Gone but not forgotten

Many of you will have heard of the Golden Toad, the Passenger Pigeon, the Tasmanian Tiger, the Great Auk, the Quagga, and the Stephens Island Wren.

All of these animals are extinct, all within the last 250 years, and all (except perhaps the Golden Toad) almost entirely due to the actions of humans.

These species were all lost in distant parts of the world or, in the case of the European Great Auk, generations ago. These names, although familiar to us, seem to resonate with times and places other than our own.

Perhaps this is why so many seem immune to the pleas of conservationists citing examples such as these as evidence for our continued detrimental effect upon the environment. Extinction seems to be a remote phenomenon not directly affected by the actions of modern Brits.

Maybe this would be different if we had recently lost a species of our own, if we had an example of an endemic British species recently lost due to the actions of modern Brits.

Well as a matter of fact we do.

I was shocked to read in this months BBC wildlife magazine of the Ivell's Sea Anemone - a species endemic to Britain that became extinct as recently as 1983. Even as someone who has completed a degree in Biology, with modules on British marine ecology, the name was completely unfamiliar to me.

It is obviously a terrible shame, perhaps even criminal, that the Ivell's Sea Anemone is gone for good, but why are conservationists not using the name to their advantage? What are they not shouting on rooftops that the Scottish Wild Cat, the Red Squirrel, and the Smooth Snake are in danger of going the same was as the Ivell's Sea Anemone? Why is every British school child not taught to say its name and lament its loss?

In a time when the general opinion is that the environment can wait in the face of larger challenges such as economic recovery, perhaps the Ivell's Sea Anemone should be used to remind us Brits that the environment is as much our responsibility as that of the rainforest-felling third world dictatorships we so love to condemn and patronize.

Little critters

It has taken a while, but I have finally got there.

Since uploading my website my "other wildlife" (i.e. neither mammals nor birds) web page has been incomplete and displaying the dreaded label "coming soon" in the place of images.

Now I have a full compliment of 15 images courtesy of these two little chappies; a Grove Snail from last summer in Pembrokeshire, and an Orange Underwing Moth from last week on the top of Herefordshire Beacon. This is not to say that I will not be changing images around as my library grows, but at least the "coming soon" message will be a thing of the past.

Finally, for those of you still awaiting my promised Golden Eagle images, I am afraid you will have to wait a little longer! I have just not had time today and am visiting family up north at the weekend. Sorry!

This green and pleasant land

Once again I have neglected my blog over the last few days. Is it because I have nothing to say? I am sure a few of you will confirm that is never likely to happy. Is it because I have taken any photos? Definitely not! So what is it?

Over the past few days I have been very busy planning two large projects. Planning what I hear you cry? Well let me just say that next year a) my feel will be blistering and b) you should be seeing a newly designed Exposing The Wild logo in a good few places. Cryptic!

Back to the here and now, or at least to days recently passed. Thursday morning I arose bright and early to climb Herefordshire Beacon (a.k.a. British Camp) in time for sunrise. British Camp is a Iron Age fort at the southern end of the Malvern Hills with views along the range to Worcestershire Beacon, across the Seven river valley, and across Herefordshire into Wales. Just a few meters from the summit is the setting a family of Rabbits has chosen to make its burrow.

Each morning, just after sunrise, they emerge to bathe in the warm morning light. There are very few things that would persuade me to be a rabbit, but the prospect of being greeted by that view each morning ranks highly on that list.

There is something special about old England with its quaint villages and rolling hills and to me very little is as English as the Malvern hills. Perhaps that is why when my Brother an old school friend and I set off for a short walk in the same hills two days later, we did not turn round until we were at the top of Worcestershire Beacon and our car was six miles behind us.

Finally, partially to give you a sneak preview of my next blog post, and partially so if I fail to post it you can chase me up, here is a picture from a session with David Fox and his magnificent Golden Eagle Star last week.

Snowdonia

Eight days away from the blog and it seems like a lifetime.

So what have I been up to in the past week? Looking back upon it now it seems like I have achieved very little photographically; however, judging by the number of new photographs in my Lightroom catalogue, this simply is not true.

One very major contributor to this has been a 21 hour time lapse video of an opening daffodil. During the making of this my camera fired off an image every 20 seconds, resulting in a grand total of 3,500 images. This may seem a little excessive, but in my opinion it is better to have too many images and too long video than a too short jerky clip.

I have also had another pop at white-background studio shots of invertebrates as described in my previous blog post. Just like when shooting white-background shots of people, a way to make a white-background shot of an invertebrate stand out is to highlight interesting shapes. I think I have achieved this with this pair of shots but that is not for me to judge.

Perhaps the reason I have felt like I have done no photography over the past week is that all of these photographs were taken indoors in a (relatively) sterile studio setting. Thankfully, today I was able to get back outside into the real world. More specifically, to Snowdonia.

The weather did not deliver the mix of sun, rain, and stormy clouds we were promised. Instead, the National Park was draped in a dull grey blanket of cloud. However, for some types of landscape photography this is not all bad. Flat light prevents too many highlights being burned out and allows longer exposures, perfect for blurring waves or waterfalls.

Close-ups of waterfalls such as this image are all well and good, but for quite a while I have been trying to find a waterfall where it is possible to include a mountain vista as a background. Today I finally found a waterfall that allowed me to do this.