News

There are many opportunities to photograph birds on the island of Lesvos, that’s why we and many others travel there. I can’t think of a better place in Europe in late April and early May to have such a variety of quality birds to see. Sometimes these birds are tolerant and you can take (up to a point) advantage of this. On one such morning we had been watching a pair of Woodchat Shrikes perching on top of a thicket which they were obviously nesting in. After a while the female bird flew off to hunt for food and I could see her perched on an old tree stump about fifty yards away. I slowly approached this tree stump and after every five yards I stopped and took a few shots. I always work this way because if the bird flies away at least you have something. However, this bird was totally unfazed by my approach and it just looked at me and preened a little and looked around totally ignoring me. Remarkably I got to within ten yards of her and took my final shots before she casually dropped to the ground and caught an insect and flew further on. It’s always nice when you have an experience like this with a very nice bird.

There are two iconic species that you must see and hopefully photograph on the island of Lesvos. They are Cinereous Bunting and Kruper’s Nuthatch. Their habitats couldn’t be further apart, one lives in the barren rocky mountains in the west of the island, the other in the Corsican pine forests to the east. Patience is needed to photograph both. I have a particular site for the Cinereous Bunting and it never lets me down. Almost all my images of them are perched on rocks but not this time, I managed one perched in a small bush so I’ll use that one.



You can go to the established site for Kruper’s Nuthatch which is a place called Achladeri, which is where all the generic tour companies go. However, this site is far from guaranteed and it can get crowded because of these companies. If you, as an alternative go walking in these forests, which are extensive, you can find your own birds, and that’s what we did with results that we were very pleased with. There was nobody else there and it was so beautifully quiet, just us and the birds.

These images I took of the Kruper's Nuthatch were requested by the environmental centre lecturers on Lesvos who give talks about the island, so that was nice.






You can see why Lesvos is so prolific for birds - look at its proximity (5 miles) from the Turkish mainland.

One advantage of going to Lesvos early is that you could see the Red Footed Falcon passage. These beautiful birds come through in late April and are usually gone by the first few days of May. They hunt insects on the wing and also come down to the ground to feed.

They are a stunningly beautiful bird anywhere.



But it is on the wing where they are at their most spectacular. If you can line one up against a nice background on a bright day they are totally gorgeous.
We were driving along one of the quiet roads one sunny afternoon when we could see birds hunting over some fields and this could have been Swallows, Swifts or Bee-eaters so we stopped to take a look and to our pleasant surprise we could see they were indeed Red Footed Falcons.
We quickly parked up to watch them because they disappear as quickly as they come – once the insects are eaten that’s it. I began to try and take some shots but it’s not easy with these fast moving and very aerial falcons. However, with the Canon R5’s tracking ability and the lightweight and very manoeuvrable Canon RF100/500 it is possible.
I had the camera set to crop mode and the Canon RF 1.4 tele converter attached. This gave an image stabilized focal length of 1120mm @ f10.
You don’t get many images that are just right because usually there is something that’s in the way, or the bird is moving or looking away at the wrong time. Even the light bouncing off your subject at the wrong angle can ruin a shot.

At the risk of becoming very boring I again extoll the virtues of the Canon RF100-500 lens, even with a tele converter attached there is no slowing up of the focussing or degradation in image quality.





It is the perfect travel lens because generally speaking going on holiday means you are in a sunnier country and small apertures don’t matter because of the abundance of light. I can imagine that this lens would be perfect for big game in Africa with its ability to zoom in and out. It’s also so light and compact, it can fit in a very small bag in hand luggage.

After our second visit to the Meladia valley in Lesvos where we met the Greek twitcher (previous blog) we were travelling back on the return journey out of the valley not expecting anything much. We had seen a pair of Little Bitterns at the river mouth but they were too distant for a photo and a few Shrikes were perched out on distant bushes. However, in the distance we could see a large bird sat on top of a wooden pole and after looking closer we could see it was a Short Toed Eagle now named Short Toed Snake Eagle because of its principal diet of snakes which abound in this hot and rocky habitat.
These majestic birds are seen across the whole island but usually soaring and hovering up high above the landscape looking down for prey, but they are rarely perched down as low as this bird was.
We were not optimistic about getting a shot because like all Eagles they are very wary and will fly off at the slightest disturbance. However, it was worth a try so we slowly inched the car closer until we were incredibly about twenty yards away, this was unbelievable because these bird are usually long gone by now. I shut the engine off and carefully reached for my camera out of the bag on the back seat, making no sudden movements whatsoever. This little Canon RF100-500 lens is so convenient for this type of situation, it’s so small and lightweight. I took some shots of this magnificent bird as it was just perched there scanning the area.



I knew realistically that this was as close as I was going to get and very soon it was going to take off and fly away. I zoomed the lens back out to get a wider shot to try and capture the take off because at 500mm there was no chance of fitting a big bird like that in the frame.
It began to shuffle about and I knew this was the precursor to take off. I focussed the lens on the eagle and then it launched into the air.



I blazed away hoping for at least one shot that was in the frame without clipping the birds wings.



I was almost afraid to look at the camera screen to check the images. I could see some frames had clipped the bird’s wings, inevitable really, but there were some in the frame and this was a big result.

Up and away it flew into the azzure blue Aegean sky, distant in no time, really impressive.



A lovely end to a day in this rough, remote but irresistible place.

The ‘Holy Grail’ of Lesvos birding is unequivocally the almost mythical White Throated Robin. Everybody wants to see one but only a very lucky few ever get the privilege. There are only a handful of verified sightings since Greek birding records began and these sightings are all from the island of Lesvos. This is due to Lesvos’s close proximity to Turkey (about five miles) where there is sporadic breeding. To see these elusive birds with any certainty you have to visit Armenia in particular where there is established breeding.
There are certain dates etched into my memory and now April 24th 2023 is one of them. It was a warm and sunny Lesvos morning and Susan and I had been up and on the road before first light. We were travelling to the legendary Meladia valley, this valley is bisected by a very old and rough track which was in times gone by the only means of connecting the towns of Eresos and Sigri on the west of the island. Many epic bird sightings have been encountered in this valley and indeed last year Susan and I saw over a hundred Red Backed Shrikes and over five hundred Spotted Flycatchers on a morning there. Some people won’t travel the track for fear of getting stuck in the middle of nowhere and this is justifiable because over the years the track has been frequently closed because of rock falls and subsidence.
We navigated the roughest part of the track and had seen some nice birds, Little Owl, Rock Nuthatch, Red backed Shrike, etc. while Bee- eaters flew overhead – their fluty trills echoing around the valley. We stopped at the Meladia river ford – another iconic place for birders, where we encountered Common Sandpipers, Ruddy Shelduck, Lesser Whitethroat and Collared Flycatcher.
We locked the car and walked along an old rough track that runs between olive and fig groves - our targets were warblers. In particular, Orphean, Icterine, Olivaceous and hopefully Barred. After about two hundred yards an old farmer came along driving about a hundred sheep and he asked us to wait until he got the animals into a grazing meadow. We exchanged pleasantries and we were surprised by how much he knew about Wales. He thanked us for waiting and we said our goodbyes. On we walked while admiring the myriad of wild flowers that lined the track, we had seen a few birds, nothing special but that didn’t matter because it was a glorious morning and it was just nice to be out early. The habitat had now changed to low growing and quite aromatic bushes and shrubs interspersed with small rocks. Suddenly I saw something move at the bottom of a bush about ten yards away and I caught a flash of white and then some orange, my first thoughts were male Common Redstart which would have been nice, however, nothing could have prepared me for what was about to happen – a full summer plumaged adult male White Throated Robin perched on a small rock in front of me.



I was unashamedly shaking – I remember my whispered words now, there were only three “White Throated Robin”. Susan who had been walking five yards behind me ran up alongside and said “Oh please where is it”? – She knew full well the significance of what I had seen. Frustratingly it had dropped back down out of sight and I said “I can’t see it now” “Please don’t’ let me miss this bird” she pleaded. Suddenly there it was again out in full view in front of us. What a bird – what a find!!
I was carrying my Canon RF100-500 f7.1 lens attached to my Canon R5 and it’s fortunate that I was because there was no time to set anything up. If I had been lugging my Canon Ef600 f4 and tripod around there is no doubt I would have missed the shot. – Portability is everything in these situations. Then as the shutter fired I knew I had him – what a feeling to realise what I had achieved. This is a bird that we have fantasized about before all our trips to Lesvos, wondering what the feeling would be like to find and even better to photograph one – well now we knew! And it felt so good. We were genuinely elated, we watched it for about thirty seconds before it flew up and over a few bushes and it was gone – just unbelievable!





There is no mobile phone signal in that valley so we couldn’t tell anyone. Susan walked back down to the car to try and get a signal and when she arrived there was a Dutch birder there, a twitcher who I had been talking to a few days earlier. He came running up but he was too late, it had disappeared. I showed him the photos I had taken and he was amazed by our find. Many more people came later on but the bird disappointingly was never seen again.
Another birder we knew told us he had been talking to that same Dutch birder a few days after and he could tell by his conversation how missing a mega like that was really eating away at him, it’s just such bad luck.
However, that is not the end of this account. Another week had passed and we were again in the same area, not in any hope of seeing the Robin again, we knew that bird had flown, but to see other birds. As we stood there along the same track a Jeep approached and pulled up alongside us and a Greek man said “I am looking for the White Throated Robin”. I told him that was a week ago but he said he didn’t care and that he had to find it. I said that we were the people who had found it and he began shaking my hand warmly and congratulating me. His next request was unusual, he asked me to show him the bush where the bird was found. I found it a bit strange but he appeared genuine so I obliged as it was only fifty yards away. On arrival he stared at the bush like he was on some sort of pilgrimage to a holy site. I offered to show him an image and he said” You have images too” I showed him a close up and after looking at it he buried his face in his hands and just groaned.



He told us it was his dream bird and he had been walking these isolated tracks for years trying to find one. I now realised I was looking into the face of a genuinely desperate man.
He walked a few yards further down the track and one of the two other younger men who were in the vehicle with him, after also seeing the images, told us he was the top bird lister in Greece and he had flown in from central Greece to try and find the bird. Out of the 403 birds on the Greek list he had seen 387 - that is serious twitching in your own country. As we left I wished him good luck and I told him I truly hoped he would find his dream bird one day.
After we left I felt strangely guilty – to offer an analogy I imagined how a metal detectorist of many years standing who had never had a really good find would feel when a complete novice who has a metal detector as a Xmas present goes out on his first trip and finds a bag of Saxon gold coins.
The fickle nature of our find also dawned on us because when thinking back to the day, if we hadn’t had to stop for that old sheep farmer we may well have gone past and seen nothing – C’est la vie!!
We now have to submit our find to the relevant Hellenic bird authorities.

It's finally arriving, wild flowers are bloominhg - Lesser Celandine, Wood Anenome, Primrose and soon the Bluebells. Chiffchaffs and Blackcaps are singing, Common Redstarts have appeared. I heard a lone and early Garden Warbler this week and Willow Warblers will be here in numbers soon, Cettis Warblers are chasing each other through the undergrowth and the first scratchy song of the Reed Warbler is being heard. Pied Flycatchers are in the woodlands investigating nesting areas. Hundreds of Swallows and Sand Martins are hunting insects over the local lakes and the iconic song of the Cuckoo will be heard from the hillsides in the coming days - best time of the year.

Two images taken on a walk yesterday.

Chiffchaff anongst Blackthorn blossom.


Little Grebe exibiting nice summer plumage.

I’m continuing to endure the cold in my permanent hide that is in the little ‘wild’ area of my garden. In this current cold spell I have been spending the hours trying to photograph the visiting small birds attracted to the food I have put out. I have a small parabolic heater in the hide that I light to try and combat the cold, this is just basically a burner attached to a small gas canister and the heat is reflected by a metal radar-like dish. It really works well but it can only be used in ventilated areas for obvious reasons. The heat just takes the edge off the cold air which would be very uncomfortable otherwise. A flask of coffee helps and also a text message from Susan telling me the home made Pizzas she had made were ready for picking up - which was even more welcome!!
It may not seem cold while out walking for instance but sitting still for long periods of time does get very cold indeed and once you are that cold there’s no coming back it just gets worse.
The species of birds remains basically the same which is a bit disappointing but that’s the way it is and you have to take what you can get.



The Siskins are just as acrimonious as the Goldfinches.



I have been hoping the male Sparrowhawk will visit but no luck so far, but I know he is around so it’s a matter of waiting.
The canon R5 and RF100-500 lens continue to perform admirably and I am very impressed by this combo – it bodes well for holidays this year.
I am waiting for the next bright day to try again.

I’m always on the lookout for interesting perches for my bird and indeed other wildlife photography. In view of this last week I was walking along a field edge and I came across some fallen tree branches and on closer inspection on the one side was a lovely collection of ‘Turkey tail’ fungi, so named obviously because of its resemblance to a Turkey’s tail feathers. I tried to lift one of the branches up to take back home with me, a distance of about half a mile, but it was far too heavy because as I found to my dismay, it was connected to a much bigger and heavier branch. Abandoning this for another day I proceeded to look for other likely perches but there were none, at least none as nice as the one I wanted most. I rarely give up so two days later I returned with a chainsaw and cut off a section of this fallen branch to take home, however, I had underestimated the weight of even this small branch, and combined with the weight of the chainsaw by the time I got home I really felt it - even small branches are always heavier than they look!!
The next day I removed the previous perch that I had used for the images of the Goldfinches in mid-air (in the last blog post), and using a battery drill I fixed two new posts to two permanent fence posts and then cut the tops off with a chainsaw and made sure they were even using a spirit level – it’s important to do this. I cut two similar grooves in the perch as with the last perch because it seemed to work well and I fixed the new perch across the top of these posts using very long fencing nails because it was five inches deep and when I will want to change it, it’s much easier than trying to remove very long screws.
I was all set now and the following sunny day I filled the grooves on the new perch with sunflower seeds. (I had kept the usual bird feeders topped up between photo-shoots to keep the birds interested). Once again I removed all these other feeders because it doesn’t take long for birds to locate a new source of food, especially this time of year.

I set up my equipment again as described in the previous blog and below is a small selection of the results.

It's so important to set your perches up to suit the light, everybody knows how sunlight behaves in their own garden so a little bit of effort goes a long way to achieving good results and bright light from the right direction is fundamental for giving these images the 'Pop' an overcast day just can't produce.

Goldfinches fighting.




Chaffinch


Siskin @ 5000/sec

Getting sharp flight shots of birds is difficult, especially small birds because their wing beats are very quick and their flight patterns are very unpredictable. Bigger birds in flight are much slower and most of the time you can guess where they are going to fly and this makes it much easier.

With regard to small birds, in a part of my garden I have a small and deliberately unkempt area of about 100 square yards, there is a log pile there and a pond measuring about 8ft x 6ft with a volume of about 200 gallons and dragonflies regularly emerge from this pond every summer. I have also erected a permanent wooden bird observation hide about the size of a garden shed in the middle of this area. I have my elevated pool at the bottom of the garden along with some perches I have erected and where seed is provided throughout the winter. This allows me to get close up shots of a variety of birds feeding, drinking and bathing. Adjoining the garden there is a wooded copse where a variety of birds roost and nest and subsequently come to feed in the garden. The perches are aligned specifically with my good neighbour’s crop field in the distance, which provides, when using a telephoto lens, a variety of buttery smooth pastel coloured backgrounds. I like backgrounds because they are just as important as the subject you are photographing.
Yesterday I noticed a small flock of Goldfinch feeding and landing on my perches. Goldfinches are particularly quarrelsome, especially with each other when feeding. They don’t like another bird to have any of what they consider to be their seeds. When they can’t tolerate each other any longer they fly up and perform a kind of irritated dance in mid-air. This can be quite amusing, but very difficult to see in detail because it happens so fast. Yesterday I decided to try and capture the action, it would be no mean feat and I realised that before I started.

Here is a blow by blow account of how I went about it.

1. I removed all seed from the feeding station and cut two grooves in an elevated log perch I had already erected.

2. I filled the two grooves with sunflower seed so they were the only food source available. This concentrated where the birds would be all of the time so I didn’t have to watch multiple areas – it’s easier.

3. I set up my Canon R5 and 100-500 f7.1 lens on a tripod behind some camo netting in my observation hide where I could sit on a chair for comfort and concentration.

4. I set the camera to full frame to catch the widest area of action and also that’s 45 mega pixels, so I knew I could crop in which I thought would be necessary.

5. I pre-focussed the lens on the seed grooves in the log to get the right distance for sharpness then switched the autofocus off to prevent ‘Hunting’.

6. I also zoomed the lens out to 300mm to cover even more area.

7. I fitted my Hanhel wireless trigger, (see review), on the R5 so all I had to do was press the button at the appropriate time.

8. I knew that to capture the action I would need a shutter speed of around 4000/sec and a frame rate of 20frames/sec. To do this you need light and plenty of it, thereby avoiding too much ISO elevation.

9. However, I soon found out that to achieve a shutter speed of 4000/sec in the available light on the day I would still need an ISO of above 2000. On a brighter sunnier day a lower ISO could be used which is always preferable.

When everything was set up I sat in my hide and waited for the action to start.
Initially there was only one Goldfinch there and it was allowing other birds to feed. I had to wait for more Goldfinches to arrive, they duly did and before long the inevitable action started. Numerous times they flew up squabbling in the air above the perch, sometimes out of the frame but other times just where I wanted them to be. You have to concentrate and be really quick to catch the action, but finally my efforts paid off and I was able to capture some reasonable images. After cropping the images contained some noise, but this was easily removed using Topaz ‘Denoise’ software. I highly recommend the basic package of this software because for just £79 ‘for life’ it is well worth it just to clean up your images. However, if you were really close up to the action there would be less cropping and subsequently less noise so the choice is yours.
As a final note to anyone who has reservations about buying the Canon 100-500 f7.1 lens and thinking they would only being able to operate it on anything but the brightest of days, my answer is they shouldn’t worry because this lightweight, highly portable and very sharp lens is a quality piece of kit.







I will be trying again on sunnier days.

Susan and I were out walking this morning in glorious spring-like weather. It was still chilly in the shade but out in the sunshine it was gloriously warm. As we walked back down off the hillside we disturbed a Green Woodpecker that was digging into ant hills on a steep banking and as usual if flew off immediately, they are so spooky. Yesterday I heard the Green Woodpecker's smaller cousin, the Lesser Spotted Woodpecker, singing from the other side of the valley, that was a rare sound because they are like gold dust around here. I was carrying a bit of landscape kit and a small tripod with me just in case we came across anything nice. I'm glad I did because as we were walking through a small wooded area we came across the fabulous sight of thousands of Snowdrops, one of our favourite flowers. Who doesn't like these superb little flowers?

Along with Crocus they are real heralds of spring.



The sun's rays shone through the trees giving a dappling effect to the whole wood and I could see one little group of Snowdrops up against an old delapidated stone wall, long fallen into disrepair, but nevertheless augmenting the scene.



I took a few quick shots before we moved on but I will be going back soon for another try in this lovely area.

While Susan and I were out walking along a local riverbank yesterday I was carrying my new Canon RF100-500 f7.1 lens. This is a great little compact and lightweight lens and when coupled with my new Canon R5 mirrorless camera it will be a great performer of that I am in no doubt. I was carrying it with a Black Rapid Breathe strap attached to the lens foot and an extra tether fixed to the cameras strap lug – belt and bracers. This is a very comfortable and safe way of carrying this combo and it allows for the very quick deployment of the camera and lens into the shooting position.
We saw male and female Goosanders on the river about thirty yards away and true to form they began to swim away as soon as they saw us. However, because of the quick eye autofocus on the R5 and the combined camera and lens stabilisation systems allowing easy handheld shooting, getting a shot was relatively straightforward.





It really is a new way of getting images for me, a world apart from lugging heavy and awkward kit around.

Short Eared Owls usually hunt for food in the late afternoon but this can make it difficult for photography in terms of light. However, with modern mirrorless cameras high ISO readings are no longer such a problem, enabling relatively clean images to be produced which would previously have been impossible.
In addition if there is still some noise in the images they can be ‘Cleaned up’ with AI software such as Topaz or DXO.
The image below was taken with a Canon DSLR some time ago on a cold winter's afternoon but I have always considered it too noisy to use.

However, with the above mentioned technology it has now become more presentable.




These really are beautiful birds which unfortunately are becoming far less common around the UK. Some years are what are called ‘Vole Years’ where an abundance of these rodents produces a subsequently good breeding season for the owls, thereby increasing their numbers, however, disappointingly these years seem to be getting much more infrequent.
I hope things improve soon!

What a cold spell we have been enduring of late. Everything is frozen, my garden ponds and my elevated bird photography pool are solid. Every morning the birds are queuing up to be fed, the Robins are taking food from the feeders as they were being filled. It is really tough for them during these long winter nights.
Susan and I have been out walking around the local area and there have been some lovely views in the surrounding countryside. Up in a local forestry there have been some severe Hoare frosts.




On the hills the grasslands have been covered in a combination of ice shards and frozen snow - a real winter wonderland.




The Camlais brook which drains Mynydd Illtud a raised area of common land near the village of Libanus in the heart of the Brecon Beacons is frozen solid.



However, it is over for the time being as the rain has set in and as another year draws to a close my attention has now been drawn to the Xmas period. The last presents have been bought, finishing in a very busy Abergavenny yesterday – absolute mayhem in the town’s car parks. The smaller members of our family are full of expectation and it’s great to see them so excited. I have made my Xmas list out and it was posted last week - I hope the postal strike doesn’t affect it!

On a more sombre note though, we all need to spare a thought for the less fortunate amongst us during this time of celebration and happiness and think a little less of ourselves. My thoughts are for those families affected by that dreadful tragedy in Solihull - Xmas will never happen for them again.

Finally I would like to wish all the readers of this Blog and their families a happy and safe Xmas, because basically that’s it from me for 2022.
Normal service will resume in 2023.
Best wisher to all.
Steve

Water Rails are funny little birds, they don’t like to fly, mostly staying hidden in reed-beds making weird noises. Infrequently a birder catches a glimpse of one as it scurries across gaps between reed-beds. Their calls and songs are termed ‘Sharming’ and have been likened to a pig squealing. However, around the bird hide at Llangors Lake in the Brecon Beacons they have been showing more frequently of late.
In winter sometimes they can be either flooded or frozen out of a reed-bed. Which is the case currently I’m not sure. They are quite carnivorous and I have seen them attempting to eat carrion on a number of occasions - once feeding on a long dead Pheasant. They will also fight each other and other species of birds without needing too much encouragement.
I spent a cold hour in the hide at the above site a few days ago and indeed saw up to four Rails - albeit fleetingly. However, one bird showed for a few seconds longer on one occasion and I managed to get a shot.



I may go back if this cold weather persists.

I was back up on the moor this morning with Susan and we witnessed another lovely scene where the Usk valley was again filled with mist. It was thicker than yesterday,(see previous blog), because there was no sun shining to thin the mist out. Nevertheless every morning is different because it's a really dynamic scene up there with the landscape changing by the minute.



We walked out across the moor this morning to look back at the valley and to try and shoot a panorama. I find panoramas are best shot by zooming in as little as possible, because then you have more scope to save most of the image when the inevitable cropping takes place.

Three shot panorama.


Too narrow a shot could mean that you have lost important parts of the final

Another scene with a three shot panorama.

Getting down level greatly alters the perspective of a scene, this pool looks like a large lake but it's in fact no more than ten yards across.

The mists we are experiencing these last few mornings are not all bad news, because while they are undeniably bad news for drivers they are not bad news for a landscape photographer.
If you are able to get to an elevated vantage point you are in with a chance of seeing a ‘Cloud Inversion’. These scenes where the mist hangs down low in the valley with the higher points showing in sunlight can be very photogenic.
This morning I was up on Llangynidr moor in the Brecon Beacons looking down the Usk valley at one such scene.

First thing the cloud was really dense.



However, as the morning unfolded it became more broken, which is ideal. Elevations showed through and were bathed in sunlight.



A lovely scene on a glorious December morning!

Large amounts of rain has fallen throughout November in the Brecon Beacons and this has thankfully raised reservoir levels again. This was much needed rain after a very dry summer but some people have inevitably suffered from flooding. Trees have also been blown down by very strong winds – saturated ground and these winds are a deadly combination. This week is forecasted to be reasonably dry and this is welcome because the land is really sodden and difficult for local farmers. Near to where I live is the village of Talybont on Usk which is a very popular holiday destination for people who are visiting the Brecon Beacons.
The River Usk a well-known river flows past the village and one of its tributaries the River Caerfanell, which flows down a valley which is called ‘The Glyn’ by locals, meets the River Usk here. Glyn is just welsh for valley. In the higher reaches of the Caerfanell there are a series of picturesque waterfalls and these are quite attractive because there is a significant drop in elevation from right up on the mountainside down to the valley floor. It is infinitely more peacful at this location compared to the vastly over-crowded Ystradfellte waterfalls. Adnittedly they are more spectacular but they have been ruined by hordes of people descending on them from all over the country in a similar fashion to the rest of the Beacons.



Today I drove the five or so miles up the valley to where the river passes under a bridge and where you can park a vehicle, from there it’s about a 500 yd. walk up river to the falls. Wellingtons are essential here especially after the recent inclement weather. There was no one around, just as I like it and the river as I expected was in full flow.



A light drizzle fell as I walked up and I saw very little autumn colour left on the now quite bare trees. It was difficult to imagine that this river in its present state totally dries up in the summer during most years.



Compositions are limited here in these conditions because it can be quite dangerous to get right down to river level and experiment with different shots. This is because if you slipped and fell in it would be quite difficult to get out because the falls are quite steep and even the strongest swimmer would be hurled against the large boulders by the power of the water.



I managed a few shots in between sheltering my kit from quite nasty little showers but it was quite a pleasant hour watching the power of nature thunder down the hillside.

Susan and I were out walking on Friday in an area of unimproved grassland looking for Waxcaps. It’s the time of year that they can appear in numbers in this type of environment and they didn’t disappoint because one particular area of about two hundred yards square was absolutely littered with these colourful mushrooms.

Varieties included;

Snowy


Golden


Parrot


Meadow


Scarlet


All in some numbers - a sight to behold.

There was also a huge amount of Witches Butter fungi.


Literally hundreds of examples all over the Gorse wood.

However, just before we were about to call it a day we decided to just examine one more area and I’m so glad we did because as we walked through, seeing all of the above mushrooms, which was lovely, I looked behind some bracken and there on its own was a beautiful and very rare.

Pink Waxcap.


What a find! We were stunned by this glorious specimen. This mushroom is also called ‘The Ballerina’ because of its shape, it’s so beautiful and delicate and I couldn’t wait to take a photograph. After this nothing else mattered but unbelievably we found another three, it was beyond our wildest expectations.

Walking on, half stunned by these finds, I stopped in my tracks and right in front of me was a Violet Coral fungus.

Remarkable resemblence to Coral.



We were totally in awe now, this is one of the rarest grassland fungi in the UK, it’s very uncommon indeed, (if it was a bird it would be a mega), but there it was and with incredulity I could see more, in total twelve, this was now the other side of ridiculous. I took more images of this probably once in a lifetime experience, what a day, which started out as a casual walk and ended up finding two superb fungi – you just never know and that’s what makes it all worthwhile!!

On Tuesday evening this week I received a text from an old mate of mine which said ‘They are in the quarry’. This message would have seemed somewhat cryptic to everybody except me, because I knew exactly what he meant. The passage Ring Ouzels that come down through Mid-Wales every year in late October had arrived and were in one of the locations that they always favour. The northern Torquatus’ race of Ring Ouzel has been in steep decline in the UK for many years and this decline is of great concern, rightly so. The word Torquatus is based on the Latin word Torquis, meaning collar. I read that their decline is something like 50% over the last forty years. They do breed in very small numbers in the Brecon Beacons but it’s much harder to photograph them there because they favour a remote mountain habitat. In addition because of their current ‘Red List’ status I just keep away from potential breeding areas. They winter in the mountains of North Africa, principally Morocco and Tunisia returning to the UK in March. I used to try and photograph them when they first ‘came in’ to the Brecon Beacons when they perched in trees.



However, I've given up on this some time ago.

In essence a photographer doesn’t get many opportunities to get close up shots of these lovely birds, so I had to react quickly. This was 19.00 so I dropped everything, put my camera batteries on charge, got all my kit together, made some sandwiches and arranged my outdoor clothes ready for the following morning. Luckily I had put fuel in the vehicle that day or I would have had to do that as well.
I can't stand scrabbling around early in the morning before I leave to try and photograph wildlife – I like planning!
The weather forecast was for rain the following day which was ideal for us because hopefully it would deter people from being out and causing the inevitable disturbance.
The following morning Susan and I were up by 05.15, it was dark, rain was falling and a blustery wind blew – perfect! We left the Brecon Beacons at 06.00, the rain had now eased a bit and incredibly the stars were showing in the sky - such unpredictable weather. However, this did not last because as we drove along the A470 road towards the town of Builth Wells the rain returned with a vengeance, the wind intensified and we met really heavy commercial traffic in the form of huge lorries which thundered past continually throwing up spray and fallen leaves and in addition many other cars were also coming from the same direction so there was no respite from dazzling headlights for the whole journey along this stretch of road. We were really surprised by the volume of traffic.
After we passed through Builth Wells and continued on to the town of Rhayader the gateway to the Elan Valley dams, thankfully the traffic eased but the rain and wind continued. We finally reached our destination at 07.00 after a bit of a tortuous journey.



Typical Elan Valley habitat.

It was just starting to break light which was good timing so we had a cup of coffee and settled down and waited. Thankfully there were no other cars around because this is always a fear for me that someone may have parked in an awkward position making things difficult or even ruining the morning because I knew we didn’t have much time, perhaps two hours before people and dogs inevitably arrived. It wasn’t long before we could hear that tell-tale ‘Chuk Chuk’ of a Ring Ouzel and as it got lighter around 07.30 we could see up to ten birds flying around the rocks above the Rowan trees where they have historically fed – this was a really good count of these elusive birds.
Heavy showers and a blustery wind persisted and I had to protect my lens with a ‘Goretex’ cover. There was sufficient light to take a few shots by this time, albeit with a high ISO. Fortunately, unlike in the past with Digital SLR cameras, modern mirrorless cameras, such as the Canon R5 I am now using, don’t have a problem with high ISO ratings. Another huge advantage is that they are totally silent which is perfect when dealing with shy and wary subjects. Another, to use modern parlance, ‘Game Changer’, is the animal eye tracking feature on these cameras which locks onto your subject’s eye and focuses immediately and stays focused even when the subject moves. This results in a much higher percentage of sharp shots.

Suddenly a single bird came down.



These birds wait until one bird makes a move to feed and when they see there’s no danger they all descend to gobble up the soft Rowan berries. In a flash there were half a dozen birds feeding in the Rowan trees, adult males and females and first winter birds.







What a glorious sight to see these often elusive birds up close and even better in front of my lens.
I have theorised for some time that this site in the Elan Valley is one of, if not the best place to photograph Ring Ouzels in the UK. The autumn colours of the turning Rowan leaves along with the Ring Ouzel’s beautiful plumage make a really lovely combination.



I took many shots and a bonus was a flock of ten Bullfinches, another one of my favourite birds also feeding on the Berries, they were not swallowing the berries whole like the Ouzels but squeezing the berry until the flesh was exposed then allowing the flesh to drop to the ground while retaining and eating the small seed inside.



It was now 09.00 and the inevitable cars started to arrive with children and dogs and it was now time to leave. We packed up and took a leisurely drive around the rest of the dams until we reached the far end where the river Elan enters the first of the dams.
In a little car park I was packing my kit away ready for the journey home when Susan said ‘Steve, Ring Ouzel in the Rowan tree right beside the car park’. Without wishing to sound like Victor Meldrew, I couldn’t believe it! I hurried back into the car and as I looked across the moorland on the other side or the river I could now see a flock of Ring Ouzels flying towards us and they landed right in the Rowan tree twenty five feet away.







Ten Ring Ouzels, now I really couldn’t believe it!! To use a colloquialism I took a shed load of images in what was a lovely setting and as a bonus a few Fieldfares and Redwings also came in to the tree – Utopia!





However, more people started to arrive and I’m afraid there’s no escape from disturbance in the Elan Valley, but I didn’t care because to use motion picture parlance, ‘They were in the can’.
What an end to the day!!

More images in Latest Images - Ring Ouzels.

A short youtube video of these Ring Ouzels.

https://youtu.be/gNPRuEu3XLc

Many mushrooms are innocuous and people will never be aware that they exist, some are edible and are foraged, and many are inedible because they do not taste nice or will poison you to varying degrees. However, there are some that are just plain deadly.
This time of the year growing on almost any damp grassy area is a truly deadly mushroom. There are a number of these deadly poisonous mushrooms in the UK and some people may have heard of the infamous ‘Death Cap’ and rightly so because it, along with the ‘Destroying Angel’ is responsible for most of the ‘Mushroom Deaths’ in the western world. These both contain extremely deadly Amatoxins that will kill you very quickly by destroying your liver. These Mushrooms along with others such as ‘Funeral Bell’, ‘Devil’s Bolete’ and ‘Deadly Webcap’ to name but a few are very dangerous indeed, and they didn’t pull these names out of a hat, they are named so for a very good reason.
The Mushroom I refer to is the Brown Roll Rim – it doesn’t sound as bad as the above mentioned Fungi.





However, this is a seriously poisonous mushroom that in some ways is more dangerous. Foragers know you can’t eat the Death Caps of this world and consequently leave them alone but in some countries in Eastern Europe Brown Roll Rim has been considered edible after boiling and throwing the water away each time. This can be a serious mistake because although repeated boiling removes most of the toxins and people can indeed eat the mushrooms after, later science reveals that this process does not remove a powerful antigen in the mushroom, which builds up after repeated ingestion and can then initiate an auto immune response in the human body which causes your own immune system to attack your red blood cells leading to what is called - Immuno Haematological Anaemia, and it’s as bad as it sounds.



Notice how different they appear as they mature - very dangerous to assume anything!



This condition can result in a very nasty death indeed, and it also has a variable time frame insomuch as it can effect some people much quicker than others.

In 1944, the distinguished German mycologist Julius Schaeffer, died after eating a succession of dishes containing Brown Roll Rim. He is thought to be the only professional mycologist to have died of fungus poisoning.







We saw these Mushrooms growing in profusion on the grass verge right outside a much visited local facility with people passing within ten feet of these little beauties, all blissfully unaware of their deadly potential – isn’t nature wonderful!