Anyone any hint & tips on photographing elusive wildlife? I don't want to become 'Simon King ' or anything sitting there for hours. So should I just be opportunistic?
Look at this photo & see if you can suggest how I get a pic of the resident Buzzards. It's pretty pathetic as it is & from the look of the pic it could be anything but I assure you that is is a Buzzard & it was taken as it circled on a thermal.
I started with a 'Jamcam' years ago , progressed to a 'Canon Sureshot A60' , now I am on a 'Canon PowerShot S2 IS' Digital Camera which is 12x optical zoom (36-432mm equiv.) & 5.0 million pixels. This is relatively new so I will have to make do as I cannot afford to change yet.
Dare I make a suggestion of 'killing two birds with one stone' and using one of the resident squirrels as bait
.
Do you think if you put out some over ripe meat that you might be able to lure them into closer range? I too have wondered how to get better photos of birds of prey--they aren't like bicycles or shrubs just waiting to be photographed at leisure.
Kingfisher
The best tip for widlife photography I think is to be patient. You will miss some opportunities, but forget about them and look out for the next one. If you don't have too much time to wait around for photos, just make sure you always have your camera ready to take a shot so you can react quickly if the opportunity arises.
Hee ,Hee, Hee As in the squirrie thread we could well have used one!
I did take note of the Eagle Owl video in the Bolton Evening News. That that guy used a rat as bait for it quite successfully but I don't fancy loads of dead rats or squirries hanging about in the garden.
We never see the Buzzards or Harris for that fact taking off .They are always up before we see them. I know they are in the valley quite close to our house but never actually catchthe moment of takeoff.
Hee ,Hee, Hee As in the squirrie thread we could well have used one!
I did take note of the Eagle Owl video in the Bolton Evening News. That that guy used a rat as bait for it quite successfully but I don't fancy loads of dead rats or squirries hanging about in the garden.
We never see the Buzzards or Harris for that fact taking off .They are always up before we see them. I know they are in the valley quite close to our house but never actually catchthe moment of takeoff.
It would be very hard to see them taking off, you never know one day you might get lucky!
There are places to go where you get a better chance of photographing wildlife and there's the opportunistic method of just being in the right place at the right time, but nothing beats patience. Sitting in a likely place, quietly and unobtrusively can bring results.
Have a look at this site:
http://www.rkmas.co.uk/birds.html
Fascinating website. I don't think that it will ever get that good for the likes of us, but brilliant photos. Gives you food for thought certainly.
I can only dream! Even though my holiday in British Columbia included a front row seat to a hummingbird feeder, I could not get a proper photo of the resident male
Rufous Hummingbird .
Kingfisher
Kingfisher after you lovely hummingbird photo I thought that I would show you this (see pics) These were taken in France a few years ago 2003 to be exact. They are a moth that looks like a hummingbird. Yes you got it they are called 'hummingbird moths'. I had never seen one before or heard of them so I was fascinated. Skip has seen them on the Isle of Wight in the UK. They are amazing!
There is an absolutely wonderful website devoted to identifying various bugs, called
What's That Bug?.
They have some stunning photos of the various 'hummingbird' moths (also known as sphinx moths). The sphinx moths occur worldwide. I could not identify the one Skip photographed, though. I have never been fortunate enough to see one in person, although I did notice that someone local to me has asked about an identification for a sphinx moth. I will have to pay more attention. Skip was very fortunate!
Kingfisher
That was a good site Kingfisher .The moths & butterflies were much more varied & colourful than here in the UK. It did have a link to a UK moth site & that had the exact variant. It said it was an immigrant species that we can see when it is a bumper year.
I've spent hours looking through that site
. Yesterday I was entranced by the Oleander Sphinx--what a beautiful colour scheme.
What moth was it that Skip photographed, then?
Kingfisher
That was a good site Kingfisher .The moths & butterflies were much more varied & colourful than here in the UK. It did have a link to a UK moth site & that had the exact variant. It said it was an immigrant species that we can see when it is a bumper year.
Put us out of our misery, which is it! 
Well , Hummingbird Hawk-moth Macroglossum stellatarum, of course!!! Laughing a lot!!
Not being a big moth fanatic I just looked at the pic!! Anyway here it is borrowed from the uk moth site.
Skip & I had the opportunity to go out for a walk today, so camera in hand see what we captured. It took us about 10 shots & a mad panic to get the long lens on & then replace the batteries. Luckily for us he was having a sunbathe about 30 yards away, so he really didn't know that we were there.
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