Goodnight frosty mornings and severe weather warnings. Goodnight mud and flash floods. Goodnight snow and turbulent flows. Goodnight rain; come again soon. Goodnight ice and goodnight cold air. Goodnight, winter everywhere.
I felt like a fraud at first, but I returned to the deer meadow in 2021 by train and bike. Last year's prohibitions on the use of public transport for non-essential journeys meant completing the entire 52 mile round trip by bicycle. I can now step off the train and cycle to the nature reserve, but I still get 8 miles of cycling. I am drawn to the meadow in early June because an explosion of wildflowers attracts Roe deer from surrounding land to feed, raise young and establish territory for the rutting season. I've struck lucky with a tolerant older buck this summer (see below). At first, I thought he was the same buck from 2019 and 2020, but they are probably just related. He was a little nervous on the first encounter. The buck got up, ate as many buttercups as he could and moved to a different spot nearby. It's almost as if was hedging his bets. My presence didn't frighten him, but the deer stocked up on energy in case I turned out to be one of the unfortunate recen
I've been visiting a nature reserve on the Sussex/Surrey border since 2011, and it's an ideal place to photograph Roe deer, especially in early summer, when the grass isn't too tall and food sources are plentiful. Human visitors to the reserve are almost always polite and considerate to me. The fact that roe deer can be observed from close quarters in plain sight is testament to how much local people care about the animals and birds living here. Although a few photographers know about the reserve, I prefer not to share the location, as photographers would be at cross-purposes, with one person having to structure their activity around the others'. The mature buck (see below) is chasing a younger, smaller buck away from his territory, following one of many incursions. The unfortunate victim of chasing had a rotten day. More on this later. Visitors to this site will be delighted to recognise the same mature buck from 2021. It's a pity that I wasn't able to spot any
Every winter, starlings escaping the harsh Scandinavian winter migrate to the British Isles and other mild European countries. Starlings feed in gardens and farmland in the daytime and gather in huge groups called murmurations over Brighton Pier in late afternoon. Murmurations are thought to serve a number of purposes. Firstly, they are a defensive strategy against birds of prey; each starling monitors and shadows seven of its neighbours and this leads to murmurations adopting a typical fluid movement. Should a predatory bird attempt to intercept a murmuration, each starling in its path will automatically move aside, allowing the adversary to pass straight through. Flying in murmurations generates body heat and the collective warmth of bodies acts as a giant radiator when the starlings roost. Competition for the most sheltered places to roost is fierce and dominant males get first preference. Females and juveniles have to sleep in more exposed spots. Although migrant starlings be
Welcome to my starling murmuration essay for 2020/21. I had planned to photograph something else this winter, but I changed my mind on a whim, after going to Brighton Pier a few days after the second lockdown ended. By the forth visit, I had enough creative images to stop and publish the essay — and the twenty images here are from a total of six trips to the pier . Some of my images are highly unusual, and left me wondering how I even managed to take them. Take the first picture — a night city motion blur shot of birds and light trails from evening traffic. Shots three and four give us an idea of what a starling murmuration would look like, if photographed from within the atmosphere of Jupiter. The monochromatic motion blur images (ten to eighteen) look like they've been sketched on art paper using a pencil. I captured the strangeness of the murmuration, as it compacted into an oval before unravelling like a rope in pouring rain well after sunset, as most other photographers she
The temperature on December 1st 2010 never rose above -0.3ºC and heavy snow fell across Sussex. I started taking photographs two hours before work, in the afternoon and resumed photography after an early finish due to severe weather conditions. Continuous light snow fell until 19:45, when the powdery snow turned very heavy, dumping 15 - 25cm in just a few hours. I caught the number 6 bus into Brighton city centre, where I spent two hours meeting friendly faces and photographing familiar places in unfamiliar conditions. As I braced myself for a long walk home, I thought I'd pop into Brighton Station on the off-chance that tonight's snow was of the 'right kind'. Miraculously, the 22:34 Southern train to Chichester was on Platform 2. The train crawled up to Preston Park, reversed and struggled along to Portslade. I met Frank on a very cold, snow-swept Hove Promenade. He was out walking his West Highland Terrier. He told me that he owns the Snoopers Paradise on
Welcome to my 2022 bluebell woodland project, which this year took me to quiet woodlands near the town of Hailsham in East Sussex. The majority of people enjoy bluebell displays at the very popular Abbot's Wood, but other woodlands can be discovered through (occasional) word of mouth. To protect these woodlands, I will not share the location names, and not without good reason. I noticed severe damage to bluebells in Abbot's Wood, caused by intentional trampling. In the past, saying hello to people and starting up conversations in the countryside was the norm, but in the last few years, I've begun to notice that the majority of walkers refuse to speak to me out of fear. Ten years ago, people would stop and ask me about my photography, take my card and bring up my work the next time we met. That has all gone, possibly forever. Another exceptionally mild (and dry) winter and spring lead to early flowering, with the peak height and blooming around 25th April. I visited the w
Don't miss my roe deer projects from 2020 and 2021 . 23rd May 2019: I was so pleased with the images from my first visit, that I could easily have finished the project in one evening. Temperatures were a good seven degrees warmer inland, reaching 23 °C and the Roe deer were just shedding the last of their thick winter coats. Grass height was still short enough to allow the easy observation of these small deer. The three babies from last year survived the winter; two bucks and one doe. The young buck was quite tolerant of me. When people wandered through the field, the buck went and hovered about the perimeter until they disappeared before returning to grazing on buttercups. Two adult does were present, but neither were pregnant. An adult buck accompanied one of the does. Possibly mistaking her availability, the buck chased the doe around the field in an unusually early display of courtship. My theory is that the doe is infertile, as she was not pregnant in 2018 either. To a
Thursday 8th November 2012: An estimated ten thousand starlings gathered around Brighton Pier at sunset this afternoon. I had little time to grasp the sheer magnitude of the display. Within fifteen minutes, my 16GB memory card was full up. The murmurations can only get bigger and more spectacular each afternoon, as thousands of starlings arrive in Brighton for the winter. ------ Wednesday 14th November 2012 : One would normally expect clear skies to be accompanied by cold, crisp weather, but today's maximum temperature of 12.5 °C was an exception to the rule. Unfortunately, clear skies don't provide any kind of dramatic backdrop. Therefore, despite taking 600 shots, only one was good enough to show other people. After the standards set last Thursday, keeping up with expectations is becoming increasingly a challenge! I was delighted to meet Fine Art and Photography student, Suzanne Carr on Sunday afternoon, after being contacted by email. Suzanne is in
Update: When you've finished this gallery, move onto my project for 2020/21 . Welcome to my winter starling murmuration project. The photo essay is a dying art, so please encourage me to produce more like this, by leaving a comment at the bottom. You don't even have to login. Your name or an alias is better than posting as Anonymous. Starling murmurations are one of the most mesmerising sights in the natural world. Every winter, starlings escaping sub-zero temperatures in Scandinavia migrate to more temperate European latitudes. The south coast of England is mild throughout the winter, although the weather can be very wet and windy at times. The birds spend daylight hours in parks, gardens and farmland. Every afternoon, they gather in their thousands to form shape-shifting, fluid murmurations, before roosting for the night, underneath Brighton Pier. Anyone in the city centre at around 07:30 in December will be startled by huge flocks of starlings making their way back to
Our rapidly warming climate is pushing the English autumn colours further and further ahead. As of 25th October 2022, Abbots Wood in East Sussex was still on the green side. I always book a holiday in late October, based on happy childhood memories of the New Forest, but the climate was much cooler back then. The autumn colours now peak in early to mid-November. Unlike parts of North America, where fall can last just a few weeks, ours continues well into December. Fortunately, the village of Little Horsted has a collection of non-native ornamental trees — Ginkgo, Japanese Maple and Witch Hazel, along with native European beech. These species tend to fall earlier than, say, English Oak, Elm or Hornbeam. Little Horsted is about the same distance from Lewes as Lewes is from Brighton, and the bus journey is not too long. The bus takes me on part of the route my family took from Kent, where I was born, as we moved down to Brighton. My mother said the car stopped in Ringmer, because I need
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