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It took 102 years for a colony of Italian snails to be discovered at...
2020VISION Assignment: Short-eared owls
Short-eared owl wildlife photograph by Danny Green
By wildlife photographer Danny Green
Short-eared owls can turn up anywhere in the UK, sometimes in big numbers – they just need plenty of available prey. Danny went to many different locations in search of this majestic owl and eventually struck gold.
iWitness Assignment: Short-eared owls
Location: Lincolnshire Wolds
Wildlife Photographer: Danny Green
One of my main goals last winter was to work on certain subjects in an extreme winter environment. The Arctic blast Britain suffered in early December 2010 was perfect for working on some species in which I had already invested serious ground work.
Owls were an important part of my winter projects and it was extremely hard work most of the time. Sometimes though you just get lucky and all the hard work you have put in turns out to be worth all the effort.
This time, I was looking for that most iconic of owls, the short-eared.
Short-eareds are nomadic during the winter, constantly on the move in search of enough prey to sustain them through the tough times ahead. So where you find a high number of rodents, you also find a high number of owls.
The short-eared owl's most important prey item is the short-tailed field vole and this little rodent has periods of boom and bust.
Every so often the conditions are perfect, they have a good breeding season and numbers explode. When you get a good vole year, you get a good owl year, too.
The Lincolnshire Wolds are something of an owl hotspot, so I travelled up there just before the snow arrived, so that I was ready as soon as the flakes began to fall.
The roads were impassable so I drove as far as I could then walked the rest of the way to my location. Thank goodness for snow chains; otherwise it would have been one hell of a walk.
Heavy snow had fallen the previous couple of days, but the temperature was hovering around -14°C, so the snow was going nowhere. And no fewer than 13 birds were making the most of the area's abundant vole population.
I spent three days with the owls trying to work in as many ways as possible - taking portraits, flight shots and placing the bird in the context of its environment.
It was fantastic working in this winter wonderland with such a beautiful bird - the images are some of the strongest of this species I have yet taken.
Danny Green’s top wildlife photography tip
- Getting the correct exposure for subjects in a snowy environment can be tricky.
- What you want your snow to look like is critical. If you underexpose, the snow will look grey but if you overexpose then that lovely snow will look white.
- Take your exposure to the limit of your camera so your highlight alert is just starting to blink. By working this way you can then pull it back slightly with your levels in the computer and, hey presto, your snow is white.
2020VISION is a multimedia project that highlights the link between people's well being and the restoration of natural systems.
Uniquely, it pairs the talents of 20 of the UK's most skilled outdoor photographers with writers, editors, videographers, sound artists and scientists to make a compelling case for rewilding landscapes - for wildlife and for people.
To see some of the best images taken on 2020VISION assignments so far, click here.
To find out more about 2020VISION, click here.
