This site contains mostly British Wildlife
With the majority of pictures are contained in the species galleries

Please click on one of the families/species above to access the galleries

The site has grown to include many different species and types of wildlife.  It started with British Birds as these are easiest to see and therefore to photograph but has grown to many other subject over the past months.

These are not the fastest page to load but shows thumbnails of 200 of the 580+ species of British Birds
or put another way about 1/3 rd of our British bird list.

Butterflies & Moths

My aim is to see and photograph all 58 of the British species.
As of August 2008 I have photographed 39 species which is about 2/3 rd's.
although I have seen a few species that I have yet to photograph.

My moth, dragonfly, and insect pictures are growing slowly.  I was very pleased to see the "Heath Bee-fly" (pictured right in July 2008.

Digital Photography

The wildlife pictures on my site are virtually all achieved using my digital SLR's which I first purchased in 2006

Equipment Used:

My current wildlife photography set up is:

Canon 40D body - my main digital SLR camera body - a very good camera, lots of good features, and great value.  I am very pleased with this camera.

Canon 400D body  - my spare body and camera before the 40D.
Along with the 17 - 85 lens, this also doubles up as my general equipment when out walking

Canon 100 - 400 mm f4 L - great all-round wildlife lens, worth both the money and the weight. reasonably close focusing and reasonably fast.

Sigma 150 mm - 2.8 macro - great for and subjects I can actually get reasonably close to but don't move to fast such as butterflies, moths, and flowers.
I have not had it long, but it's proving to be a great lens for close up work

Canon 17-85 mm - my general landscapes and scenery lens, reasonably compact, a bit better than a "kit lens" but I would like to replace it with a better lens sometime.

Manfrotto 5 section carbon fibre Monopod - although I also own a Manfrotto tripod, I usually work with a monopod for virtually all my wildlife photography.  I believe the monopod is a lot easier and much faster to use than a tripod, and when compared to hand holding, it makes such a huge difference in achieving sharpness in my pictures.

 

I would like to replace my 17 - 85 mm lens and get a faster prime lens as well as a better quality mid zoom. I would then use my 17 - 85 for walking only.

contact me:

if you wish to contact me, please do so at

nigelspencer@btinternet.co.uk

ALL wildlife pictures on this website have been taken by me.

All Photos on this site are Copyright Nigel Spencer

No pictures are to be used for any purpose whatsoever without first obtaining my written Permission.
nigelspencer@btinternet.co.uk

2008 blog

2007 Blog

to record some of my sightings, visits, and occasionally my thoughts

Common Crane

Ring-necked Parakeet

Great Bustard

As with many people my garden is a good source for both viewing wildlife and for taking pictures

Photos from my Leicestershire garden

Before digital SLR, most of my wildlife pictures were taken from either a Pentax SLR or from a compact digital camera.
The pictures are far from great but the visits to Africa, Borneo, India, etc. produced some great wildlife.

for obvious reasons most of the pictures on this site are of British Wildlife but I have also added some pictures from other areas

Larger pictures

Coyote

Elephant's

Fish Eagle

Giraffe

Lion

Rhino

African safari pictures from 1992

In 1999 - 2000 we went to Malaysia and Indonesia with the majority of time being spent in Borneo

At the end of 2000 a quick visit to India was mostly spent visiting temples including the Targ Mahal but we did manage one wildlife day.

India - Keoladoe

 are of wild birds and wild animals

photograph
captive species

Obviously I would like to see a wide range of different species and then get reasonable pictures of all the different species within each family.

For example I have seen all 6 of the British Deer species but have yet to get good pictures of all of them.  Indeed I have yet to get any Muntjack pictures.

Target species:
It's difficult to target Mammal pictures without spending vast amounts of time in a hide or known spot.  Therefore I currently don't target individual mammal species in the same way that I target birds and butterflies.

In my travels I hope to get some better pictures of all sorts of things
But many of the smaller mammal pictures need improvement such as Stoats and Weasels and these are very hard to target.

One area that given more time I could target are marine mammals, I do intend to target Whales, Dolphins some time but am currently concentrating on other wildlife.

When I am at some of the marine mammal , locations around our coast, it can be reasonably easy to see these and I obviously keep a look out.  However seeing marine mammals and being close and quick enough for half reasonable pictures is a completely different matter.

The picture right is of a Minke Whale at Neist Point on Skye, the same day as we saw Basing Shark and Otters but I only have pictures of the Minke Whale and this is only a "fin shot".

Like many people, I like viewing the birds in my garden, and this leads to wanting to see more different birds.  Obviously as time goes on you want to see more and this leads to the need to go to new areas to visit to look for some of the birds that are not as easy to see.

I still like to see see birds in my garden and am lucky that I get both Green and GS peckers.  But like many birds these are always welcome.

Obviously as I travel to see some of the less well known and less seen species they can become increasingly camera shy.

Like most people trying to build up a collection of photographs, I also like adding a "new tick" to my growing list of species seen and photographed.

It is much easier with the web news services and travelling the country quite a bit as I do to get quite a few opportunities to add more.

Target species:

Existing species seen:
There are so many birds to see the bird species that I have seen, and either have rubbish pictures or no pictures at all.
These include:
Stone Curlew, Crested Tit, Little Auk, Capercaillie, Golden Eagle, Long-eared Owl, are all species where my pictures need considerable improvement.
Most of my Diver pictures are rubbish although like many people I know a good spots to view them, they are often at a distance to far for good photography.

Better pictures:
Some species are either very colourful or well known and although some are reasonably common it's often hard to get good pictures of some of these species.  Yes I do have some pictures of these but I want to find the time to target much better photos.
These include: Kingfisher and Jay and a better Barn Owl pictures.

New species:
Just to many to mention, but:
Bittern, Bearded Tit, Lesser Spotted Woodpecker, , and a wild Snowy Owl definitely feature on my wanted list. (as they probably do with many other people).
Then there is the "mega rare" stuff
And then some Scottish specialities:

Closer to home:
I would like a better picture of a Drake Smew.
I live near quite a large number of potential species
Indeed; I have not yet got a Red-necked Grebe photo and they are regularly at a Reservoir less than 45 mins away. But I have no pics...
Hobby pictures missed last summer, I must target them in 2008.
Then there is the Raptor's: Hen Harrier, Merlin, etc.

Picture quality
It's all well seeing and hopefully getting a picture, but are the results good enough to put online?
I have several poor quality pictures of some species that are just not good enough to put online.  I will endeavour to get better results before publishing.

I would rather have good pictures of 200 species on my web site than images of 200 good quality and 100 that are poor quality unrecognisable species.
 

580 + (the list grows fast as more rare birds are found)
With five hundred and eighty-something species of British bird, I am never going to see 500, yet alone photograph them all.  therefore a realistic target is 300 species pictured on this site.
(the reason 300 ? that's just over 50% of the British list) and certainly a realistic long term goal

The photographic list is endless

As of September 2008 This site contains over 1500 pictures of 200 different British Bird species. Which is about 33% of the British list My 200th species photographed on this site was a Grey Phalarope pictured at Shustoke in Warwickshire on 6th September 2008. I think it will take a long while to hit my 300 target......