
Hello and welcome
I have always had a keen interest in wildlife and the great outdoors;
I was an Angler for over 30 years but gave it up a few years ago to
concentrate on photographing wildlife. I lived in Runcorn; Cheshire a
short distance from the M56 that gave me great access to the Wirral,
Northwales and Lancashire, with some great countryside on my doorstep
I didn't have to travel too far in search of wildlife and photographic
opportunities.
Some of my wildlife photographs range from as far afield as Cuba,
Antigua, Saint Martin, Saint Lucia, Dominican Republic, Tuscany ,
Corfu, Turkey, Spain, Portugal.
I now live in the Charente area of western France.
You shouldn’t take the Short-eared Owls for granted they will soon be gone until next year, you can be lucky and get them in good light but most of the time that’s not the case.
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You say to yourself, I will get them another day.
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You take the shots you can but not the ones you wish you could get.
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It all has to come together; you have to have the time, the good weather and the luck.
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Time, I have that. Good weather that’s in the lap of the Gods. Luck, more visits means a chance of more luck.
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I am still working on the latter.
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More later
I arrived at first light to be greeted by two hunting Barn Owls, one of which soon disappeared from view.
I slowly made my way into position getting as close as I could, although It wasn’t near enough (it never is).
The light wasn’t up to much; I was going to struggle to get any shots.
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I took a few shots, (why I don’t really know). I have better shots of Barn Owls and these are going to be rubbish, but that’s what we do.
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A better photograph taken a few years ago
With better positioning and a lot of luck some good shots are achievable but not for me today.
The remaining Barn Owl soon disappeared.
As time passed along with any good light nothing turned up to photograph, the promise of Short-eared Owls seemed to be a joke.
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With the sun started to disappear one Short-eared Owl took to the sky only to tantalize the waiting photographers, then it too disappeared followed the photographers.
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More Later
Short-eared Owl
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Water Rail
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Canon 7D mark two on test, works for me.
Short-eared Owls
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Back later
Short-eared Owl
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Iguana
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Next stop Miami
St Maarten is the last stop on our tour of the Caribbean islands and it produced some of the better wildlife photographs.
On the way back to the ship I visited the Orleans Oyster pond just a short walk from the Harbour.
It’s a site that holds a small number of Brown Pelicans.
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I was lucky to catch sight of this Great Egret carrying a small fish.
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Brown Pelican
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More later
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Magnificent Frigatebird
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Masked Booby
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Next stop St Maarten
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Back in the same spot in Antigua after five years, not much has changed. Just a few hundred metres from the dock in a small Car Park that front’s the Harbour Cattle Egrets nest.
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Didn’t see the different species of birds this time but it’s still worth a visit.
Green Heron, White-crowned Pigeon, Yellow Warbler, Yellow-crowned Night Heron and Zenaida Dove were the only birds that I managed to see.
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Green Heron
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White-crowned Pigeon
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Yellow Warbler
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Yellow-crowned Night Heron
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Zenaida Dove
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Next stop Saint Thomas
Frigatebird
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Mockingbird
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Next stop Antigua
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Barbados didn’t offer up much in the way of wildlife opportunities as we were site seeing most of the time. We did visit a wildlife reserve but I wasn’t impressed. Captive animals include Green Monkeys.
Imported originally from Senegal and Gambia in West Africa about 300 years ago.
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Hummingbird
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Not good shots due to the heat haze
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Next stop St Lucia
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Brown Booby
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Bananaquip
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Flamingo
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Yellow Oriole
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Next stop Grenada
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