carlmckienaturephotography

                                           Progress with eBook's                                                                  A site guide to Britain's orchids                                                                                                                              carlmckienaturephotography.com/ A very wet morning ,so spent it working on the E book version of my site guide to British orchids,a more comprehensive print version available later; good progress made considering I set out to do some other computer work this morning. And hopefully it will be available around March-just in time for the start of the orchid season(almost like I planned it that way!!)

                  Red kites and the first snow of the year,Mid Wales a visit to the tower hide at Gigrin a few days ago produced a few images in snowy conditions -getting there was a little tricky,but well worth the effort                                                      www.carlmckienaturephotography.com/                                                       

                                     December 2017, woodland in winter Mixed bag of images from woodland feeding station this week,looked like it was going to snow but never really got started, maybe Sunday according to forecast,                                                    https://www.carlmckienaturephotography.com/birds

                                              European Eagle Owl European eagle owl(Bubo bubo),in flight,on a bright Autumn day,with a background of silver birch-as large relatively slow birds, and digital cameras with high frame rates and iso capability, shots like this are now fairly easy.Long gone are the days of film and four or five frames a second and pushing Provia film to 200, and then waiting for the film to come back and hope there was a couple of useable images!!                                                                                         https://www.carlmckienaturephotography.com/                             https://www.carlmckienaturephotography.com/

                                               November2017, macro day                                                             Back-lighting on Autumn leaves   After finding nothing to do one wet Wednesday afternoon,decided to play around with a bit of back light on some Autumn leaves   This brings out the detail, down to the minute viens and cell structure                                            https://www.carlmckienaturephotography.com/abstract-and-macro

                          Fungi and a wide angle lens, October 2017  Another session with the fungi over the weekend, this time on some sparsely wooded heathland, which I always find a bit hit and miss as far as fungi go-some of this being that it seems to get heavily picked as several of the more edible fungi(ceps being main prize) grow here, and a certain group of people seem to pick everything in sight and sort out the edible afterwards. Being an SSSI and with signs everywhere(in a number of languages) stating this is not allowed you would think it would stop some of this at least, but little or no notice seems to be taken.    This sight is also part of a larger park where the managing authority takes large sums of money in concessionary,and car park fees, but do not seem to put any of this into preventing large scale picking of fungi, which begs the question of what the income is used for.    Still, moaning aside ,I was out a little earlier than the pickers this tim

                                                                        October2017 A trip into Essex to photograph red foxes ,with the weather holding up, and a nice bright evening there where several foxes out and about feeding                                                                         carlmckienaturephotography                                                        

                                                                  October 2017 Another session with the fungi. All from the same site as previous post, plenty around at the moment, and a good variety-still more to process, but a few for now                                                            carlmckienaturephotography             

                                                                                     September 2017  Another day  out on the fungi trail, although it is still early ,plenty about again-recent rains and an Autumnal nip in the air, has brought many of them forward, even a Fly agaric(usually the second half of October here) was past its best and full of slug holes   Concentrating mostly on the Stinkhorns, as they are normally in an awkward spot for photography in this particular site, but they seem to have spread out on to flatter ground, which made things a lot easier-                                                                                 carlmckienaturephotography  

                                                         September 2017 Some time earlier this week , and with the recent rain we have had thought I would have a look in at some of my fungi sites .Surprised at what was actually out already, Large Cauliflower fungi , which I normally  find at the start of October, some had started to go over already! The same with common stinkhorn, although the later still had egg stage fungi , so will continue for some time yet. Others such as Tawny Grissett and Larch bolete where out in good numbers, both of these seem to go on until the frost gets to them later on, and can make interesting photographic subjects(I really like the Larch boletes that can be quite large and some are a real lemon colour and you would think they would stand out more than they do, but as the wind takes some of the leaves off a bit early, they blend in very well and can be  surprisingly hard to spot  So time to brush off the macro gear and polish up on the focus sta

                                                                        August 2017                                                            wood mouse (Apodemus sylvaticus) ,feeding on fallen blackberries,late summer    evening in the Oxfordshire countryside                                              https://www.carlmckienaturephotography.com/                                                    https://www.facebook.com/carlmckie0/

                                                             Bank Vole, August 2017                             Bank Vole, Myodes glareolus, searching for food at the edge of an Oxfordshire                                                                   woodland,late summer                                                                                                 https://www.carlmckienaturephotography.com                                                                                                          https://www.facebook.com/carlmckie0/    

                                                                    August 2017 Some images from a recent trip onto the North Yorks moors in search of red grouse.There are sevral well known areas which seem to be hot spots for these birds, but in general on most of the small roads through the moors you will find varying numbers of them, some years being better than others (dry spring and early summers when the chicks are small seem to increase survival rates),but this holds true for most of the upland specialities that breed here. I do find early morning and later in the evening best, as there is less traffic on the roads , which makes it easier when using the car as a hide, during the day the birds move further into the moors,wher it is quieter, it is still possible to stalk them ,but hikers and dog walkers can make this a frustrating job.Year on year the area seems to get noticibly buisier,as it is a very popular area durng summer holidays especially-and recent years have seen a