Well, I have to say, that felt like a long difficult winter. I rarely shoot any wildlife photos in the winter time. My sports photography commitments rule out a lot of that, and I rarely do any wildlife work at all before the start of April. Now I’m back in the mix and I can get my blog up and running again.
This past winter has seen some extraordinary weather patterns worldwide, and here in Ireland we didn’t miss out. We got a blast of arctic air at the start of December which gave us 2 weeks of snowfall which brought the country to a standstill. A thaw then set in for about 5 minutes before another belt of snow came and covered us all again until just before new years eve. All that snow and ice has played havoc with the garden. The grass is in bits and I lost a lot of plants that just gave up the unequal struggle to adjust to the minus 8 temperature.
Well, thankfully that’s all behind us and we’ve had plenty of sunshine these past few weeks. Plants are springing up all over the place and when I was in Wexford during the week, there were swallows everywhere. There also seems to be plenty of butterflies already out and fluttering about. I’ve already spotted Small Tortoiseshells, Common Blue, Small Blue, Peacock, Small White and Orange Tip. That surely bodes well for the summer months ahead.
I was out in Howth a couple of weeks ago trying to get sum panoramic photos and I came across my old friends the Black Guillemots. I love these little birds. They always give me the impression that they enjoy life more than any other bird. I can understand that to be honest. A life of fishing and sunbathing would do us all a power of good so I can see why they like it.
The Black Guillemot is a small bird and a very obliging one for the photographer. At least, the ones that frequent the harbour walls in Howth, County Dublin are very obliging. At this time of year their minds start wandering and their thoughts turn towards family planning matters. With this obvious distraction on their minds, they tend to pay less attention than usual to people and this allows you to get a bit closer than normal to these little birds.
These particular birds in these photos were busy calling to each other and jumping off the harbour wall and flying around in circles which meant that I could photograph them without the use of big heavy lenses which is always a bonus. Big lenses may make you look good to the untrained eye but they aren’t always the most practical piece of equipment you can have in your bag. Whenever possible I always try to get closer to the animals I photograph and use a smaller lens. It’s just more comfortable.
So we’re half way through spring and summers around the corner. For the type of photography I do, things will now start to get quite busy. I’ll have to get busy with the blog as well. See you all next week
www.davemcmanusphotography.com
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