Wall Lizards

Firstly, my appologies for not doing any Blog updates for a while.

 I've been concentrating on the Wight Wildlife Photography

business, which has taken up most of my available time!

That said, with the Spring sunshine finally here (on occasion!)

 I have been out photographing, amongst many things, Ventnor's

 Wall Lizards.





 The Wall Lizard (Podarcis muralis) is a small Lizard found on the rocky walls and gardens of Ventnor, Isle of Wight. They range in size from 5 to 20cm and have many variations in colour from tan brown to green.

The Wall Lizards are probably not truely native to the Island. According to local lore they were probably introduced in the late 1800's. Their counterparts, the Common Lizard are found all over Europe and are more or less identical in appearance. (The European Common Lizard has two colourations - brown backed and green backed - just as the Islands Wall Lizards do).



I have spent most of my time photographing these Reptiles with a Sigma 180mm Macro lens. This is one sharp bit of glass, producing pin sharp images with a nice shallow depth of field.





Other than the green back, these Lizards blend
in extremely well in the rocky environment.



This photograph, along with all the others in this Blog, was taken on a true
 1:1 macto scale.  The front of the lens was less than 20cm from the Lizard.
(All the photographs were also taken hand held)

These Lizards, like all Reptiles, are cold blooded and therefore need

 heat to warm them.  Once they find a warm place to bask in, they

 will quickly return to it if disturbed - giving me the ability to set up

 some quite entertaining shots!





Common Buzzard

Firstly, my appologies for the lack of Blog updates.  This winter has been rather busy with business and family commitments, talks, running photography courses and or course trying to get out with the camera - in between the rain showers!

Photographs taken over the last few months vary greatly from wildlife to snow scenes to land/sea scapes and you can find a good number of them on my web site - all are available as mounted prints in many available sizes.

Anyhow, on to the title of this Blog post...

A month or so ago, I uploaded a photograph of a Common Buzzard in flight to my Flickr account (link at the bottom of this page)  and it drew quite a number of comments and kind words.  I had been watching the Buzzard as it stared intently on a patch of ground out of sight from me and soon took to flight, giving me a good selection of in flight shots.

Well, today I found myself back in the same location, watching probably the same Buzzard, but this time it was seeming to watch the ground close to where I was sat in the Land Rover.  I took the obligatory protograph of the Raptor perched in the tree, expecting it to take to flight away from me as it seemed to be watching with more and more nervousness.  Within moments, the Buzzard took to flight, swooping low out of the tree, straight in my direction.

When the bird landed, at around 30 yards from me, I quickly realised what it had been watching so intently. 

 It took one look down, and then dropped it's head to retreive a nice big worm. 

Now I have known for a long time that worms are part of the Buzzards diet, but have never seen this first hand, so being able to photograph it was a nice treat.
Buzzards are very common on the Isle of Wight.  They have been known to take Red Squirrels as well as many other small mammals, birds etc, and there is rearely a day when I don't see one when out with my camera.  As for today, this Buzzard was one of a number of birds of prey seen.   A Peregrine, Sparrowhawk, Little Owl, Barn Owl, Marsh Harrier and a couple of Kestrels were also spotted and I also managed to see a Kingfisher.  Looks like Spring could be a busy time!