The easiest thing you can do to improve your wildlife photography.
As a wildlife photographer there’s nothing more important than getting to know your local area.
This is your patch. Somewhere you can access all year round without having to pay thousands of pounds. It’s an area that, if you’re lucky, will help to hone your skills, somewhere you can practice and improve so that when the big trips come around you’re ready to capture those once in a lifetime shots.
In my opinion however, it’s a rare opportunity to know an area better than anyone else. To know your patch intimately throughout the seasons allows you to capture some incredibly unique images that no-one else will have.
My breakthrough moment within my local area was finding this barn.
I’d recently got back from backpacking for seven months across the world trying to find my feet in the professional world and produce a portfolio i was proud of. I was lucky enough to spend months across Costa Rica & the Galapagos, two bucket list destinations for wildlife photographers. It was on my return home however that i captured my favourite image to date.
This barn is an incredible habitat for all sorts of UK wildlife. Between the months of April & July i spend as many evenings as the weather allows up here, patiently waiting to see what turns up.
Here i’ve seen Little Owls, Barn Owls, Curlews, Lapwings and even a Stoat all within the small footprint of this barn. I’ve seen the little owls and barn owls using the same exit from the barn only hours apart.
Within the span of a 2-3hr period I often see the Barn Owl hunt successfully multiple times, bringing back vole and other rodents. I see the little owl perched on the country walls, i hear lapwing calling and curlew flying. It truly is an incredible location and a location i can get to within 30minutes of stepping off my front door.
My favourite area of this patch however is this barn door & the beautiful glass window behind.
The contrast and interest in this scene is so unique and unlike any other place i’ve seen, and i immediately became so obsessed with it.
Of all the evenings i’ve spent at this barn, i’ve only seen the owls land on this door twice. One of those occasions i managed to capture two young owls only a week or so from fledging, and one of the adult pair who’d spent the past 40 days tirelessly raising them.
This is my all-time favourite photo that i’ve ever captured.
It is completely unique to me, it is a snapshot of a moment in time that i’ve yet seen repeated and is taken in an area that i’ve grown up in and have lived for over 20 years.
For me this image represents hard work, persistence and patience. I can still feel the overwhelming joy i felt watching this moment unfold.
It is a beautiful image, and one I am most proud of.
