East Yorkshire
Well I enjoyed that..!
Bridlington was always really just going to be a jumping-off spot for visits to other venues, but I have to admit that I quite liked the town itself. Yes, it’s literally a place of donkey rides on the beach, fairgrounds, and sticks of rock at every turn, but the beach itself went on forever – and without dogs – and even though there were plenty of holiday-makers about it was still possible to find the odd bird to point the camera at, mainly Turnstones of course, but also the odd Knot and Purple Sandpiper.
Turnstone, Bridlington
Turnstone, Bridlington
Turnstone, Bridlington
Turnstone, Bridlington
Knot, Bridlington
Knot, Bridlington
Knot, Bridlington
Knot, Bridlington
Knot, Bridlington
There were – obviously – gulls all over (including a piratical Herring Gull that mounted a precision low-level raid on the fish in my tray of – delicious! – fish and chips!) and some interesting House Sparrows that had apparently taken residence in the local fishermens’ crab pots.
Herring Gull, Bridlington
Herring Gull, Bridlington
House Sparrow, Bridlington
There was even a “real” Barnacle Goose in the harbour.
Having arrived and familiarised myself with the town on the Monday, the next day, my first full day was – well – a mistake, best chalked up to “it seemed like a good idea at the time…”: I decided it would be fun to have a walk to Flamborough Head.
The distance as the crow flies wasn’t bad – about five miles or so from the hotel to the lighthouse at “Flam” – and I had proper walking socks and shoes on. And a fat lot of good they did. I still ended the day with ruined feet – I even had bloody great blisters on the tops of my toes, for Pete’s sake!
Because of this I didn’t actually do the place any justice, preferring to head back rather than “do” Flam properly. But while I was there I did pick up this juvenile Stonechat (unfortunately against the background of the lighthouse):
Stonechat, Flamborough
Stonechat, Flamborough
Heading back, I came across this Fulmar:
Fulmar, Flamborough
Fulmar, Flamborough
It surely seemed spirited enough (I approached it to make sure it wasn’t obviously injured or otherwise incapacitated in some way I could help with: it reacted very vigorously to my attention, and did eventually fly off) and – once I was satisfied that it wasn’t moribund I felt OK about taking a few pictures.
I also got to explain a few fascinating Fulmar facts to a couple who were walking the clifftop path. They loved the idea that Fulmars are “mini Albatrosses” rather than seagulls!
Of course, the very next day Flam produced an Eastern Oliveaceous Warbler but while I’d have loved to be around anyway when it showed up, I wouldn’t/didn’t twitch it…
The next day (and Friday) saw me at Bempton Cliffs for Gannets and Tree Sparrows, neither of which I’d ever photographed, and Fulmar, which I just like shooting. Another glorious day weather-wise (the whole week was fantastic, even though there was too little wind for the Gannets to perform in, unfortunately) but Mission Accomplished, as far as I’m concerned.
I had a specific wish to do something a bit different with the Gannet images. Pretty much every Bempton Gannet in flight shot has the bird either against the sky or the sea (believe me, I checked three years’ worth of Gannet pictures on Birdguides and on Birdforum before writing this!), and practically none actually put the bird against the landscape – the cliffs: well, that’s what I decided to try for.
It’s much harder than it looks.
I got the images I wanted though, pretty much. I think that this approach provides a context which is lacking when the bird is against the sky or sea, and while some are better than others, I’m quite happy with how these images turned out, all told.
I enjoyed the challenge too, because while it’s pretty easy to catch a Gannet in flight (they’re big birds, and although they fly quite fast, they’re predictable), selecting and locking onto a bird, getting good AF and framing, and then picking just the right moment to trigger the shutter, when the bird is over the geology for no more than a second or so was hard work.
And utterly addictive – I came home with about 20 gb of Gannets!
Gannet, Bempton
Gannet, Bempton
Gannet, Bempton
Gannet, Bempton
Of course, putting some of the birds against the sea was unavoidable, and images are none the worse for it, really.
Gannet, Bempton
Gannet, Bempton
The Tree sparrows were harder though – plenty of ‘em at the RSPB building, but they’re nervous. Even so I got a number of images I was pleased with, such as these:
Tree Sparrow, Bempton
Tree Sparrow, Bempton
Tree Sparrow, Bempton
And of course, the Fulmars are always good value – again I’ve picked these three images because they’re a bit different to what I’ve photographed previously, and again are a challenge to image well:
Fulmar, Bempton
Fulmar, Bempton
Fulmar, Bempton
On Thursday I decided on a 2 hour afternoon trip out to Bempton on the Yorkshire Belle, the same boat that hosts the RSPB cruises. But because this wasn’t a birding cruise per se there was no chumming and therefore no Skuas or Shearwaters: I did see a few distant Arctic skuas, but nothing I could photograph. To be honest though, I enjoyed the break from waving the camera around, using the time either side of the boat trip to catch up on some important postcard writing and souvenir buying..!
A word of caution about the Yorkshire Belle… It is apparently “tradition” to have folk musicians on boats sailing out of Brid harbour. I had no problem with the idea of a fiddle player being on this cruise working through a few traditional sea shanties, fisherman’s songs and the like.
The guy we got really didn’t click with me at all: traditional songs are one thing, but this fella insisted on also churning out such incongruous ditties as Peggy Sue and other, more contemporary, pop tunes – and it was just wrong somehow!
Worse (for me anyway) is that – as an erstwhile “serious muso” myself – I have an extremely well developed sense of pitch: a note need only be a tiny fraction of a tone out and it’s like someone dragging fingernails down a blackboard for me. Well this guy’s fiddle playing intonation was appalling – and I had over two hours of it! It might have been OK in the context of him playing traditional tunes – somehow that “worked” – but not with the more modern stuff, especially as his voice was actually pretty good and in tune.
You have been warned..!
As I suggest above, I had a return visit to Bempton on Friday, for more of the same as on Wednesday, and that brought a very enjoyable week to a close: no rarities, but I really appreciated the break (the hotel, the Mont Millais was fine, even though the single room I had epitomised the phrase “compact and bijou” – but it still had a double(ish) bed and an en suite, and was clean, comfortable and well turned out) and I came away with a few new species to add to my image collection.
Nice part of the world, East Yorkshire, and I can see me heading back down there.
I’ll close by pointing something out. All of these images are – as near as dammit – full frame, with only very minor cosmetic/compositional cropping. I mention this just to remind people that while it’s great to have 840mm or more of usable focal length at your disposal, you can do surprisingly well with “only” 400mm simply by picking your subjects well and knowing enough about them to allow yourself a close approach.
I actually ended up with a great many images where Turnstones, Knot and Gannets were too close to focus on or too big in the frame to be of any real use!
Hi Keith,
Good report of an area I’ve only visited on a day trip thus far. When I was there, I too only had a 400mm at hand, but found it adequate for most shots, though it would be beneficial to have had what I have now (700mm) for some gannet portrait shots.
One thing – some of the gannet images, and the last fulmar one, seem a little on the blue side? Like the WB is off? Could be this monitor here. But it’s something I struggle with a lot, and usually get wrong!
Glad you enjoyed it and hope you find more time to get out and about.
Cheers,
Pete.
Hello young fella, good to hear from you!
The WB on some of these pics might well be a bit “squirrely”: I do have a preference towards the blue end of the spectrum, so you might be seeing that, but I’ve had problems getting my calibration device to play nice with my new PC, so I’m pretty much “by eye” at the moment.
That said, the last Fulmar’s colours were a royal pain, and they’re surely a bit off, although it’s less “in your face” if you don’t view it in the company of other pictures.
I agree though that the two Gannets Against Gannets are blue - but honestly, I like them like that, so there's at least some "creative intent" there!
What I will say is that I always check my images on more than one screen (home PC, uncalibrated work PC and uncalibrated home laptop) and the Gannets look OK on them all – albeit slightly different on each – but what I also do is to compare images I’ve created against images taken by folk whose colours I know I can trust.
Unfortunately, neither Nigel Blake nor Geoff Simpson have any Gannets I can compare with!
I’ll have to track down the one that Mark Wilson took.
Or get a new calibration device..!
Hi Keith.Just wanted to say,thanks,lovely work.really enjoyed your site.
Thanks John – I appreciate it.
Hi Keith been a bit long love the site, just bought a Canon 500D trying to take some pics, what size lens would you advise for wildlife?
Hi Colin, how are you doing?
You’re asking the $64,000 question there, because it really depends on what we mean by “wildlife” and on how we’ll be shooting.
I don’t do macro work myself, although it’s hard not to be tempted by images like this, this and – especially – this! (That last one probably involves a macro-specific technique called “stacking”, but even so, Wow!)
I understand that for macro images of things that might actually move away, a macro lens with a focal length of 100mm is best, as it allows the photographer to be that little bit further away from the critter than a 50mm or 60mm macro lens allows, reducing the likelihood that the subject will be flushed.
For bigger stuff… well, a lot of photographers are very successful by using their cars as mobile hides (you’ll have seen it yourself – cars don’t freak animals out the same people do) and I’ve seen Short Eared owls and Roe deer shot brilliantly with 300mm lenses.
A 300mm lens will also serve very well for a lot of wader photography, especially if you use some fieldcraft tricks like sitting (or better, lying) still as they work along the beach – letting them come to you – in which case 300mm is plenty. It’s enough for a lot of wildfowl too, especially at places like country parks (the QEII for example) where the birds are relaxed about people.
Conversely, if you set up a hide – in your garden, say – (some camo netting over a fishing brolly works surprisingly well!) 300mm will serve you well even for small bird like finches and tits.
Generally speaking though the rule of thumb is “the longer the lens, the better”; or to put it another way, “you can never have enough focal length”.
That’s often true, but a lot of my own favourite pictures were taken with my 100-400mm zoom at a lot less than 400mm, and I’m still talking about frame-filling pictures.
There’s another thing to mention in favour of (comparatively) shorter focal lengths too: it forces you to think about more creative framing and compositional approaches, resulting in more aesthetically appealing bird in its environment images rather than extreme close-ups which, as far as I can tell, only really impress other photographers..!
All told, 400mm is generally considered to be the minimum all-round focal length for most wildlife photography. Of course, you can reach 400mm in more than one way, such as adding a 1.4x teleconverter to the (excellent) Canon 300mm f/4 lens – that will get you out to 420mm, but you still have the 300mm option too, should you need it.
Another thing about the 300mm f/4 (and my 100-400mm) is that they have image stabilisation which goes a long, long way to removing the need for a tripod (I never use a tripod), and makes everything that little bit easier.
Now that you’ve got your camera (surprised it took you so long, mate!) you’re welcome to have a go with my 100-400mm to get a feel for what it can do for you – we have to arrange a get-together some time.
Hi Colin,
Nice to hear you are still about. I started out with a 400D and a sigma 70-300 APO lens which for under £200 is hard to beat. I later upgraded to a 100-400L like Keith’s but its an expensive bit of kit and takes a little getting the hang of.
If you are thinking of buying a 100-400 check out www.hdewcameras.co.uk they are doing it for £1099 which is the cheapest i’ve seen it recently they are also doing the 1.4x and 2x extenders for the old price of £229 which i’m very tempted with!
By the way Keith these are some very impressive pics. My favourites are the 2nd Knot image and the first of the “coming in to land” gannets. The very last image of the fulmar looks odd? Is it over sharpened? or just my eyes!
Hi Mark,
that last Fulmar is just odd, mate – the colour is weird, and no amount of white balance tweaking and whatnot has been able to help. The bird itself is OK, but against that background, the overall effect is… well, odd!
But it’s not oversharpened – that’s something I’m careful about. That said, the leading edges of the outer wings might have a hint of a halo, but overall it’s about right: the halo is probably just a result of crunching the file down for the net.
Hi Keith,
Love your site mate, it’s very easy to navigate & it has some very informative/interesting stuff!
Brid, Bempton, & flamborough are my favorite seabirding spots, I cant keep away from there when I have any free time to kill.
Have you tried Leighton moss? that is excellent too, though I may be bias as it’s my old stoping ground where I was brought up, cant wait to move back up there.
Anyway keep up the good work Keith
Best regards
Paul Cashie