Continuing my photoblog about my first-ever safari with my 4-year-old daughter. We left our base camp at Skukuza in Kruger national park after 3 days and headed west to Pretoriuskop, a camp I’ve stayed at before and always seems to have very different sightings. It has lower big game densities and more of the unusual species tend to be seen. This is mainly due to the habitat being slightly different due to the underlying geology. The sightings are a lot fewer and further in between, however, it did not disappoint. Straight out of the gates at Kruger we found this hyena running down the road a ..read more

For most of my adult life, even before I had a child, I have daydreamed about the moment I take my kids on a wildlife holiday. Well in August 2022 that dream became a reality as I took my 4 year old girl to Kruger National park, South Africa on her first safari, just me and her! It was a whole different experience to going there with friends or guests. She was my most demanding customer of all time, and I have never been asked so many questions in my life, nor have I heard the word ‘Daddy’ mentioned so many times. ‘Daddy, why are Honey badgers not called lemonade badgers’, and ‘Daddy, do honey ..read more

Last January I went on a mission to Doñana National Park in Spain with a group of 7 friends. The main aim of the trip was to see the Iberian Lynx, as well as enjoy the wintering birds of the legendary Coto Doñana National Park. This protected area is near the southernmost tip of the whole of Europe, and therefore one of the warmest places on the mainland in winter, so it gets a really good number of birds overwintering, and is also one of the strongholds for the Iberian Lynx. It’s an excellent winter break, especially in the middle of February when the UK winter is really dragging on. I have ..read more

My last blog about Snettisham was the most successful photo blog I have ever written in terms of views and traffic (read it here if you have not already read it). I am not entirely sure why, but I think the main reason is that Snettisham was in the mainstream news recently due to the record numbers of Red Knot gathering off The Wash. It was covered by the BBC, The Guardian and a whole host of other news companies, as around 140,000 birds were estimated to be there, a new high count for the reserve. So, people were naturally googling about the spectacle, and my last article ranks quite highly ..read more

Flamborough Head Myself and my friend Chris Armitage decided to have a full weekends birding in Yorkshire, with the aim of going to Wykeham Forest for the Honey Buzzards and Bempton Cliffs for the seabird colonies. In particular, the main focus of the trip was to do a boat trip with Steve Race to get pictures of diving Gannets. I had a few very particular shots in mind that I really wanted to get. We set ourselves up at the seaside town of Bridlington for the weekend, and arrived in the late afternoon on Saturday, and went for a nice walk on Flamborough Head to see what was about. The scenery ..read more

Ever since I first witnessed the Bearded Vulture on a David Attenborough documentary many moons ago, I have been fascinated by them. I remember my thoughts when I first watched them on TV, and thinking what? A bird that lives off bones? How can this be, and how have I not heard of them before? From that point I really wanted to see them the wild, and later on, photograph them. I am not one for choosing a favourite animal or bird, but if I had to chose favourite bird, then Lammergeier would be right up there, mainly due to their beauty, rarity, and peculiar lifestyle. My first opportunity came ..read more

For this blog article I am going to talk about my wildlife photography technique and my thought process behind how I got the images and videos featured in this post. Two of the photos have been shortlisted for Bird Photographer of the Year 2020 which I am extremely happy about, so I thought I would share how I went about getting the images, along with what settings I used. I will also include my own critique on how I could have made them better, from the beneficial view of hindsight. Firstly, a bit of background info on what this spectacular wildlife event is all about. For me, it is without ..read more

I arranged a wildlife tour of South Africa, and we were driving through Kruger National park towards one of the main rest camps when we were stopped by a police officer. He tipped us off about a buffalo that had been killed by lions right outside our camp. Sure enough we went straight there, only to find the carcass being guarded by a very sick looking lion with TB and a lone white-backed vulture. All a bit weird, and we were running out of daylight so we headed back to camp to eat and freshen up. Luckily we had a night drive booked with the park rangers in one of their safari vehicles. Our g ..read more

Coati This is my final photo blog entry for our wildlife tour of Costa Rica at the back end of 2019. Our time was up at Tortuguero National park and we needed to get a boat back to civilisation, and then start our journey inland back to the capital, San Jose. Jesse, our super guide, had a nice little stop off planned at a place called Donde Cope, half way to our next lodge which was called Tapirus Lodge, in Braulio Carrilllo national park. I’d never been to either places before so I wasn’t sure what to expect, and after hearing a lot of ..read more

Day 10 and we were up with the sparrows, armed with a boxed breakfast, ready for the long journey over to the Caribbean coast, with Tortuguero the destination. It’s always interesting seeing how the country changes from one coast to the next, whilst driving up and over the central spine of mountains. In Costa Rica, all the different altitudes and slopes creates lots of different habitats and micro-climates, meaning there are different pockets of wildlife to be seen, with each area bringing their own speciality species, adding to the biodiversity. We finally arrived at La Pavona, the last bit ..read more