‘You only start seeing when you’ve stopped looking….’

‘You only start living when you become aware that your time on this planet is limited…’

‘Don’t resist changes because they have already taken place therefore resisting is futile.’

Welcome and embrace your metamorphoses.

On a hot day in June I’m sat in the middle of a grassy field surrounded by an orchestra of insects forever tuning their instruments. Perhaps encouraged by such cacophony, a complete novice seems to be joining in occasionally.

As a passionate hobbyist wildlife photographer, I cannot help but feel things used to be more light-hearted and joyful. All I needed to do was to pick a wild animal or bird I wanted to see and find out the best location to see them.

The never-ending snow has sapped colours and vibrancy from everything imaginable within view. Even the trees are rendered into a clump of blurry shadows in a distance. Then a pair of red-crowned cranes appear and start walking in tandem exchanging calls in perfect duet.

A thick blanket of quietness has descended to envelope my entire neighbourhood. The street just outside my living room windows, normally busy and lively with buses, cars, and shoppers, has become eerily silent.

The time for the main event has clearly arrived.

Even before you hear the thunderous bellowing of the stags afield, you can tell so by the number of cars parked inside the park gate clearly belonging to avid hobbyist photographers who are already inside the park pointing their long lenses at the stags.

「風情」 - Fuzei, is one of the quintessential Japanese concepts of beauty I find myself heavily influenced by, yet have enormous difficulty finding an exact match for in the English language.

I did a lot of research on how to successfully photograph badgers in the wild and amassed quite a bit of textbook knowledge. The golden rules are that you need to be aware of three things; distance, scent, and silence.

Me and the badgers. Where do I begin? I have a long history of having tried and failed to photograph these beautiful yet human-wary creatures in the wild.

As I strolled in the forest with no particular aim, I came to a clearing where I heard constant calls of baby birds. Although slightly faint, the sound was persistent and constant that I could almost locate where it was coming from.

When I finished my blog entry last night, never did I imagine that I would end up doing another update the following day! But here I am, because I saw the first fledgling leave the nest this morning.

The oldest photo I have of this kingfisher couple courting and copulating goes back to early March ‘22. That means I’ve been following this couple for nearly three months now.

Have you ever spotted a pair of great crested grebes engage in courtship dance called ‘weed dance’?

If not, you could be missing out on a spectacle which is only a stone’s throw away from where you live!

A recently found tawny owl nightly hoots to attract a potential mate. But relatively late in the typical breeding season, will he ever find his soul mate?

With male robins singing to attract prospective partners, and blue tits intercepting other birds flying in to feed on the garden feeder, the signs are abundant that spring is here and breeding season is truly under way. Birds are becoming amorous day by day like this pair of kingfishers!

I’d had, for a long time, a vague longing for photographing wild creatures enduring the extreme wintry conditions in the snow. It was something I hadn’t experienced properly and it could have been called an attraction to the unknown. I strangely yearned for some bleak colour palette such as white, grey, and blue, too.

A Fighter’s Tale

I found this beautiful pup on 28 October 2021, at 10:47. The sun was already high and this ball of fluff was reflecting the sunlight brightly, emitting golden hue that only newborn seal pups can produce.