After a very dry but not very sunny spring in North Yorkshire, and several weeks of a dry and dusty summer, it is not surprising that the local wildlife has not been feeling particularly energetic of late. However a couple of days of thundery downpours has certainly changed that for the better.

For my first two years as a photographer I had my hands full simply learning to keep the subject in frame, in focus, and if extremely lucky in a good range of colour. With all that in mind it was an simple decision to ignore the issue of "digital development" and shoot in jpeg.

Late May is the anniversary of my take up of digital photography after I discovered the existence of digital mirrorless cameras in May 2023.

Spring is finally springing in North Yorkshire with even the sun making an occasional appearance. Happily this means an increased food supply for the local wildlife, even if some of the wildlife fall victim to becoming a meal. Their energy is needed to start build nests and then to start "building" more wildlife 😊

The biggest first achieved this month is one that I do not want to experience again, namely 16 consecutive days with complete cloud cover. Steel grey skies for that amount of time is obviously not conducive to wildlife photography, but they did push me to scout out some new locations.

Having studied Jan Wegener's excellent Youtube videos on bird flight photography I decided to put a few of his tips into practice. Looking through a zoom lens to find an in-flight bird has always been a problem me, and a priority to solve. The suggestion was to first follow the bird with the lens without using the view...

Although I have been practising nature photography for the last 18 months, and owned some sort of tripod for that entire time, this Xmas was the first time that I tried to use one in anger.

As with the most of the UK we have been very short on sunshine, especially on the days I have available for photography. Imagine my delight when the weather app predicted a sunny Saturday, and my absolute amazement when they turned out to be correct!

In the month of November I discovered the Yorkshire Wildlife Trusts Staveley Nature Reserve located between Harrogate and Ripon. It is easily accessible and looks stunning in the rare Yorkshire sunlight, both at dawn and dusk.

One of the few disadvantages of photography in North Yorkshire is that you are often operating under steel grey skies just after dawn. In my case I am also usually under a canopy of trees. Although not ideal, this does bring the low light capabilities of the Canon R6 Mk2 come to the fore.