January 2010 - looking back

So that was January.  It started with the Big Freeze, and the country ground to a halt.  I set out to try and walk three times a week, just to get some fresh air and exercise.  To be honest I wasn't wild about the prospect. After all in January there's not a lot of wildlife to see let alone photograph.  No migrants, the reedbeds would be bereft of the incessant chatter of reed and sedge warblers; no blackcap in the tree by the barn owl meadow; no hobbies scything onto dragonflies and nonchalantly pulling them apart on the wing.  It would be cold and barren, apart from the native species like robins, blackbirds, blue tits.

In the end January couldn't have been more suprising.  For one I walked two miles before work every working day for four weeks  Almost forty miles in a month.  And at last week's weigh-in I'd dropped 10lbs.  Blimey.  And I'd seen (and photographed) far more than I could ever have hoped for.  It's like Chris Gomersall says, first and foremost be a birdwatcher and then try and photograph what you see.  And that's me all over.  Never happier than outdoors with boots, coat, bins and camera.  Some of the best mornings in January I haven't seen or photographed anything, and yet I have felt elated, invigorated, alive, priveleged and in awe of the natural world.  We are so lucky.  I am so fortunate.

So January.  It started with snow and ended with snow.  As I write we've had a moderate dose of the white stuff this afternoon, Kee's gotten over-excited (no surprise there), and none of it has really settled.  But wind back to Monday 4 January and it was a different picture entirely.

The snow fell on already frozen roads.  It actually settled and it started to freeze again.  This (above)was Victoria Road in Diss at 7.30am.  Ten minutes earlier it had been clear.  By the time I got to work Market Hill was getting very slippery (right).  The first hour of the new decade was spent pushing cars up hill.

At lunchtime I jumped in the X Trail and headed off to find hares.  After all it would be easier to see them in the snow.  I parked up on the verge just past Walcott Green and found a footpath.  The low winter sun was incredible.  Only quarter of an hour earlier it had been a blizzard, now I was the first person to walk on the virgin snow.  Even in that short space of time thought there were innumerable tracks to follow - rabbit, pheasant, hare, is that fox? It must be otherwise where is the dog if that's not a fox? Amazing.

Unfortunately I'd found tne only field in Norfolk with (count them) nine bangers in.  No chance of hares here.  I timed my walk round the perimeter to perfection and came back to the car with pants unsoiled.  Saw two hares as well.  This won't do though.  Two miles (good), no time to stop (bad).  No chance of photographing hares like this.  Try again tomorrow.

Last year I'd seen hares just outside Burston, let's try there today.  Parked up the Audi and ice skated down the back road.  A shooting party were beating along the field margin.  At first I thought they were after hares but then saw the pheasants rustled from their cover.  Either they were canny or the shooters were rubbish, but all the birds I saw rise up escaped.  But the side effect of all this commotion was that it flushed out the hares.  Lots of them.

I pitched up in front of a tree and cursed that I didn't have ski trousers over my jeans.  It was properly cold, finger-painful cold, but stunningly beautiful.  Snowscape, sun bursting through heavy grey clouds, and hares.  I counted nine through the bins.  Being dressed in green and brown for a typical day in the country I stood out like a, well, tall green bloke in a field of snow with a black tripod and a camo'd camera.  Not a good disguise, so I found a roadside tree to stand in front of, and waited.

I didn't have to wait long.  In the distance I could make out dark smudges against the snow.  Face to viewfinder, try and find the shutter release with a frozen finger, autofocus hunt, then - bingo - hares.  Follow them.  Watch for the females.  Males harrass them, females kick back.  Hang on, this is boxing in January in the snow, not March in a green field.  Can't they come a bit closer.  Fire off a few shots into the sun.  Then in an instant one leaps and turns on another.  Click.  Did I get it?  Too far away.

Then a lone hare comes lolloping across the field from stage right to see what's happening.  Hang on, he hasn't seen me.  His angled run is going to be straight across my standpoint.  Quick, compose, focus point right of centre, always running into space, hold down shutter release and pan smoothly.  Hope.

It worked.



Trek back to the car and load up.  Put the camera on the passenger seat and wind the window down, just in case.  Second gear no throttle, camera on beanbag on window, past a gap in the hedge that I walked past not three minutes earlier.  How did I miss them? A pair of hares really close.  Clearly male and female and she's hunched down trying to be a lump of snow and he keeps edging forwards and trying to bait her.  She fidgets to the side and turns her back on him.  He's a nutter, he has another go.  This is going to end in tears for him.  Still when you've got the urge...



Bang.

That was it.  She's turned and boxed him and now he's sat there trying to be cool.  Give it up mate, you've just been beaten up by a girl.

The rest of the week it stayed cold.  At Mendlesham the car told me it was minus 8.5, I knew no-one would believe me so I took a photo (sorry officer).

It was slightly less cold at the Fen, but clear air and devoid of people.

Here was the information board about the Fen Raft spider.  Odd to think in six months' time you'd have a chance of seeing them.  Not today.

No picnics in this weather either.

In 2007 I got a photo of a grass snake swimming across this pond.

The second week was much of the same, albeit with less of the white stuff falling from the sky.  But remarkably none of it melted either, it just froze. That's not right, by now it should be grey-black slush on the roads and mild drizzle.  Councils were running out of salt, so only A roads were gritted.  I was in Kee's X Trail in 4x4 mode so no problems there.  Until it snowed heavily between Eye and Debenham one evening on the way home from work.  I followed an Alfa through Winston, down towards the junction with the A1120.  Here's the downslope that's usually icy going the other way, car in front brakes, hang on there's a 110 Landrover sat at the junction, Alfa slides, he's not going at all fast, I touch the brakes and the next thing I know I'm on a toboggan facing Hobson's choice: make Alfa sandwich with the Landy, steer right and skid out into the A1120 on a notoriuos bend, or steer left and bump I'm not slowing here shit there's a roadsign ouch I think I ran over it and now I've slid in like an ocean liner at a berth alongside the Alfa who's wedged in the back of the Landy.  The passenger in the back seat of the Landy's proper angry, his mate has to calm him down.  Bugger.

Get out passenger side, engine still running, no steam from radiator, lights working and heater working. You alright mate?  Yeah no probs, it was just ice I had no chance.  Know what you mean. Bad.  Called Kee.  She was calm as, and told me later that she'd known I was going to crash that day.  I blame her Mum...

Suffolk's finest turned out. After the recovery truck left they gave me a lift home.  Thanks.  Above and beyond and all that, even if one of you is a volunteer speed camera operator who thinks parking a mobile camera 10yds in front of the fixed one at Beacon Hill is justified.  There, I feel better now.

Sorry Kee xxxx  But at least you'll get a clean car (for £150 xs).

No damage to the camera or bins - they're almost as old as me but tough as old boots and still superb.  I'd like to nominate them for a Lifetime Achievement Award when the time's right.

Week three and the prolonged cold weather at the Fen brings out redwings and fieldfares.  Not that I can tell the difference, even when they're sat in the same tree (thanks darlin').  They've got a definite manner about them when they fly, always overhead in a kind of bouncy style, almost like they're fighting a headwind even when it's dead calm.  Lovely birds, a true sign of winter.

Otherwise it's mammals mostly.  The roe deer are very active, often barking in Great Fen.  There's a family gathering every morning at the bottom of the cricket bat willows plantation, usually four or five.  One morning I came across a loner at the top end and used the remaining willows as cover to get in close.  There's something about stalking a wild animal, you never know where that invisible line is when they'll get your scent and take off into thin air.

He was properly cross that I'd got so close, barking as he splashed through the flooded path towards the Waveney where they've been pollarding the willows.  You could sense his indignation, and he wanted everything else to know that I was there so run away and don't let him get your picture.

By the beginning of week four the snow was gone, so creeping along the bank of the Waveney was a bit easier to do without being heard as I crunched through frozen snow.  Still, the woodpigeons scattered and the mallards among the flooded tree roots took flight and woke the rest of the Fen up to an intruder.  That meant my only sighting of the barn owl was a glimpse of white ghost flopping away through the trees.  Damn.  Diary note: approach from upstream where there are no pigeon trees or mallard ponds.

That week I saw my first fox at the Fen this year.  As I stood watching for a barn owl, he was tracking purposefully along the far bank of the river, not 30yds away, looking for a place to jump across perhaps?  Surely not.  Swing camera round slowly, no sudden movements, he's very close and hasn't seen me against the trees.  Click, click, look up, gone.  That quick.  No indignation from him, far too cunning for that.  He just faded into the undergrowth and was gone.

The best came last of course.  And by that I mean light, and a chance photo that caught it.  As I wandered down through the wood between Great Fen and Pooley Street I stopped at the gate looking over the fen.  A good spot to watch if you have time and can blend in with the scenery.  I could do neither, but I saw two deer grazing and without trying to be discreet just swung the camera round and fired off a few shots.

This sums up January for me. As ever you never know what you're going to see, and still three years after I discovered this coveted place I have yet to come away without being surprised.  It tells me that light can make an apparently ordinary picture into something a bit better than that - OK it's not going to win WPOTY (I can confirm that the roe deer was at least wild not tame....) or even the SWT photo competition.  But that isn't what this is about.  It's about being there, being witness to a paralell dimension that is so alien to us yet intrinsicly part of us.  It feeds the soul, it always has done, and sets you up for the day.  Perhaps most of all it makes you appreciate the natural world and simply stand and watch as it unfolds before you.  No satellite dish, no pay per view, no broadband, no DAB.  Just a walk and a camera.  Roll on February.

Redgrave and Lopham Fen - 28 Jan 2010

Rain in Ipswich at 0645, cleared by Debenham. Grey light at the Fen but sun breaking through the trees on the far side. As I got out of the car a grey squirrel was all over the bird feeders outside the visitor centre, didn't mind me and just got on with stealing the birds' breakfast. Tried to get a silhouette shot but couldn't remember how to change the Manual metering settings on the camera. Must read that manual....

A brisk walk out to Little Fen. Took the beanbag and 18-70mm with me in case of landscape opportunities but need to keep going - fitness in January and February to be able to look forward to March and the arrival of Spring. Stopped at the first small bridge, geese taking off in the distance. What an amazing symphony at that time of day. Nothing at the second bridge, over the Waveney. On into the wood. Mud replaces the frost of yesterday. Horses in blankets watch me try and creep through the gate. A fox trots away, don't think it saw me but I couldn't get a picture. A solitary muntjac weaves through the trees and crosses the path and over into the field, bouncing away when it picks up my scent.

Under the high canopy the pigeons break out announcing my arrival. I peer through the trees to the grazing meadows hoping to see the white of a barn owl sliding across the fields. Nothing but horses, cavorting and stamping, indignant at each other and bemused at me bent double under the bough of a tree pretending to be hidden. Still no owl, and no kingfisher today. Stop at the bridge by the sluice. Water chasing under the bridge disguising my sound, but nothing. Follow down the river and onto the trail across the top of Great Fen. Sun trying to drag itself up, a bit of light but not enough to get excited about.

Back towards the visitor centre and a pair of roe deer, one young, leap away towards the wood. Adult stops, juvenile wanders over, they look back at me as I walk purposefully across in front. By a scraggly tree I stop and mount up the tripod, get one photo before they turn and run, flashing white.

Back to the car, still no-one here. Strip off to cool down, start taking camera apart when a treecreeper hops onto an oak tree. Why don't I do the camera last. Grab new beanbag and start firing off, knowing it's still too slow even at ISO800. Beautiful little bird, skirting around the trunk but never resting, always busy, climbing higher, crane neck, this shot isn't going to work.

Lose it high up, back to taking boots off but leave camera on roof of the car, a gambler hoping for his luck to turn.

Overhead the branches light up with little voices, long tailed tits descend on the feeders, two, three, four, even five at a time.

Blue tits don't get a look in. One little chap breaks off and sits on the fence then obliges by hopping onto a branch. Bingo.

My first photo in something like reasonable light. Nothing groundbreaking but a nice reward for the morning.

That's it, off to work, Paul McKenna hypnotising Aled on the radio very funny. Sun comes up and light looks good, out at lunch to look for hares if I get organised.