Friday, 9 January 2009

A private Nature Reserve

Yesterday afternoon just after I had finished work for the day and was about to resume building the kitchen there was a bang om the door. It was a friend of mine who lives around the other side of the village. Chris has 2 big interests in life, aircraft and wildlife, he produces DVD's of historic aircraft for the collectors market but it his interest in wildlife which brought us together.

Last summer I set a quiz for the village in which they had to identify local wildlife from my photo's. Chris saw this and came to see me to ask me if I would like to photograph a Sparrowhawk Accipiter nisus nesting in his garden (silly question!!). Having checked that it was legal to photograph the bird on the nest with English nature I went round to his garden. Well his garden is several acres which he has converted into a nature reserve, there is woodland, a couple of ponds, one with a small reedbed and purpose built wooden hides. The bird was nesting about 10m from one of the hides in a pine tree.


As you can see the results were pretty good.

The reason Chris came to see me yesterday was to tell me he is building a tower hide ( a builders scaffold tower with camouflage netting) near the nest site so hopefully this year he can get film and I can get photos looking down into the nest, I can't wait.
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12 comments:

  1. Anonymous9 January 2009 at 13:23

    Nice photo Gary. The tower is a clever idea, can't wait to see all the great photos or videos you get of the Sparrowhawk.

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  2. Dave9 January 2009 at 13:33

    That's pretty neat! A great shot of the hawk!

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  3. Jan9 January 2009 at 13:58

    Wow, what a shot! So nice to see the baby in there as well. What a treat.

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  4. Gary9 January 2009 at 14:37

    As you can imagine I was pretty pleased with the results. The tower should be good as long as the bird comes back!

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  5. Michelle9 January 2009 at 16:05

    Oh my, that's a wonderful shot! I can't wait for your photos from the tower either.

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  6. Kit Aerie-el9 January 2009 at 16:51

    That's a beauty of a photo!

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  7. Victoria Summerley9 January 2009 at 18:10

    Wow, that's a fabulous photograph. You can even see the little chick! What a fantastic thing to have in a back garden.

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  8. VP9 January 2009 at 18:54

    What a privilege to get so close and to have the promise of more to come!

    We had a sparrowhawk in the tree in the front garden a couple of years ago. Just 12 feet from the house. Needless to say the local bird population stopped visiting the bird feeders until it had gone.

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  9. TYRA Hallsénius Lindhe9 January 2009 at 18:59

    Hi Gary, brilliant shot, well done. I must say you are a lucky guy to have a friend like Chris. I wish he lived next door/ Tyra

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  10. Gary9 January 2009 at 19:57

    Thank you all for your kind comments, I know i am lucky to get the chance to take this sort of shot. I put a lot more of my wildlife pictures on my other blog 'Painting with light' which you can get to via the blog list on this page. Gary

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  11. Chandramouli S11 January 2009 at 04:57

    Bravo, bravo! That's a wonderful shot! Eagles! Hawks! Vultures! Aren't they the most majestic winged creatures! Well, I can't wait to see what Chris does about the tower! Thank Chris for me. BTW, do Eagles live in a nest that you build for them?

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  12. Gary12 January 2009 at 06:45

    Not really, people put up nest poles, telegraph poles with platforms on for ospreys to nest on, but not heard of artificial nests for eagles in UK. A friend is an expert on Indian vultures I will ask her next time I see her.

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