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Category Archives: Phone photography

A very welcome return

Posted on May 1, 2023 | 2 comments

When I was a kid and we holidayed every year in Denmark, the stork was an iconic bird and one we never saw in the UK, and we would take trips down to Ribe in southern Jylland – the Danish mainland – to see storks nesting on church towers, thatched rooves and wagon wheels the locals had mounted on tall poles for that purpose.

In recent years a successful reintroduction program undertaken on the Knepp estate in Sussex with birds from Warsaw zoo has resulted in storks breeding again in England. The last recorded breeding in the UK happened in 1416 so it’s been a very long time coming!

Yesterday I went for a walk around Burwell Fen and Wicken Fen and the spring weather was perfect for nature watching; and birds, butteflies and mammals were out in abundance. But the star of the show was a stork sitting atop the Tower Hide at Wicken Fen. I’d been tipped off by another person enjoying a walk in the spring sunshine that it was there, but I was a tad sceptical until I rounded the bend and there it was. The first time I’d seen one outside Denmark or central Europe. Suffice to say I was beside myself.

White stork – Ciconia ciconia – perched on the Tower Hide at Wicken Fen in Cambridgeshire

The stork is a migrant to Europe after overwintering in Africa and is up to 1.1m tall with a wingspan of around 1.8m. It’s a big bird and nests in small colonies on spectacular nests made out of sticks and I hope they start building them in Cambridgeshire again in the not too distant future.

I’d deliberately left my camera in the car to just enjoy the scenery and of course I half regretted that, so I took these images with my phone. Not the best quality photo’s of a stork but I’m very pleased with them and they record a very special sighting for me.

After taking flight from the hide it soared higher and higher over the Fen for probably 10-15 minutes or so before disappearing.

Apart from the stork, the Fens were alive with othe creatures and even though I don’t like lists this time it’s worth sharing a selection of what I saw and heard:

Hare, roe deer, orange tip butterflies, peacock (butterflies), speckled wood, brimstone, oystercatcher, lapwing, shelduck, swift (the first I’ve seen – and heard – this year), swallow, kestrel, sparrowhawk, marsh harrier, hobby, peregrine falcon, buzzard, cetti’s warbler, sedge warbler, grasshopper warbler – and all of these whilst being constantly serenaded by wrens and cuckoos.

If only I’d taken my camera 🙂

2 Comments

Posted in fen, Migrants, Phone photography, UK wildlife, Wicken Fen

Tagged Ciconia ciconia, Knepp rewilding, reintroduction, White stork, Wicken Fen

The amazing potential of phone photography

Posted on October 10, 2016 | 16 comments

A few weeks ago, in August, I was in Toronto and on a glorious sunny day I took a boat trip out to Centre Island, which, in the unlikely event you ever find yourself in Toronto wondering what to do, I can heartily recommend. There were many huge and colourful butterflies including monarchs and swallowtails fluttering around the island, and some others I didn’t recognise. It was a work trip so I hadn’t taken my DSLR with me and the only way to get a photograph was with my phone camera. And then I discovered that monarchs are skittish and it’s not easy to get close to them, which I needed to do as I only had a phone to take pictures with, but after chasing several and failing to get within range I managed to sneak up on this one:

monarch-toronto-aug-2016-pp Monarch butterfly – Danaus plexippus

I stooped down on the opposite side of the plant to the butterfly and reached around to point my phone and take this picture. I must confess, I was a little gobsmacked at how well it worked. The light conditions were challenging as it was late morning and the sunlight was intense, so there was lots of contrast between the shade and the light. But after minimal post processing to darken the sunny bits I think is a pretty good image! I changed my phone earlier this year for an iPhone 6S plus and I was impressed with the quality of the camera from the start, but after this shot I’m really impressed with it.

I hope it’s not a global phenomenon, but this year, due to climatic aberrations, many butterfly species have been hit really hard and their numbers have plummeted. The results of the ‘Big Butterfly Count‘, an annual survey of our Lepidoptera here in the UK, was reported today, and the news was bleak. Many erstwhile common species have really suffered and this is a phenomenon which I’ve noticed and commented on several times since the Spring this year. And now it’s official. Sir David Attenborough (the worlds greatest living human being), and president of the charity Butterfly Conservation, said that butterflies are a good barometer of the state of nature in general. I’m inclined to agree with him and I think it’s a very bad sign that the plight of our butterflies in the UK is so dire. It doesn’t augur well.

small-copper-wandlebury-roman-road-sep2016-pp Small copper – Lycaena phlaeas

But one of my absolute favourite butterflies, and one that I only see very infrequently, even in a good year, is the small copper. I think they’re gorgeous. I haven’t seen one for about three years and then, randomly, a friend of mine showed me this picture a couple of weeks ago which he took with his phone, also an iPhone 6S, on the Roman road between Cambridge and Linton.

So there are still some lovely butterflies out there, but please think of them and, if you can spare it, leave a little bit of your garden to grow wild with no chemicals to help them recover. And if you don’t have a camera handy to take a portrait give it a go with your phone instead, you might be surprised!