A lesson learnt...

Expect the unexpected, they say (whomever they are). You do sometimes need eyes in the back of your head when out photographing wildlife, and even then it is all too easy to miss shots.

I roam a good stretch of the Dorset Stour, today, and whilst preoccupied with other, more mundane things, I miss a pair of mute swans in flight against a clear blue sky; numerous fly-pasts of a kingfisher; two grey herons and a little egret - the last two spooked upon my arrival at a bend in the river.

But it's the truly unexpected; the sighting of an otter, that makes my day. I first see it as it surfaces and dives in one smooth action, to my left. I am already set up with a super-telephoto on a monopod, and am stood still. In other words: I am ready. I recognise it immediately for what it is... and wait. Nothing. I cautiously approach the spot on the river bank closest to where I saw it in an effort to catch sight of it again, but it had gone. This wasted precious seconds. Thinking ahead, I then choose to add a tele-converter to the lens should it reappear, and walked back to my camera bag to fish it out. It is as I'm attaching the said converter to the camera body that the otter surfaces again, not twenty feet from me, and swims parallel to the bank for several seconds, watching me as it does... then dives again. This happens while I have no lens attached to the camera, so I get no shots. The otter surfaces for a third time before I lose it altogether, but this time it is just a dark shape under some overhanging branches. Instead of using the (adequate) lens I had on the camera already, I opted to gamble.. and lost. A lesson learnt.

                                                                                    **********************

I first started looking for otter at this location in March of this year, and although there were many anecdotal accounts of their presence, I had not so much as even glimpsed one. Although I wasn't able to photograph it, seeing one in the wild for the first time was quite an experience. I must try harder, next time.

However, all was not lost for the shoot. The arrival of a Chiffchaff later in the day (image), helped to compensate to a large extent, and it is seen here feeding on a Buddleja bush, that itself is growing directly out of the stonework of the old bridge at Iford, Dorset.



300mm f/2.8 AF-S VR Nikkor with TC-14EII converter. 1/2000 second at f/5.6.  -0.33 EV compensation. ISO 400. Monopod


© 2012