The King and I
A wildlife photography blog by Stoke-on-Trent, Staffordshire based landscape photographer Rob Thorley Photography.
It’s late November and the first hard freeze of the winter, so I opted to go and have a look at what I was hoping was a frozen lake at Whitfield Valley nature reserve.
By the time I’d built up enough enthusiasm to venture out into the cold, and de-ice the car it was a little after 9am when I arrived. Sure enough the lake was for the most part frozen and I was able to get some images of the wildlife that I wanted to capture. I also managed to get a few images of the Black Headed Gulls in flight.
After spending a little time around the lake I happened to notice that there was a Pied Wagtail strutting it’s stuff around the field. As I was already numb from the cold it’d didn’t seem to matter about lying down on the frozen ground to get those eye level shots.
Eventually I was unable to feel my fingers and toes, so decided to call it and get back home for a nice hot brew. It was at this point that a chap walked down the path and mentioned that he’d seen the flash of a Kingfisher in a clump of bushes not too far away. Unable to resist the lure of a Kingfisher sighting I went to have a look.
I tend to feel like a king whenever I get a shot of a Kingfisher that’s reasonably in focus . . . irrespective of how good the composition is!
Sure enough he was there. Unfortunately where he was perched was in amongst quite a dense thicket of tangled branches, so getting a clear view wasn’t possible. The Kingfisher was diving in and out trying to catch whilst I was there. I assume the water hadn’t frozen due to the coverage of the bush. Whilst these ones won’t win any awards it’s always nice to see, and capture something of this beautiful bird.
You can view more images from my gallery of other wildlife.
