Some Big Changes...

I’ve been putting a lot of effort into my photography since my last post on but I understand those that only follow my blog may not be aware of this! That’s what this post is all about; to bring you up to speed on what I’ve been doing since Cuba last year and also to tell you my plans for the future!

Let’s start with what I’ve been up to since my last post in October 2012 – that was 9 months ago!

I never fulfilled my promise of blogging about the Cuban Endemics so to fill that void here is what I believe to be the best. It’s certainly sits at the top of my favourite bird list, the Cuban Tody;

For more of the Cuban Endemics please visit my Flickr page and just search ‘Cuban Endemics’.

Since Cuba I’ve had a lot of exciting photography trips including 8 weekends in a row at the deer rut in Richmond Park. It’s incredibly exciting and was perhaps the trigger for a shift in my photography that I’ll explain later.

A few trips to the see and photograph the spectacular starling murmurations at Aberystwyth pier kept feeding that urge to take more and more photographs.

I also spent over a week in The Highlands of Scotland in February this year with two good friends and fellow photographers Ben Andrew and Richard Bowler. We focussed on the specialities including the very impressive Capercaillie! Here’s a small selection of photos from that trip;

Most wildlife photographers will have heard about the otters in Thetford – in fact it’s all over the internet so I’m not even going to try and be discrete about the location. Needless to say for those that treated them with respect they were fantastic and a real pleasure to photograph. I spent several full days with them and if there’s one thing I learnt it was to be more patient and put in the hours on a single subject rather than just having days out and seeing what photos I take.

Considering the above one of the big changes in my photography is the subject matter. Gone are the days where I have a selection of OK photos from a bird watching trip. I now make specific trips to photograph a chosen subject and enjoy the other wildlife along the way. I’m more focused, more patient and my fieldcraft has improved. This has allowed me to take more photos of our elusive and shy mammals and I’ve really fallen in love with them – it’s not just birds these days!

Wild boar piglets, water voles, hares, rabbits and the aforementioned otters… It’s been the year of the mammal for me.

I’ve also put my fieldcraft to good use by photographing some plants… ahem…

  

But don’t worry, I still love birds and have focused on two lovely species recently, spotted flycatchers and kingfishers;

So what’s next? Well, I recently resigned from my day job in drug development to spend a year travelling with my partner. We’ll be leaving on the 1st of August and don’t anticipate coming back until mid-August 2014.

Where are we going? We’re spending the first 5 months in South East Asia and then the remaining time will be spent in a motorhome exploring pretty much the whole of Europe and Morocco. If all goes to plan we will have visited over 50 countries by the time we return to normality.

What’s the most exciting thing about this? For me it’s the fact that I will be taking my camera gear! I hope to have a large selection of photos from the trip and I plan to set up a proper website when I return. This website will have a blog which, unfortunately, will make this blog redundant. There will be one last blog post and that will announce my new website so please check back in a year!
In the meantime though please feel free to follow me on Twitter (@DanielTrimPhoto) or add me on Facebook (Daniel James William Trim) for real time updates on my adventure. I will also continue to post lots of photos on my Flickr gallery;

http://www.flickr.com/photos/danieltrim/

Many thanks for reading,

Daniel

American Migrants in Cuba

When reviewing the internet to predict what I might see in Cuba I didn't really consider the diveristy and number of American winter migrants that would be in Cuba already, in August.

I was most successful with the warblers in a small patch of  mangroves near our hotel in Varadero, it seemed alive with them despite it not being the paek time. Varadero is famed for being a birdless world but this small area keep giving and giving. I picked up some really exciting birds here like Crested Caracara, American Redstart and Broad-winged Hawk.

Below is a selection of photographs from the mornings I spent wandering over there, excuse the quality on some of them;

Louisiana Waterthrush feeding on insects in a puddle;

 Northern Waterhtrush, very common in the mangroves;

 American Redstart. This is a male, stunning birds!

Blue Grey Gnatcatcher;

 Least Sandpiper, every morning a group were feeding in a puddle by the hotel;

Prairie Warbler, probably the most common American migrant warbler I saw;

 Solitary Sandpiper;

Yellow Warbler, a resident around the coast in cuba but numbers swell when the American birds join them in winter;

I'll cover the endemics next so check back soon!

D

Cuba's Lizards

I encountered several species of lizard whilst in Cuba. I have to admit, though, that I don't know any IDs. Some are certainly Anoles with their flamboyant throat displays!

Here is a selection of photographs taken mainly around our hotel pool in Varadero (don't forget to click on them to see then large...);

The next two photos were taken during a typical Caribbean sunset as this chap peaked round a tree and the sun light shone only on his head...

 

Still a few more post to come from Cuba - I'm draggin them out!

Daniel

Tody-Tastic!

In August I spent 15 days on the wonderful island of Cuba!

This wasn't a wildlife trip but I made the most of things by getting up early most mornings whilst in Varadero and wandering around the mangroves near out hotel. I also spent two days in Zapata. In total I saw around 100 species of bird with 90 of them being new. Most of the new birds were exciting but one bird in particular stole the show, the Cuban Tody!

This beautiful endemic is supposedly common across Cuba but I struggled to locate one outside of Zapata. Other carrbean islands boast a Tody of their own, including the Jamaican Tody and Puerto Rican Tody! The majority of which are also endemic to their islands of residence!

I only saw 2 birds and both were in Zapata, the male I photographed was a superstar! The top photo is probably my favourite form the trip because they bounce about so fast in gloomy conditions and waving a 500mm lense around is tiring work! I shot at 800 ISO with the aperature wide open and still only got a shutter of 1/80 so was amazed this top one came out sharp, especially as I was shaking with excitement, sweating from the heat/humidity and being eaten alive by mosquitos!

 

 

 

 

Apologies for Tody-overload! I'll try and be a little more selective with the rest of my Cuban posts...

Harvey!

Over the last few nights myself and Ben have been filling the August photography lull with a harvest mouse named Harvey! I should point out that it's captive bread so nothing was taken from the wild! (apart from the corn...)

First night was overcast so we got some standard shots of him;

The second night we arrived rather late at the field so played around with underexposing some sunset stuff;

 

And on the thrid night we went for an autumn berry theme...

 

Certainly more to be done with this friendly chap!! After my trip to Cuba though...