Katherine, Author at Hoopoe - A blog by nhbs

How to photograph a grass snake with a Bushnell X-8 trail camera

This summer, NHBS customer Professor Graham Martin tested the functionality of his Bushnell X-8 trail camera, a great entry-level trail camera for anyone interested in capturing footage of their local wildlife. Trail cameras aren’t just for night snaps – they work night and day using either the trigger function (1 sec for the Bushnell X-8), where the movement of the animal activates the camera’s trigger, or with a time lapse function, where it takes photos at a defined interval (from 1 – 60 minutes).

Graham has a very warm compost heap which is where these two photos were taken, and he had spotted the grass snake basking – it was too quick for the trigger (0.7 seconds), but he managed to snap it using the time lapse.

The Bushnell X-8 can take video or still images, has a 36 LED 15m night vision flash, day/night autosensor and a temperature recorder, plus many more great features – the only thing missing is that it doesn’t record sound, so you can only make silent movies. If you want to hear what sort of noises your subjects make as they pass, audio record functionality exists on other cameras in the Bushnell range, like the Bushnell NatureView.

We were particularly impressed with these photos, they really show the diversity of wild animals you can photograph with an entry-level trail camera.

Check out NHBS’ range of Bushnell Trail Cameras

In search of Odonata: an interview with ‘Dragonflight’ author Marianne Taylor

National Dragonfly Week is fast approaching, so in our quest for things Odonata-related we interviewed Marianne Taylor – author of Dragonflight: In Search of Britain’s Dragonflies and Damselflies. The book documents the author’s adventures around Britain over two summers, in search of as many species as possible…

As a keen wildlife watcher from an early age, what drew you in particular to the passion for dragonflies which led to the writing of this book?

I have always enjoyed seeing dragonflies and damselflies when I was out birdwatching, but it wasn’t until I began taking wildlife photographs seriously, in 2009-2010, that I started to really appreciate Odonata. Photography has made me want to look at all wildlife in new ways, and I found the forms of dragons and damsels very appealing. I also quickly developed an interest in taking flight photographs – initially of birds but that quickly expanded to include everything that flies. As relatively large targets, dragonflies make challenging but very satisfying subjects for flight photography. And my geeky need to catalogue all my images correctly forced me to take on the challenge of properly identifying every dragon and damsel that I photographed. Learning about identification went hand-in-hand with learning distribution, behaviour and other aspects of their ecology.

You have spent two summers immersed in dragonfly and damselfly-spotting – and have encountered the majority of established British species. How has such a dedicated involvement over a set period added to your knowledge of the natural history of your subject? Any surprising discoveries? There must be nothing like prolonged in-the-field focus for gaining an intimate appreciation of their behaviour…

I’d certainly not say I’m any expert, but I have learned a huge amount in the last two years, both from books as I ‘revised’ my subject, and from first-hand observation. I can now answer most questions put to me about Odonata by interested laypeople. What has surprised me most is the complexity of their behaviour, in particular territorial and courtship behaviour. I was also absolutely fascinated to see damselflies apparently ‘mobbing’ large dragonflies – if that’s really what it was, that is a sophisticated response to a dangerous predator that I would never have expected to see from an insect. I would love to learn more about Odonata intelligence. I am quite convinced that they have some awareness of, and interest in, humans! I would also love to know more about their behaviour prior to adulthood.

Do you have a favourite, or stand-out, Odonata encounter from the book?

The morning spent at Strumpshaw Fen is what comes to mind – the Norfolk Hawker (see gallery – below) that finally gave itself up after a very long search, quickly followed by the utterly charming female Scarce Chaser that was, hands down, my favourite individual dragonfly from the whole two years. Two new species in the space of half an hour, both of them allowing prolonged and close-range observation. I was also really impressed by the damselflies (I only mentioned one in the book but there were several) which I picked out of spiders’ webs – it was great to have the opportunity to study them very closely and watch how deftly they cleaned the spider silk from themselves before going on their way.

Have you continued your search this year?

I have continued to watch and enjoy Odonata on my local patch and elsewhere when weather has permitted. I was also lucky enough to visit Sri Lanka in April, where I photographed and identified as many of the amazingly diverse local Odonata as I could. I have not sought out any new species in Britain so far this year, but that may be about to change as a new colony of Red-veined Darters has been found not far from home, and I’m hoping to pay them a visit next week. I am also very much hoping that RSPB Rainham Marshes will draw in another Southern Migrant Hawker this summer/autumn and that I’ll get to see it this time!

And finally what would be your top tips for aspiring dragon/damsel enthusiasts who want to encounter more of these magnificent beasts for themselves?

Establish a garden pond – even a small one may well be used by the commoner damsels. Always walk slowly and check low-level waterside vegetation – this is where resting and newly emerged dragons and damsels may be found, and they will let you look at them much more closely than the more mature and lively ones will. Try to spend a couple of hours at least at a site, as most species behave differently at different times of day – for example, many only engage in courtship behaviour during the warmest hours of the day. Remember that the chaser, skimmer and darter dragons in particular are creatures of habit and like to visit the same perching spots again and again, so if you disturb one from its perch, just loiter nearby and it will probably come back. To improve your chances of seeing scarcer species, regularly check the sightings pages at the British Dragonfly Society’s website to check where and when they are being seen. Take photographs! It helps greatly with identification to have a static image you can study at length, and you can get excellent macro images from most point-and-shoot digital cameras these days.

Check out our recommended kit and field guides for successful dragonfly-spotting

Visit Marianne Taylor’s photography and wildlife blog, The Wild Side

Gallery of images from Dragonflight, taken by Marianne Taylor:

Azure Damselfly, Sevenoaks Wildlife Reserve

Banded Demoiselle females, Sevenoaks Wildlife Reserve

Blue-tailed Damselfly, Sevenoaks Wildlife Reserve

Downy Emerald 2, Sevenoaks Wildlife Reserve

Golden-ringed Dragonfly, Bridge of Grudie

The birding ID guide revolutionary Richard Crossley, interviewed by NHBS

The Crossley ID Guide series hit the market in 2011 with the guide to Eastern Birds, marking a revolution in identification guides. The plates of birds, scenically arranged in their natural context, are photographic composites and show a variety of angles. They cover plumage, sex, and age variations, and situate the birds among other species for comparison, and in perspectives unusual for an ID guide.

With publication of the Raptor guide imminent, we asked ID guide mastermind Richard Crossley about the concept, and how well it’s working so far…

It has been two years since the first Crossley Guide hit the market. It’s a great design – context is often critical when trying to identify birds. How has the Crossley concept been received?

I think it has been received really well. It has been interesting to watch all the different reactions to something that was totally different from anything people had seen before. It has been the biggest hit with beginners and kids because it helps them to understand the ‘big picture’ of how a bird’s appearance and behaviour is linked to where it lives. It makes sense to them and they are generally not biased by any preconceived ideas of what a bird book should look like.

Adapting to this new approach may be harder for long-time birders who have used side-on, white backgrounds with arrows pointing to specific features. It has been interesting to see that many people are slowly but surely coming around, and may be now finding it tougher to look at traditional guides. Particularly inspiring for me are the number of kids who love the ‘discovery’ aspect of the plates. Today, they are taught at school to work things out for themselves by seeing patterns and repetition. This ‘discovery’ within each plate is just like being outdoors, but a lot easier. My dream is that this style of imagery will encourage more people, young and old, to go outdoors and have a better grasp of what they are looking at. That is the biggest compliment for me!

How would you sell the concept to the average birder who hasn’t been initiated?

I believe that birding is about the voyage of discovery and that learning how to look is the key. At school there are some teachers who make you learn by memorizing the answers parrot-fashion. The second type of teacher helps you to understand how to work the answer out for yourself. They also make it as fun and realistic as possible with lots of examples to practice on and build confidence. Practice still makes perfect! My books are intended to be the second one.

The intention is for the viewer to enjoy looking at the birds in their habitat, behaving as they do in their world so that birds’ personalities can be understood. Everything is connected so it is logical to show all the dots – the viewer can put them together. Today, we now know how the brain works much better than before and this is the better way to inspire all ages. I suppose the Crossley concept can be described as somewhere between traditional guides and reality.

How did you come to have such a passion for birding, and how did the road lead to the Crossley ID Guide concept?

My teacher, Mr. Sutton, introduced me to birding when I was 10 years old. Remarkably, I lived in Whykeham Forest just down the road from the now famous Honey Buzzard raptor watch site. I had collected eggs since I was 7 years old. I just loved it right away. I think there are lots of reasons why. I feel I have had an incredible life because I have seen and experienced so much in my quest to see birds. Birding has quite simply shaped my life.

Funnily enough, I am not a book person and rarely look at them. My favourite is the Collins Bird Guide, in large part because of Killian Mullarney’s and Dan Zetterstrom’s beautiful vignettes. It seemed logical to make books even more lifelike and create one scene. Digital photography and Photoshop came along just as we started the original edition of The Shorebird Guide. I soon became fascinated with book design. The backbone of The Shorebird Guide was the comparative wader shots and making every image as different as possible from the last one – to keep people interested. Ironically, we couldn’t get the comparative images needed and this was the catalyst for me buying a big ‘fancy’ lens and taking up photography. I soon became hooked. Amazing how things come about! Towards the end of making the The Shorebird Guide there was a simple question. How do you take 5 pages, about 15 photos and put all this information in to one image and make it lifelike?

So what goes into the making of a Crossley ID Guide? Do you do all the photography leg-work?

It is scary just thinking about what goes in to these books. The learning curve in the early days was brutal with so many things to work out. In hindsight, many seem quite obvious now. The close-up section of the backgrounds is the most difficult thing to create. There are so many decisions to make and then you have to try to piece it all together. If you don’t have a large selection of images to choose from, it can seem overpowering at times. It’s like a big jigsaw that can be frustrating but ultimately very rewarding.

I set myself the goal of taking all the images for The Crossley ID Guide: Eastern Birds (I consider over 99 per cent to be good enough). I live with multiple, constantly updated, ‘want lists’ of crazy things. They include certain behaviours, different plumages, habitat shots and flight shots – back then nobody took flight shots of warblers, sparrows etc. I hand-held my big lenses for speed, didn’t use flash and moved quickly – this was not in vogue back then. I didn’t tell people what I was doing for some time because it seemed far-fetched and I didn’t think any one would believe it was possible. Technology has changed a lot in just a few years and now it is possible to get just about any image. How things have changed!

The Eastern guide had over 10,000 photos in it, took 5 years and more money than I care to remember. Most plates have dozens of layers of extracted images and require an intimate knowledge of both Photoshop and understanding what a camera can do. Like everything, practice makes perfect, and I feel like the learning curve is still fairly steep. Perhaps that is why it is still fun.

The new book covers raptors in North America – does the chronicling of different kinds of birds in their natural environments present different kinds of challenges to the photographer?

Not really. It is all a challenge but that is the fun. It comes down to creating a mental image of what you want to create like any artist. Going to the right places makes life a lot easier. My paint brush is a camera and Photoshop. It is amazing what you can ‘paint’ these days with a few pixels and some time!
The Crossley ID Guide: Raptors only covers 34 species so it certainly gives you room to express yourself differently from a book covering hundreds of species. That was fun. It is always a challenge to think of new ways to capture people’s interest with new kinds of imagery that bring about a better understanding.

We are eagerly anticipating the Britain and Ireland guide later this year. Dominic Couzens is providing the text. Where next for the Crossley crusade?

The Crossley ID Guide: Britain and Ireland is just about finished. Dominic has been great to work with and I love his engaging writing style. I believe we are very much in sync.

Of course, it was a great excuse to spend a lot of time travelling to get all the photos I needed. Britain and Ireland are so photogenic and I really hope I have captured the essence in the book.

In many ways, this book is for my Dad. He is a very casual birder who loves his backyard and going for a stroll down by the river. Many of the bird books are written for Europe, which he finds a bit overpowering. He is an artist and likes things done right. The true test will be to see if my Dad puts his other books away!

We have lots of other projects going on. Hopefully we can get The Crossley ID Guide: Waterfowl finished in the next six months. We are also just finishing up The Crossley ID Guide: Western Birds. We have a couple more books on the go but I need to get out of the forest before thinking about those.

I am also the co-founder of a new global birding initiative called Pledge to Fledge. The goal is to encourage birders to introduce a non-birder to the outdoors and so fledging a birder. We have 2 weekends a year set aside for this; the next one is April 26-29. Eric Dempsey heads up Ireland and Alan Davies & Ruth Miller Britain (keep an eye on the Biggest Twitch website for more information about events in the UK). This campaign takes up a lot of time but hopefully we can have an impact, particularly in countries where birding is not currently so popular.

And finally, I couldn’t resist: what’s your favourite bird?

Oh come on, hard core birders don’t have favourite birds! Okay, here is your answer. There is one bird I like a lot, and more importantly, we have a lot in common. It is the Sanderling. We are both sort of chunky, always on the run, love the beach and tend to be in photogenic places. Although we both superficially have many colours, if you see past this, we are remarkably consistent in our shape and behaviour. We both travel the world a lot and are approachable – if you can catch up with us. I think Sanderlings are great!

Buy a copy of The Crossley ID Guide: Raptors

The Crossley ID Guide: Britain & Ireland – out November 2013

The Cambrian Explosion: an interview with paleobiologist and author Douglas H. Erwin

The Cambrian Explosion: The Construction of Animal Biodiversity synthesises latest research about this massively siginificant moment in evolutionary history. Author Douglas H. Erwin introduces himself, the subject and some of the life forms that emerged.

Could you please provide a brief evolutionary history of Douglas Erwin as a paleobiologist.

I expected to be a biologist when I was in high school (or a doctor). But when I arrived at Colgate University as an undergraduate I discovered that geology was much more fun than biology (no pre-med students, for one thing). My teacher and mentor, Bob Linsley, was a fantastic teacher – Steve Gould used to claim that he was the best undergraduate paleo teacher in the US. Bob got me hooked on paleo, on evolution, and on Paleozoic snails (my systematic speciality, and Bob’s). Then I was off to UC Santa Barbara to study with Jim Valentine for my Ph.D. Although my Ph.D was on Permian snails from the SW US and the Permo-Triassic mass extinction, I was quite interested then in the Cambrian explosion, and Jim and I wrote several papers on it. I have been at the National Museum of Natural History since 1990, working on aspects of Paleozoic gastropods, the causes and consequences of end-Permian mass extinction and on aspects of macroevolution, particularly the Cambrian. I have been fortunate to have been able to visit many of the critical Ediacaran and Cambrian localities, and to have had wonderful colleagues on associated projects, including a bunch of colleagues associated with NASA’s Astrobiology Institute at Harvard and MIT, and developmental biologist Eric Davidson on the evolution of gene regulatory networks, which features prominently in the later stages of The Cambrian Explosion.

What is the importance of the Cambrian explosion in evolutionary history?

It is one of the critical major evolutionary transitions in the history of life, an episode where virtually every aspect of life on the Earth changed, with impacts on everything from the chemistry of the oceans and atmosphere to the nature of sediments in the ocean. So understanding not just the new fossils but the larger context of the interactions between changes in the physical environment, ecology and evolution is key to understanding what happened. For evolutionary theory, the Cambrian explosion raises some really interesting challenges to how we understand these events. Jim and I argue that it is only by looking at changes in the physical environment, ecological opportunities, and developmental novelties, that we can begin to understand the mechanisms involved, and moreover, that some of the processes force us to extend some traditional approaches to evolution.

Could you briefly introduce one or two of the specific species that came into being so we have some context – I imagine we are not talking about life as we know it?

No, the world of the Ediacaran and Cambrian was a much different place from our world today, and indeed the Ediacaran and Cambrian periods were themselves much different from each other. Rangea is a representative of one of the oldest Ediacaran lineages, the Rangeamorphs. These are found in a variety of frond-like morphologies, and have a fractal structure, so that as you zoom in the frondlets have the same form as the overall frond, as do the petals that make up each frondlet. Opabinia, the beast that graces the cover, is one of my favourite of the Cambrian animals, and one that also illustrates the transformation of our understanding of these animals since Stephen Jay Gould wrote Wonderful Life. In 1989 Opabinia, with five stalked eyes and the long proboscis, was one of the ‘weird wonders’. Thanks to more study and phylogenetic methods of reconstructing evolutionary history we now understand that Opabinia is part of the panarthropod diversification, and is positioned on an evolutionary tree between the Cambrian lobopods and the true arthropods. But these two illustrate something else – whereas Rangea probably fed by adsorbing [not absorbing!] dissolved organic nutrients and lacks any discernible gut, eyes, etc., Opabinia was a mobile, predatory animal, with those great five eyes, appendages, and a gut. The contrast between these two illustrates something of the complexity of the ecological and developmental changes between the Ediacaran organisms and those of the Cambrian.

The book contains reconstructions by illustrator Quade Paul. Paleo art must be quite an intriguing process. What was the nature of your collaboration, and how do you come to settle on a ‘final’ representation of each creature?

Doing illustrations with an artist is always an interesting experience, particularly since I probably have not just zero artistic ability but actually negative artistic ability (sucking it out of those who do). But Quade was great to work with. He is the first artist I have worked closely with who used a lot of the new digital tools, and that was quite a learning experience for me. Jim and I selected the animals we wanted to illustrate, and sent Quade copies of illustrations from the scientific literature, or previous reconstructions, and in many cases copies of the original scientific papers. For a couple of the commonly reconstructed animals of the Burgess Shale we had to steer Quade away from some of the reconstructions found on the web. Then there was considerable back and forth between us getting the details of the critter right, refining the pose and the background details. Artists always want to know about colours, but of course fossils aren’t any help, so we had to infer these from studying modern marine animals. The quality of Quade’s work speaks for itself I think.

In what ways might the latest research about Earth’s evolutionary past affect current conceptions about biodiversity?

Many people often think of biodiversity in terms of the number of species, in part I think because species are easy to count. But there are many other components of biodiversity – ecological function, morphologic disparity, phylogenetic history, etc. One of the themes of this book is that to understand evolutionary history we often have to look as much at these other aspects of biodiversity. Similarly, as we confront the challenges of the current biodiversity crisis, I am among those biologists who feel that we have to consider conservation priorities in a broader context in order to maximize the amount of evolutionary history that we preserve for future generations.

Do you have any more books in the pipeline?

The Cambrian Explosion was the beginning of a new project on evolutionary innovation that I expect will extend over the next decade. Part of the project involves a book that will involve a much more comprehensive look at evolutionary innovations and major evolutionary transitions through the history of life, from the origin of life to aspects of innovation in humans. This will be a pretty big book, but much different from (and much less illustrated than) The Cambrian Explosion. And one always has other ideas…

Buy a copy of The Cambrian Explosion: The Construction of Animal Biodiversity

Stewart McPherson’s Sarraceniaceae volumes reviewed in the Botanical Journal of the Linnean Society

Stewart McPherson is the owner and manager of Redfern Natural History Publications and author of many of its books. His global explorations have afforded him a place of significance in the botanical world, and many of his worldwide field trips have resulted in the classification of new plant species, with a particular emphasis on carnivorous plants such as the Sarraceniaceae.

This review is taken from the Botanical Journal of the Linnean Society, Volume 170 – September 2012

Sarraceniaceae of South America by Stewart McPherson, Andreas Wistuba, Andreas Fleischmann and
Joachim Nerz. Poole: Redfern Natural History Productions, 2011. 562 pp., 488 images. Hardback. ISBN
978-0-9558918-7-8. £34.99.

Sarraceniaceae of North America by Stewart McPherson and Donald Schnell. Poole: Redfern Natural
History Productions, 2011. 808 pp., 571 images. Hardback. ISBN 978-0-9558918-6-1. £34.99.

These volumes together constitute a monograph of the New World pitcher plant family, Sarraceniaceae, and it has to be said straight away that McPherson and colleagues have produced another two beautifully illustrated books to add to their previous works! [See previous reviews to access information on the earlier works (Fay, 2009, 2011)]. These new books will feed the appetite of those who are fascinated by carnivorous plants (see Chase et al., 2010, for a description of the craze for carnivorous plants since the 19th century).

The South American volume provides the first complete study of Heliamphora (now 23 named species and some undescribed taxa) from the Guiana Highlands of Venezuela, Brazil and Guyana. The authors describe five new Heliamphora spp. and document three incompletely diagnosed Heliamphora taxa for the first time. The North American volume is a study of all species of pitcher plants (eight Sarracenia spp. and Darlingtonia californica) from the USA and Canada, and the authors describe 18 new varieties and forms of Sarracenia and one new form of Darlingtonia and document an incompletely diagnosed Sarracenia taxon.

The number of new names presented in these two volumes (new species in one, new infraspecific taxa in the other) reflects the belief of the authors that taxonomic ranks have historically been applied differently in these three genera (notably in North America), and they argue a clear and strong case for making the ranks more even across the family. In the North American genera, varieties and forms have long been used in some species, whereas for other less well studied species, similar morphological variants have only been known by informal names. In this monograph, McPherson et al. attempt to remedy this situation by applying equal taxonomic logic:

‘the subspecific rank is used to distinguish morphologically discrete variants of a species that have a distinctive, and often disjunct geographic range. Varietal rank is used for elements within a population of a species that are morphologically discrete or exhibit a distinctive, consistent and inherited colouration type, and the forma rank distinguishes “deviants” within a population, for example variants that arise through gene mutation, but are stable and inherited.’

Based on extensive field work (Schnell, the co-author of the North American volume, has been observing
pitcher plants for five decades, for example), these authoritative volumes will be important books for all
who wish to study New World pitcher plants. The South American volume includes an introduction to
the family, the taxonomic treatment of Heliamphora and an appendix including the descriptions of the new species, accompanied by black and white drawings. The North American volume includes an introduction, taxonomic treatments of Darlingtonia and Sarracenia and an appendix including the descriptions of the new taxa, accompanied by coloured drawings. Both volumes also contain a list of societies and suppliers, a glossary, a bibliography and an index. No library of books on carnivorous plants will be complete without these reasonably priced and lavishly illustrated volumes. Buy them now if you haven’t already!

MICHAEL F. FAY

REFERENCES

Chase MW, Christenhusz MJM, Sanders D, Fay MF. 2010. Murderous plants: Victorian Gothic, Darwin and modern insights into vegetable carnivory. Botanical Journal of the Linnean Society 162: S47–S74.

Fay MF. 2009. Pitcher plants of the Old World. Botanical Journal of the Linnean Society 161: 449–450.

Fay MF. 2011. Carnivorous plants and their habitats. Botanical Journal of the Linnean Society 165: 439–440.

New from Redfern Natural History Productions:

Aldrovanda: The Waterwheel Plant by Adam Cross

Wildlife Photographer of the Year winning inspirations, part three: Paul Souders on “The grace of giants”

We are marking the forthcoming publication of the new 2012 portfolio from the annual Wildlife Photographer of the Year exhibition with a mini-series of interviews with some of the category winners from last year.

Our third and final interviewee is Paul Souders, who won the Underwater World category in 2011.

You won the Underwater World category in last year’s competition with “The grace of giants” (left). Can you describe the special challenges, and special appeal, that underwater photography must have?

I come from a long line of Pennsylvania dirt farmers here in the US. We are, by our very nature, sinkers not swimmers. I’ve been a professional photographer all of my working life, but it was only in 2005 that I learned to dive and then to photograph underwater. It was an entirely new world, with a vast array of new subjects to shoot and new techniques to learn.

I’ve enjoyed the opportunities it’s presented to expand my view of the natural world and the discipline it has required. Photographing large, unpredictable subjects like a giant walrus in ice-cold sea water at the edge of the world is not for the faint of heart. I can’t imagine that more than a handful of people have deliberately gone swimming with a walrus in the Arctic oceans, but it’s an amazing privilege to witness the sight of them gently gliding in their natural environment.

Could you reveal a bit about the photo and how you got the shot?

I’d imagined this photograph for years, but it took a lot of planning and effort to make it happen. I had to charter a steel-hulled yacht in Svalbard, 600 miles north of Europe’s edge, and drag hundreds of pounds of scuba and other underwater gear from my home in Seattle through four different airports. Walrus are by reputation, large, aggressive and unpredictable. It took an enormous leap of faith to get into the water with them. But sometimes you just have to hope for the best. We’d sailed to one of their haul-outs in the Svalbard archipelago, and found a few of them swimming in the water. I quickly put on all of my gear and then, as last-minute nod to safety, tied an old piece of rope around my waist for the boat skipper to hold onto. And then I slid off the iceberg and into the water.

I could see the walrus circling below me in the depths, and they slowly came up, equal parts wariness and curiosity. They seemed impossibly big, but quite graceful and gentle as they swam towards me. One grew bold, and was soon pressing his whiskers and tusks against my camera’s glass dome. He even gave it a little tap, just to see if I was paying attention.

Apparently blue-lipped, hyperventilating photographers aren’t all that distracting after all, since they soon swam off, taking one last look at me before diving again into the depths.

And your tips for aspiring wildlife photographers?

Probably the best advice I can offer is “don’t quit your day job.”

There has never been a better time to be a nature photographer. In the last decade, we have witnessed a revolution in digital photo technology. Guided tours travel to wilderness areas that were once the sole province of National Geographic and BBC film crews.

Of course, there has never been a worse time to make a living as a nature photographer, since everyone and their dog can now go out on holiday, make amazing pictures and give them away on the internet for nothing.

The hard part for professionals is thinking of images that will show the world in a new way, to create pictures that people haven’t seen before. It requires a level of dedication and perseverance that should give any sane person pause.

Paul Souders’s website:

www.worldfoto.com/

Read part one: Wildlife Photographer of the Year winning inspirations, part one: Steve Mills on “The assassin”.

Read part two: Wildlife Photographer of the Year winning inspirations, part two: Peter Chadwick on “Taking off”.

Pre-order now and save 20% when you buy the Wildlife Photographer of the Year Portfolio 22 book and wall calendar together:

Naturalist and author Mike Dilger on building a wildlife sanctuary in his garden

Mike Dilger – enthusiastic naturalist, freelance presenter and author of My Garden and Other Animals – on the rewards and challenges of creating a wildlife sanctuary on his doorstep.

You always wanted to own your own nature reserve – do you remember what first stirred your interest in wildlife?

The trite answer I always give to this question is that as I was dropped as a small child! As no other members of my immediate family were interested in wildlife I think my passion for natural history may have been genetic. I have vivid memories of spending hours watching butterflies on a huge buddleia bush in our next-door neighbour’s garden when I was around seven and also wanting to know what all the bird songs were. What really started me off was when I acquired my first pair of binoculars (10 x 50 Prinz from Dixons, for the record) at the age of eight, leading to me learning the calls of all the different birds, starting with the wood pigeon. That was over 30 years ago and I’ve never looked back since!

What were some of the pitfalls and high-points of creating your own garden wildlife sanctuary? Any surprising visitors?

One of the pitfalls of creating an attractive and inviting place for wildlife is that it is impossible to dictate (unlike an immigration officer), as to what comes in. For example, having built compost bins in the hope that grass snakes would take up residence, I was more than a touch dismayed when only rats seemed keen to take advantage of the warm, moist accommodation on offer. I was also keen to provide home for as many nesting birds as possible, but after three sleepless nights, the jackdaws building a nest in our chimney simply had to be evicted before we lost our sanity.

In terms of high points, there were simply too many to recount – you’ll have to read the book to uncover them all! The meadow stood out as a stunning success, and in addition to turning up a wide variety of wild flowers, enabled me to add grassland butterflies, like ringlet and gatekeeper, to my garden tally. The simple of addition of a pond resulted in an incredible six species of damselfly and dragonfly laying their eggs into the water. With plenty of food also permanently on offer for the birds, a grand total of 61 species were recorded visiting the garden throughout the year. With foxes and badgers all regular visitors, the biggest surprise of all was the brief appearance of an otter in the brook at the bottom of the garden, which I was lucky enough to spot early one morning whilst listening to the dawn chorus! (see picture – right)

In many ways the best aspect of turning the garden over to nature was the fact that it was a joint effort with my partner Christina – with the project soon becoming our labour of love. When it finally came to producing the book, I provided the words whilst Christina produced the lovely art-work which can be seen studded throughout.

How is the garden doing now after the interesting weather we have been having this year?

Currently the garden is looking soggy to say the least and to be honest the flower borders are ‘twixt cup and lip’, but the feeders are still being emptied on a daily basis and on a warm day the pond is still a hive of activity. Come the winter I’m looking forward to getting stuck in again and have a list as long as my arm of jobs to undertake… Creating a wildlife garden is one of the best projects I have ever undertaken, and continues to reward us every day, but sometimes it can feel like we’re painting the Forth Bridge – with wildlife gardening you can never stand back and say “finished!”

If anyone is inspired to undertake their own garden wildlife project, what would be your top tips to help them on their way?

Don’t be daunted! You don’t have to be the world’s most practical person to construct a wildlife garden – I certainly wasn’t, and yet am delighted with the results. Size is not important either. With our garden only marginally larger than the Centre Court at Wimbledon, we concentrated on quality (of habitat) rather than quantity.

The single, easiest way to improve your garden for wildlife is to dig a pond. It doesn’t have to be the size of a swimming pool (or even a bath-tub) but you’d be amazed at how it draws in the wildlife. By keeping it free of fish, we were able to provide a home for everything from pond skaters and pond snails to aquatic beetles and dragonflies. Plus the constant supply of freshwater also pulled in the birds too!

It’s also sometimes not about what you do, but what you don’t do. A quiet, unkempt corner, for example, can be worth its weight in gold in providing a refuge for some of the more introverted members of the garden wildlife brigade.

My Garden and Other Animals by Mike Dilger is available now in paperback from NHBS

Wildlife Photographer of the Year winning inspirations, part two: Peter Chadwick on “Taking off”

We are marking the forthcoming publication of the new 2012 portfolio from the annual Wildlife Photographer of the Year exhibition with a mini-series of interviews with some of the category winners from last year.

Next up is Peter Chadwick, who won the Gerald Durrell Award for Endangered Wildlife in 2011 with ‘Taking off’, pictured below.

Your photograph, “Taking off”, won the Gerald Durrell Award for Endangered Wildlife last year. What did it mean to you to win in this category?

My picture of the African Black Oystercatchers taking off from the rock as a wave crashes over them really showcases the harsh yet fragile environment that these birds live in, also highlighting their need for complex social interactions. In the early 1980s their numbers plummeted to around 4500 birds and through conservation efforts the population now stands at around 6000 birds. This makes them a good ambassador for the coastal environment, showing that we can make a positive difference if we choose to. Thus the Gerald Durrell Award for Endangered Wildlife was particularly fitting as it certainly helps me showcase these endangered birds and the marine environment in which they live. As a boy my excitement about the outdoors was certainly enhanced through reading all of Gerald Durrell’s books and it is indeed a great privilege to receive the award in his name.

Could you reveal a bit about the photo and the process of getting the shot?

This particular image was taken on Malgas Island, that is found within the West Coast National Park of South Africa. The island is critical to protecting breeding populations of Cape Gannets, African Penguins, Cape, Bank and Crowned Cormorants and of course the African Black Oystercatcher. The island in fact holds the highest breeding density of African Black Oystercatchers anywhere and breeding space is harshly contested for.

The island can only be reached by boat and weather is often a limiting factor to getting onto and off the island and any trips needs to be planned well in advance. As this is a protected area, special permits are also required. All food and water has to be taken with you and all rubbish obviously has to be removed. Planning for the trip is quite considerable and time consuming but it is an incredible privilege to sit on a small island with thousands of breeding birds.

To obtain this particular image, I had been photographing the birds over three mornings at the same location and saw that they regularly met in the early mornings to strengthen pair bonds, proclaim territories and on occasion squabble with one another. The particular rock where these birds were photographed was the popular meeting point for up to sixteen birds and so I concentrated on this point, waiting several hours for the specific action to happen. In this particular series I took about seven or eight images but over the three days probably took about 75 – 100 images. Patience brings the reward!

And your tips for aspiring wildlife photographers?

I would say the most important aspect is to respect your subject – capture the image without disturbing your subject or manipulating the situation. Have patience and get to know your subject before going anywhere near a camera. Experiment and look at the work of other photographers but do not try to copy them – create your own style that makes you unique. I would say that only 20% of the image is created through technical knowledge of your equipment and 80% through your own creativity.

Peter Chadwick’s websites:

www.peterchadwick.co.za

www.photodestination.co.za/who-are-we

Read part one: Wildlife Photographer of the Year winning inspirations, part one: Steve Mills on “The assassin”.

Read part three: Wildlife Photographer of the Year winning inspirations, part three: Paul Souders on “The grace of giants”.

Pre-order now and save 20% when you buy the Wildlife Photographer of the Year Portfolio 22 book and wall calendar together:

Wildlife Photographer of the Year winning inspirations, part one: Steve Mills on “The assassin”

We are marking the forthcoming publication of the new 2012 portfolio from the annual Wildlife Photographer of the Year exhibition with a mini-series of interviews with some of the category winners from last year.

Our first interviewee is Steve Mills whose 2011 category winning photo, ‘The assassin’, is pictured below.

Your photograph, “The assassin”, won the Wildlife Photographer of the Year 2011, Behaviour: Birds category last year. What draws you to birds as a subject in particular?

For me, all wildlife is wonderful but birds are simply fantastic. For one thing they are so accessible. Close encounters with other wild animals are few and far between. They tend to be secretive creatures of the night, reluctant to be seen. It’s birds that allow us that connection with the natural world. We see them everywhere – in the garden, in the park, above the city etc. My fascination has always been more than simply ‘What bird is that?’ but rather ‘What is it doing?’ and ‘Why is it doing it?’ and I think this lifelong interest in bird behaviour has helped me enormously in my photography.

Could you reveal a bit about the photo and the process of getting the shot?

Following a week of snow cover and sub-zero temperatures in the north-east of England many birds were struggling. Snipe and woodcock, amongst others, had been forced to the coast in the search for unfrozen feeding areas. Most had abandoned any pretence of secrecy and were probing anywhere there was even the tiniest patch of grass sticking up through the snow.

I drove around the lanes near my home looking for a likely spot and came across a tiny patch of exposed grass that would allow me to use the car as a hide with the sun well-positioned. With my 500 lens balanced on the window I settled down to wait. Eventually a snipe appeared and began frantically feeding only a few metres away. This was what I’d hoped for and felt my preparation had been suitably rewarded. What happened next was where the luck came in. As with all good wildlife photography there’s preparation, understanding the behaviour of your subject, some decent kit etc., but overriding all this is whether you get lucky.

The snipe, desperately hungry, showed little regard for its exposed position and within seconds had paid the ultimate price. As I watched the snipe through the camera my left eye caught a movement. A merlin arrived at speed inches above the snow, and hit the snipe talons first. The ensuing struggle lasted only a matter of seconds. After looking up, seemingly straight at me, the merlin gave a series of rapid and violent pecks to the head of the snipe to end the uneven contest. Of the 15 shots I was able to take this image worked best.

Have you any tips for aspiring wildlife photographers?

You’ve got to be passionate because it can be frustrating. There isn’t an album in the world big enough for all the ‘almost’ photos – those missed through not quite being in the right place, not reacting quickly enough or having crucially misjudged a setting. That happens to everyone and all you can do is to try to learn from these experiences to make you more likely to get the shot next time.

Wildlife, including birds, tends to be timid, so a long lens helps enormously but if you get to know how your subject behaves you can often predict what it will do and position yourself accordingly. For example, large birds always take off into the wind so by positioning yourself well you’ve got more chance of a bird flying towards you initially. Getting to know your subject also increases your chances of getting action shots such as a bird feeding, preening, wing-stretching, interacting with others etc. This type of action can often add punch to a photo.

Whatever camera you’re using, I recommend you make sure you’re completely comfortable with its settings. Make sure you can change them without losing vital moments having to fiddle about trying to find this or that button. Understanding your camera is vital because, in wildlife photography, you often don’t get a second chance.

Use the light to your advantage. If there is bright sunlight try shooting early in the morning or just before dusk when the shadows are less harsh and the bird is lit from a lower angle.

For birds, keep your shutter speed high. This is particularly important for moving or flying birds. To do this you may have to sacrifice depth of field or ISO.

Finally, never think that you have to travel across the country or even further afield to get great shots. My wife and I run a conservation organisation in Greece – Birdwing – and this takes me to spectacular birdwatching sites where I spend days at a time behind a camera, usually in wonderful light. Ironically however, this picture was taken only yards from my house in the north-east of England, which demonstrates something I’ve learned time and again – in wildlife photography you never know what is around the corner and that extra hour in the field can sometimes be richly rewarded.

Steve Mills’s websites:

http://stevemills-birdphotography.com

www.birdwing.eu

Steve is the author of Birdwatching in Northern Greece: A Site Guide – available now from NHBS

Read part two: Wildlife Photographer of the Year winning inspirations, part two: Peter Chadwick on “Taking off”.

Read part three: Wildlife Photographer of the Year winning inspirations, part three: Paul Souders on “The grace of giants”.

Pre-order now and save 20% when you buy the Wildlife Photographer of the Year Portfolio 22 book and wall calendar together:

Mushroom Identification: Pro Tips from Top UK Mycologists

September is upon us with morning mists and a slight chill in the air… it must be mushroom time! Around this time of year, books on mushroom identification and natural history appear with almost as much certainty as the fungi themselves. Two of our favourite mycologically-minded authors, Peter Marren and Geoffrey Kibby, give some useful and interesting tips for the keen mushroom hunter.

(Note: we cannot stress strongly enough the caution with which you should approach mushroom identification. Some mushrooms are edible, but some are deadly, and identification can be very difficult. As Geoffrey Kibby says below, if in doubt, throw it out!).

First up is Peter Marren, whose forthcoming book, Mushrooms, is the first in a new series of natural history publications, the British Wildlife Collection

Peter Marren’s tips on mushroom identification for the beginner

There are an awful lot of fungi – 2,400 species in the latest field guide and that’s just the larger ones. Fortunately, perhaps, most of them are rarely seen. There are only about a hundred really common ones, and they are the ones you need to know.

Forget about the ‘little brown fungi’ for now. Try getting to know an accessible group such as the waxcaps or the boletes, or the puffballs and their ‘relatives’. It will teach you a lot about the differences between species and the places to look for them.

Join a fungus foray organised by your local fungus group or wildlife trust, or, better still, attend a weekend course at a field centre. Direct contact is better than books.

Picking mushrooms does no harm. They are not plants but the fruit bodies of an organism living in the soil or in wood. Apples on the tree, as it were. And you will need to bring back specimens of fungi that are impossible to identify in the field.

Gathering and cooking wild fungi is great fun, especially as shared fungus feast. But never eat any that you cannot identify with confidence. There are a lot of poisonous fungi out there.

For fungi an x20 magnification hand lens is useful. At some point the dedicated forayer will need a microscope, but that, as they say, is a whole new ball park. Or playing field, as they are also known.

Peter Marren on recommended books for mushroom identification…

There are not many read-through books about fungi. I enjoyed Patrick Harding’s Mushroom Miscellany, a series of short chapters on all aspects of fungi, and the New Naturalist volume Fungi by Brian Spooner and Peter Roberts is all-embracing and thorough, but not for the faint-hearted. From Another Kingdom, published by the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh is an informal seminar on matters mycological, including ‘fungal monsters in science fiction’. The best field guide in my opinion is still Marcel Bon’s Mushrooms & Toadstools, first published back in 1987, although it needs updating. Paul Sterry and Barry Hughes’ Collins Complete Guide to British Mushrooms and Toadstools has the best colour photographs.

…and on his new book, Mushrooms

Mushrooms is my personal take on the world of fungi in Britain, about the pleasures of searching for mushrooms and toadstools, and why they matter. I have written it as a narrative, in current TV parlance as a ‘journey’, beginning with the extraordinary diversity of fungi and the ways in which they exploit the natural world to the history of the fungus foray and the controversy over gathering wild mushrooms for the pot. In the process I zoom in on the nature of names, both Latin and English, at the places which hold the greatest diversity of fungi, and our attempts to conserve rare and vanishing fungi. It is, I hope, a refreshing and amusing look at this ‘third world’ of life, written without jargon and in lively style. I hope it can be read with pleasure by anyone. It is full of lovely colour photographs.

Next up, Geoffrey Kibby, whose new photographic identification guide to the Genus Amanita is the fourth in a series of full colour fungi identification monographs, and is out now. In the following article Kibby discusses the finer points of mushroom identification:

The joys and tribulations of fungus identification

Firstly, let’s be quite clear: there are an awful lot of fungi! Just including those generally referred to as the larger fungi – those just a few millimetres across all the way up to species that can reach a metre or more – there are around three thousand species recorded in Britain.

Whether we call them all mushrooms, as the Americans tend to do, or toadstools as we often do in Britain, they form a huge and amazing array of species. The terms mushroom and toadstool are of course very vague with no actual specific scientific meaning, encompassing both edible and poisonous species. With such a large number of species to choose from, identification can be both difficult and frustrating, and if edibility is a factor then obviously getting a correct identification is even more important; a mistake can be, and sadly has often been, fatal.

General field guides are the usual starting point for most amateurs just starting out in mycology (the proper term for the study of fungi) but there is an obvious problem here: the number of species included. Many guides have just a few hundred species that may not cover enough of the species you will find. More comprehensive ones usually have about 1000 to 1500 species and are accordingly more useful. The largest guide yet produced (Collins Fungi Guide by Stefan Buczacki with beautiful watercolour paintings) has around 2,400 species, but that does not of course guarantee that you will produce a correct identification. Indeed too many choices might be as confusing as too few. Then there is the choice of whether to get one with photographs or paintings (both have their different advantages).

Many species can only be distinguished with certainty by using a microscope to examine their spores and other microscopic structures, or by the application of specific chemicals to produce colour reactions. More technical monographs are needed for these.

A field guide can only take you so far and show you a representative sample of a particular species. Fungi vary much more than most organisms and you will need to learn them in all their many and varied forms before you can confidently say you know a species well. The best way to learn is to get a good guide and then take it along on an organised fungal walk (or foray as they are usually called). Here you will usually be led by an experienced expert who can show you first hand the important features of each species as well as their particular ecology. The latter can be vital in fungus identification. Many fungi grow in association with specific trees or other plants and knowing this can help you to identify or even predict the species you may find.

By going on regular fungus walks, or perhaps joining a longer course over a weekend or a week you will gradually learn to recognise the commonest species which you will see on almost every walk and start to learn some of the more uncommon species also. Almost every county has a mushroom group and there are also larger, country-wide mycological societies such as the British Mycological Society or the Association of British Fungus Groups. These organisations can put you in touch with your local group as well as organising forays and workshops of their own and producing useful publications. The journal Field Mycology, which I edit for the BMS, is aimed at the beginner all the way to the specialist and mainly deals with larger fungi.

Comparing the actual fungi you find with the photos or paintings in your field guide will soon show the value of owning more than one guide. Each guide may have a different list of species and some will have better illustrations of a particular species than another. Most mycologists soon build up a small library of picture books! Using a digital camera to photograph specimens or trying your hand at making paintings of them and building up your own catalogue of illustrations is highly recommended also. Once you are more confident of the commoner species then there are a number of more specialist works, usually dealing with a specific group of fungi and this is often the best way to really make progress, by concentrating on a particular group which you find especially attractive or interesting.

I would certainly recommend the boletes as an ideal group to begin with. They are often large, very brightly coloured and with good field characters and include a number of excellent edible species. Almost all the species can be identified in the field with a little experience and a good reference work. After 48 years of studying fungi the boletes remain among my favourites and many other mycologists will say the same. The book on boletes which I have produced, British Boletes, aims to provide easy to use keys based mainly on field characters and photographs of the vast majority of the British species. My books tend to focus on the most widely studied and popular groups of fungi. Hence I have titles covering Russula (The Genus Russula in Great Britain), Agaricus (The Genus Agaricus in Britain) and my most recent work The Genus Amanita in Great Britain. All are available from NHBS. Further titles will be forthcoming in the next few months, in particular one on the genus Lactarius, commonly called Milkcaps and further down the road an illustrated field guide to 1200 species of larger fungi.

Geoffrey Kibby’s top tips for safe mushroom identification

Many people come into mycology via a desire to try eating something a little more exotic than the shop bought mushroom. There are many edible species and they can have tastes and textures quite unlike the cultivated species. Hunting for edibles can be a wonderful experience but there are several rules to follow if your hunt is to have a happy outcome:

Make sure you are allowed to collect, many woodlands or parks have restrictions on picking.

Obey any local rules on how many you can pick and try to leave some for others to admire, don’t ‘vacuum’ the woods of everything you see.

Collect only specimens in good condition; old or rotten specimens will not make a good meal and can cause serious stomach upsets.

MOST IMPORTANT OF ALL: you must be absolutely sure of your identification, some mushrooms are deadly and a mistake can quickly become fatal. If you are a beginner then always get the advice of an expert. Stick to a few, unmistakable species. IF IN DOUBT, THROW IT OUT.

Always keep aside a specimen of anything you collect to eat and if it is a species you have not eaten before then sample just a little—even good edibles can cause upsets in some people (many people can’t eat strawberries or nuts for example).

Mycology, or mushrooming, can appeal on many levels, from the simple pleasure of seeing strange and wonderful organisms to the intellectual challenge of trying to identify them and understand their intricate life cycles. But the starting point is, and always will be, a good book!

And finally… hand lenses to help with mushroom identification

Last week we published a blog post with advice on purchasing a hand lens, plus a useful comparison chart showing the various lenses you can buy from NHBS.

Read The NHBS Guide to Buying a Hand Lens