Birds of the world

This is the first of what will be a series of occasional blog entries built around my love of photography. Unlike most travel blogs, this one will be organised by theme rather than destination, starting with one of my favourite subjects of recent years, birds.

I am not an especially keen bird-watcher and feel no need to tick off lots of species, but I love the challenge of capturing their bright colours and active behaviours with my lens.

Gambia

One of the best places we have visited for bird watching is the Gambia, especially at Mandina, an eco-lodge in the Makasutu Cultural Forest. The bird-watching is known to be especially good in this area – the naturalist Chris Packham regularly brings specialist tours here:

Senegal

Souimanga Lodge in Fimela, Senegal, was another fantastic place for bird-spotting. We had our own private walkway and shaded jetty overlooking the water, from where we could see a myriad of water-birds, especially in the late afternoon.

Pied Kingfisher

Senegal dove

Galápagos

But nowhere is quite like the Galápagos, not least because there you can get much closer to the wildlife than elsewhere because the birds (and animals) have never learned to fear people. Unfortunately the camera I had back then was less good than my current one, but nevertheless I got some photos worth sharing here.

Juvenile Galápagos hawk

By the way, if interested you can see many more of my Galápagos photos, both birds and other wildlife, in a series of blog entries starting here: The adventure begins

India

Our recent visit to Kerala also gave me some opportunities to photograph birds, both inland in Periyar National Park, on the backwaters, and at the coast:

Egrets by the coast

In Ranthambore National Park in Rajasthan we also saw lots of birds:

I also enjoyed photographing the Demoiselle cranes of Khichan:

In England

Closer to home I take fewer bird photos but I make an exception when I get the chance to visit somewhere like Kielder’s Birds of Prey Centre or Eagle Heights in Kent:

Bateleur eagle, Eagle Heights

And of course there are occasions when we are out and about and a pretty bird catches my eye: