Surfing foxes, disappearing otters and a bonus muntjac

This week has been great (photographically at least!). One of those weeks when your stock of images - ones you know you are going to keep - suddenly gets bigger.

Firstly, I visited a site where we had seen fox cubs last year. We have been keeping track of this site over the winter, observing the small signs of fox inhabitation, gradually becoming convinced that another litter was in the disused section of a large badger sett. So we set up at the bottom of the wood, overlooking a deep, narrow valley of the type that we call a 'coombe' here in the southern chalkland. After about 40 minutes, we heard a pair of magpies start to chatter and scold in the woodland. A predator was on the move. Sure enough, an adult fox appeared at the top of the slope. He stretched and then started to slide down the hill. This grass-surfing down the steep slope of the coombe was obviously hugely enjoyable. He rubbed himself in the grass, stretching cramped limbs and enjoying the evening sunshine.

It was a great view for us. The Canon 5D, stuck on the back of the f2.8 300mm and x2 converter, did me proud as usual. We lost sight of him for a while as he checked out some of the local rabbit buries, then he cam over to us and stood for a while at about 20 metres while I got some great images (you'll have to wait to see those ones!). He moved off eventually, having had his fill of a bush that makes odd clicking noises.

One the way back to the car we came across two muntjac, a doe and a buck, strolling towards us in the last of the sunshine. They were almost hand in hand as they tripped through the cowslips. I'm sure that there will be a little muntjac along soon! On a more serious note, muntjac are becoming much more common in South Wiltshire. They live quite happily in the thorn scrub and long grass of the downlands.  Their highly selective foraging habits pose a clear and present danger to the plant communities of the downs - sedges, orchids and Primulas are all targeted.

On Sunday, I visited a restored section of the Upper Avon system. An old carrier (the man-made channels that carried water into and out of the water meadows) has been made into a delightful side stream. The female otter who raised three strapping cubs here in the last six months now seems to be on her own. They will have dispersed, probably downstream, and she will be preparing to breed again. Otter breeding is notoriously hard to predict. But the owners of this property have a real interest in the wildlife of their stream and have set up a trail camera; so I hope that in the next 12 months this blog will be bringing you more exciting news of otter breeding!

Hares galore!

Another satisfied Wessex Wildlife client spent a great day with hares this weekend.

Many wildlife photographers want to get great images of hares, but are put off because they think that to do so will be extremely difficult. Actually, this is not quite true. There might just be the teeniest bit of 'bigging it up' by some wildlife photographers who want you to think that the images they got were the result of mysterious, arcane field skills gained over decades of study. Well, possibly. Maybe, or maybe it's not quite so mysterious after all. I created Wessex Wildlife to demonstrate that you can get close to wildlife and start building up your own experience and techniques.

Hares are great photographic subjects: not only are they beautiful and enigmatic, they also have lots of social interaction which makes for great action shots, they will put up with people being quite close to them and pointing big-eyed lenses at them; and they will do all this in good light. However, for most people, this is the closest they get:

Lovely, but not exactly a "frame-filler"! This hare has seen you and is letting you know that she is going to run right over the horizon and never come back. So how can you increase your chances of getting closer, getting shots and maybe seeing some photogenic activity such as 'boxing'? How can you even find them is what they do is this?

That was a bit of an excuse for a gratuitous hare image! The picture above shows a hare in her form. We usually talk about hares as being females and the scrapes that they use to hide themselves are called 'forms'. In this image you can see the mound of soil that she has pushed up to shield her from the wind. She can hunker down so far that just her eyes and ears will be above ground, allowing her to remain alert without having to stay out in the cold, wind and rain. She can also go from nought to bloody fast within a blink of an eye; so if a predator happens to find her, she can get away lickety-split.

Hares start breeding in early spring and carry on doing so until the autumn. During that time you can spot them with your binoculars sitting in small groups. We call these groups 'husks' or 'droves' if the group is larger than a few. Basically, a husk is a small group of a few hares together and a drove is bigger than that: this is rural folklore we are dealing with, if you wanted precision then you were expecting too much! Husks of hares start to come together in February. Zoologically speaking they are courtship groups. They tend to be groups of males gathered around an interesting female. So a hare-rich landscapes such as in South Wiltshire, Cranborne Chase, South Downs or bits of Norfolk and the Midlands will contain lots of these little groups across big open fields. There will usually be a favoured field: these will have very low vegetation and the hares will want to get out of the wind. So look for spring corn, recently sown fields, sheep-bitten turf and short stubbles. Then look at the bit of the field that is sheltered and you should be looking at your hares. So far, so good.

Not all hares are equal. There is a dominance hierarchy in hare society and this is reinforced with sharp claws and long teeth. watch hares for long enough and you will see individual hares leave one husk and amble over to another one. When she gets there, she may immediately bite another hare and then all the hares will be in motion: running round and round, leaping over each other, kicking out at the hare behind or biting the hare in front. So even if husks look like they are set groups of hares not moving much, be patient and wait for the action to happen. The best place to wait is between two or more husks, rather than trying to get too close to one particular husk. What you will find is that hares travel between the husks, coming past you and offering good opportunities for some nice shots. Let the hares come to you rather than trying to get too close to the hares. Most of the activity takes place at night, but also just after dawn and in the hours before before dusk.

This shows two hares moving between husks, and you can see another hare moving up the field edge in the distance, moving to join two more hares in the top right of the picture.

But wide open fields are not the only habitat. Hares use woodlands at all times of the year, but particularly in winter. They like woodlands with very little ground flora. Lots of brambles, bluebells, nettles or other thick undergrowth can hide predators and obstruct the hare's rapid escape. The beech plantations on the chalk hills around my home are great places to see hares and get some pictures that are a little bit different. The animals are harder to see and much harder to approach, but the quality of the dappled light filtered through branches and leaves can really make the image.

So get hold of a map, find the footpaths and bridleways that criss-cross good hare country and get out there while the crops are still young and you can see the hares. If you want to have some practical instruction before doing so, then of course I would be happy to help.

Dave Blake
david@wessexwildlife.co.uk
07553435396

The Great Bustard experience

You have probably happened upon this blog via Twitter, or perhaps through a Google search. However you got here, it was the magic of the world's heaviest flying bird, a gorgeous, stately and inspiring creature, that brought you to this page.

On Saturday (9th May 2015), I was guiding a client photographer on Cranborne Chase, near Sixpenny Handley. I had left the photographer in a good position watching a group of hares (for more about hares, see some of my other blog posts) and had gone for a good scout around. The location to which I had taken the client is an excellent farm for birds: raptors, farmland birds and lots of unusual species abound there. I was watching lapwing as I scouted forward. The lapwings are either sitting on eggs or will have young chicks: either way, I needed to be careful that our activities did not disturb them. If we were to drive a lapwing of a nest or away from a brood, the ever-watchful crows and ravens would be quick to take advantage of undefended young.

Suddenly, a massive white and brown form rose into the air about 150 meters in front of me and flew away across the wide arable fields.

My heart leapt, I clapped my hands in delight as it flew powerfully for about 1/4 mile before landing. I was not so excited that I forgot to throw up the camera and, with the aid of the 300mm f/2.8 and 2x converter, snapped a few record shots. An object lesson in why one should always carry the camera with known settings that are ready-to-use: you never know what is about to pop up in front of you!

The bustard is back after going extinct and doing well. It was always a bird of the wide open sheep walk, along with the blue butterflies, stone curlew and skylark. The Breckland of East Anglia, the Suffolk heaths, Yorkshire's East Riding, the South Downs and the great expanse of Salisbury Plain were it's home range in Britain. Such is the natural grandeur of the bird that it has always invited comment. Rev Gilbert White, WH Hudson and William Cobbett describe it on the South Downs and Salisbury Plain. As they became rarer, so the chase began to kill the last one: everywhere they went, people chased them to their death. Rarity made then prized as stuffed specimens that would glorify the collector. It is a sad tale of human greed and disregard for life. The last breeding is known from Swaffham, Norfolk in 1838 and within a few years the last native birds had been killed. Especially galling for me is that migrant birds would occasionally arrive in Britain and the last of these were shot very close to where I live. In 1871, two birds were seen at Berwick St James, a few miles from where I sit now. One was shot by an oaf called Lindsey, leaving another bird to flew towards Chitterne. These were the first bustards seen in South Wiltshire for 50 years. Another was shot within two weeks at Yarnborough Castle. If you use the A303 across Wiltshire, then you have driven past one of the last places where wild bustards tried to survive.

So, it is a source of great local pride that the bustards of Wiltshire can be found in real life and not just on our flag. Thanks to the hard work and determination of the Great Bustard Group, supported by the RSPB, bustards are back in the county, breeding and now we shoot them with long lenses rather than long guns. For more information about these inspirational birds, have a look at http://greatbustard.org

"I managed to get some really great images…"

So said Rose, an enthusiastic and experienced wildlife photographer who came, along with her husband Ian, with me to track down hares on a Wessex Wildlife photography trip.

As you can tell from her reaction, it went very well. We met up at an exclusive location at 05.30 am just as the rain cleared away westwards. We stalked into a good view point over-looking a field of spring barley where I had previously spied a good number of hares. The morning was spent sitting quietly, watching a small group of hares playing around. Ian got one or two shots as hares moved around the field. After about two hours we started to 'move' the animals.

This is a technique, developed from big game hunting, that I use to get animals close to my clients. It is vital that the animals are happy to move towards the photographers and are exhibiting natural and unworried behaviour. Over the course of the morning both Ian and Rose were able to get shots of hares close in, at about 10 or 20 metres, as they moved gently around the fields. They were able to photograph the animals washing themselves, feeding, fighting and even mating.

To see some of Rose's great images, go to https://www.flickr.com/photos/99469949@N04/

If you would like to get up close and personal with one of Britain's most enigmatic mammals, visit the Wessex Wildlife web site. And here's one I took earlier!