very high water.
The walk is about 7km which usually take 2h it feels just right for a wet day out. :)
The day was dark and dreary and the forest felt very empty of wildlife, so I tried to shoot some fungus instead, and also some pics of the flooding river.
But I saw a little splash of color in the form of a kingfisher, but it disappeared in a hurry in to the bushes. I waited  a while for it to come up again but I gave up after 15min it was getting cold to just stand there.
So I went back home and tomorrow I will go to Sweden (Stockholm) to celebrate Christmas and New Year.
I finally get the opportunity to shoot images that is more normal for the season :))

So I wish you a really nice Christmas and New Year. See u

Some bird pictures

I have continued my attempts to shoot Jay's, I have gone there early in the cover of darkness. Because I have noticed that if i go there while it's in the middle of the day so they want not to come. Like yesterday, I was there all afternoon without success and now this morning I was there again, they arrived and checked out but then disappeared pretty quickly, maybe they saw something that was strange, I had moved the camera to another place because it would otherwise have rained and blew straight into the lens so maybe it was that they saw.
So today it was just some small birds on the site.
I have put out a big branch and when i arrive I put sunflower seeds and nuts on top of it. And the meaning of it is that the birds will land on top of the branch, because I have the camera pointed at it. And also because i want clean pictures without any distracting things. In this way the eyes stuck on the bird only and make it pleasant to watch :) but I have not really gotten into it yet mostly because I have to have the camera a good distance away from the branch (5-6m) and then you can not really get the blur in the background I'm after.  And it's so far away, because the jay's otherwise not will arrive, they are very suspicious.

One other problem has been the sound of the cameras shutter, when i fire away pictures it sounds like machine gun but they are now getting used to it.

There is one picture of jay, it is not a good quality picture but i put in anyway :)

 

Camera equipment i used: nikon 3Ds nikon 70-200mm f2.8, nikon 200-400mm f4, tripod and wireless remote control.