March 2006

New Galleries: Snakes (36 images), Chinese Water Deer (22 images)
Muntjac Deer (10 images), Pere David's Deer (8 images), Reindeer (8 images)

I’m sitting in my hide waiting for sunrise and I’ve got over an hour to wait so am typing this on my laptop! Where does all the time go to – unfortunately not on photography!

July and August last year saw me concentrating on Little Owls and Barn Owls. I built 2 hides, one for Little Owls and one for Barn Owls – the Little Owls are my favourite. I also started up a feeding station for them with worms from my local fishing shop, which ended up costing a fortune, as the birds seemed to wait for me to turn up. When I look at the images of the 3 baby Owls with their parents I took over the course of a few months, it was definitely worth it and I was sad to see them go, but they are back again this year, which will be great. Also in August, I again assisted the Hawk and Owl Trust with Barn Owl ringing and, on one small stretch of river, we recorded an amazing 24 owlets - almost a record. I also concentrated on a new site on Somerset Levels for Roe Deer; an erected hide on the edge of a field on private land helped me get some superb Roe Buck and Doe images, so close sometimes, I could only fit their head in!

As I’ve mentioned in a previous update, in August I was asked for a large number of snake images by a client. As I didn’t have any, I quickly enrolled on a Snake photography day in the Wareham area, which was superb apart from the weather being too hot, with all the British snakes being available for the day, which included Slow Worm, Grass, Smooth, and Adder.

September and October saw all of my limited free time spent photographing Red Deer for the annual rut, which although I got great results from a new site, sometimes proved challenging due to the ever changing weather Also challenging was to try and get different images from all the previously images I’ve taken of deer over the years, but I struggled on and got some images that proved to be ideal. The winter was pretty much spent on the Somerset Levels, which was as good as always. With the endless opportunities it provides, it’s sometimes hard to know where to go first – there are loads of places for Waterfowl and Raptors, and I recommend a visit especially this time of year. I did go on the obligatory yearly trip to Donna Nook along the Lincolnshire coast due to the guaranteed Seal population - all you need to have (apart from the photographic skills) is a bit of decent light.

At Christmas, I decided on a last minute trip to Scotland. Planes, trains and automobiles were quickly organised – well, not the trains, just a plane and a hire car! I stayed at a friend’s house in Ballachulish near Glencoe, with spectacular scenery, hard frosts, snow and mist giving amazing images. Rannoch Moor was only 15 minutes away, so locations were no problem. There were Deer everywhere, waterfalls at every turn thanks to the melting snow and the views generally second to none. On one of the days I made my way up to the Cairngorms to photograph Red Deer, including Reindeer. Even though the weather turned out to be quite dull, I managed to get over it and get some great shots. I must admit I went for the landscapes on this trip and, if you’ve been to this part of Scotland, you’ll know why!

I`m going back up there again this August and September, so we will see if I can persuade myself away from photographing landscapes and concentrate on wildlife.

Between January and February, I’ve been a regular visitor to Secret World and often do photography work for them on a voluntary basis, which I’m always pleased to do. How often do you get to photograph 3, 6 week old Otters or a 24 hour old Badger – we definitely need more places like this, check out their website. Also I went to Gigirin Farm in Wales for Red Kites, but this always has to be a last minute trip as you need blue skies!

February has seen me photographing Dippers and snowdrops at the same site. The good things about Dippers is that they are very approachable and easy to spot due to their white breasts. I’m planning to spend a lot more time this year photographing these birds, and the site I go to has had a pair nest under the bridge every year. So location of them will not be a problem.

Just need to make a hide of some description and carefully place some photogenic rocks in the right places!

Over the last few years, demand for my images and cards has increased dramatically, hence there hasn’t been as many updates here as I would like. I won’t tell you how many months behind I am editing my images! Demand is huge at the minute and seems to be escalating. At the moment I’m photographing images for a calendar for a national company, sending priority images to magazines to update their libraries, I’ve been to photograph ‘Point to Point’ trainers, waterfalls and bridges for the National Trust, whilst trying to organise pictures for a book on Owls and also a book on Somerset wildlife; not to mention the 6 magazine articles that are waiting to be written! I’ll pause to catch my breath!!

If you want to see any of my published work, it can regularly be seen in wildlife magazines, newspapers and many more publications including an Italian wildlife magazine, called Oasis, which is the equivalent to the BBC Wildlife magazine. Priority is always given to clients, whether they be a shop requiring large amounts of greetings cards, magazines wanting images or a member of the public just wanting an image for a present.

Extra pages will be added to my website soon, which will be a small selection of some of my published work, which included 4 magazine covers last year and already 3 this year! Also I’ll show the items for sale, which includes framed prints, mounted prints, greetings cards, fridge magnets, keyrings and much more.

The sun has also started to rise now, and I need to keep a lookout for 3 pairs of Great Crested Grebes that live on a small pond that I’m freezing to death next to!! Great thing about this pond is that it is on private land and it’s tiny, the grebes are in range of my lenses pretty much all the time. I already have images of them displaying from the previous day but it’s addictive so I’m back again.

Last of all in the last month, I’ve been told I’ve just won first prize in the National British Deer Society competition with a Roe Buck image, which was nice. I’ve included it on this news page.

At last, a large selection of images have been passed from me to my website designer for a much needed update of images and extra galleries.

I hope you come and check back soon.

Previous News:

June 2005
November 2004
August 2004
April 2004
March 2004
February 2004
January 2004
December 2003

All images © Copyright Brian Phipps