UK Nature Blog

Landscape photographer of the year 2010

The Take a View Landscape Photographer of the year competition has crowned its 2010 winners, all of which are now on display at the National Theatre until 22nd January.

The BBC has a slideshow of some of the best shots, which really are magnificent and capture Britain wonderfully. Many of them highlight that golden rule of landscape photography: light is everything, and being in the right place at just the right moment is critical.

I tried to find a landscape picture of my own to adequately illustrate this post, but I just couldn't come up with anything that wouldn't look puny in comparison to these competition winners!

Coal tit

A slightly blurry Coal tit here, and below a shot better showing the distinctive white patch on the back of the head, which distinguishes it from the very similar Willow and Marsh tits. A fairly common visitor to garden feeders but much rarer than the Great tits and Blue tits in my garden so always nice to seem, though surprisingly hard to pick out from the other tits on a dull day without binoculars.

Sheep!

Mute swans in flight

This pair of young Mute swans very obligingly flew in circles around a lake for me, so I could prepare to photograph them each time they came round. Perhaps they were practising their flying skills. Unfortunately I only had a compact camera so it was quite a challenge to shoot the rapidly moving target, even though they were quite predictable.

A Mute swan weighs 8-10Kg and has a wing span of 2.25m, so they're the heavy bombers of the bird world.

Photographing caged critters

Above are two pictures of the same caged Kookaburra at Thorp Perrow Arboretum, photographed with the same camera and lens, from the same position, though it did turn its head between shots and the crop is slightly different. The significant difference is that the first is focussed on the mesh of the cage itself, whereas the second is focussed on the bird, causing the mesh in the close foreground to blur so much that it vanishes almost entirely - though in this instance you can just about make it out as very broad, faint bands. If you weren't looking for them you probably wouldn't notice they were there.

This is a prime demonstration that all is not lost when the fancy animal you want to photograph is behind mesh. It's important that you keep the camera aperture as wide open as possible, and that the distance between the mesh and the animal is as large as possible. Obviously if you've got a Lemur clinging to the mesh itself, making faces at you, then the effect cannot be achieved.

Unfortunately this technique is unlikely to be workable with a compact camera due to the much smaller lens and sensor - you pretty much need an SLR. You're also likely to have to switch to manual focus to stop your camera automatically focussing on the mesh, and manual focus is a facility that most compacts don't offer.

Northumbrian Autumn colours from Cragside

More from UKNB's 2010 tour of Northumberland. Today a small collection of photos demonstrating the wonderful autumnal colours that have been on display. It seems to have been a good year for it, and a few days with wonderful warm but weak sunshine have lit the trees up just so.

These are all from the Cragside Estate, which is a wonderful place to walk around at any time of year.

Northumbrian Nuthatches

UKNB has been on tour to Northumberland, where your intrepid editor originally hails from would you believe, even if he's a Southern softie these days. The theme of the trip so far has been Nuthatches - loads of them! These pictures, from a couple of different locations, were as close as I've got to these enigmatic tree dwellers. They look almost like little Kingfishers in some of these shots.

Shield bug attack

Just yesterday I mentioned how nature was invading my home, saving me from going outside in the cold to see it. Today a Shield bug startled me by noisily flying across my study. I took the opportunity for some photos and I read up on these critters, which taught me something I hadn't known before - though I'm not sure how I'd missed it. They are also known as Stink bugs because they can release a powerfully horrible odour from glands on the bottom of their thorax. I've been handling them for years without knowing this!

And in other news, the close-focusing capabilities of compact cameras are quite something these days, allowing you to get within just 1cm of the target. Unfortunately when you do that you have two problems: you might well block the lighting of your subject; your subject may be inquisitive and climb onto the lens!

Nature withdrawal symptoms and woodlice

It's always harder for a working person to get their fix of nature as the nights draw in and the weather turns foul. A lot of the more obvious animal life may also be retiring for the year, meaning there's less to see anyway. Dull days with grey skies can make photography that much harder, especially with long telephoto lenses that struggle to gather enough light for a fast shutter speed. What is a nature lover to do?

Well in my experience if you just stay indoors some of the nature will come to you. Woodlice in particular seem to be deciding that the warmth of the house is preferable to the cold outdoors at the moment and I find odd ones pretty much anywhere in the house, usually trundling speedily away from the front door where I think they're coming in. Next time, instead of throwing them back outside again I'll break out the macro lens and invite them to model for me!

Wildlife photographer of the year 2010 results

The Wildlife Photographer of the Year 2010 has been announced, which means it's time to hotfoot it over to look at the splendid pictures. This gallery courtesy of the BBC contains some of the best. The Natural History Museum's website contains more, and you can see them in the flesh in the exhibition at the museum itself, which runs until March next year. You do need a ticket to get into the exhibition but I can thoroughly recommend it having been previously.