Go early, stay late at the zoo
18 November 2009
I recently asked a well-known wildlife photographer if she had any tips about taking animal portraits in the zoo. Her answer was brief: “Go early, stay late, and don’t be ashamed of taking zoo shots, we all do it.”
She told me that most of the finest pictures of large animals are zoo shots, or at least safari park portraits. “You can go on shooting, day after day, until you get it right,” she says. “A shaft of light, a brief change in the animal’s position, two animals interact or one of them yawns, and you’ve got a picture which will sell and sell.” More »
No worries — zooming on safari
16 November 2009
A famous traveller once said that the best advice he could give to anyone setting out on a trip abroad was very simple: “At the last minute, throw out half the clothes and pack twice as much money.”
For wildlife photographers, it would be much the same: “Throw out half the gear and pack twice as many cards.” More »
Harris is most popular of hawks
14 November 2009
When I first imported Harris hawks from Texas about 1970, most of my falconer friends thought they were a bit of a joke.
“Quite pretty, but they are not exactly goshawks, are they?” was a typical comment about the yellow-legged hawks sitting on their bow perches on the lawn. And when one bird grabbed a bare hand, and for a painful five minutes could not be persuaded to loosen her iron grip, the victim said: “I suppose they have to hold on to slippery lizards an’ that …” More »
Easier bird photos in the aviary
14 November 2009
Birdkeeping is much the same as ever it was, but taking photographs of aviary birds has changed dramatically. Today’s digital cameras make it wonderfully easy.
I was thinking about this when comparing the price of a couple of pairs of canaries I had been offered with the price of a new camera. The birds – sight unseen, no pedigree, no guarantees – were £30 each, plus £65 for the courier, a total of £185. The latest zoom camera would cost about the same, and it’s guaranteed to arrive alive! More »
Quail is fast-breeding superstar
14 November 2009
There is a lot of good news and two bits of not-so-wonderful news about the Japanese quail. The good news is that this little gamebird is the most super-productive of all domestic birds, laying from the age of just six or seven weeks, with table birds ready for market at 50 days.
The bad news for the sportsman is that the quail is a complete failure as a wild gamebird, and the problem for the backyard poultry keeper is that the British market for quail meat and eggs is described as “saturated”. More »
