Wildlife
As a
hobby we watch wildlife, and perhaps as more than a hobby
we are involved in Badger Protection. When the
opportunity allows we love to go for walks and see
British wildlife. We also take our holidays to allow us
to watch and photograph wildlife. We recently bought a
digital camera which works really well with our spotting
scope, allowing us to get some great photos we would
otherwise not have been able to take. Most of the badger
pictures were taken with a 35mm camera, as a scope was
not necessary to watch them. We have been to Scotland
several times and are looking forward to going back
during Christmas to try and get some more and much better
pictures of the wildlife on the Isle of Mull.
Click on the links shown below to see our other pages.
Badgers
Keith is a trustee for the Badger Trust and we both work with the Herts and Middlesex Badger Protection work. This work also extends to helping badgers in Bedfordshire. In was in fact through our joint passion for badgers that we met. I spent six years studying a group of badgers in Essex, most of the pictures are of them. I have also included pictures of two of the badgers we have looked after here at home. Katie, named after the RSPCA inspector who collected her and brought her to us to care, and Petra also named after an RSPCA officer.
Birds
We also enjoy going bird watching. We feed the birds in the garden and also enjoy trips out to areas where birds can be found. We would not consider ourselves as true twitchers but do enjoy going to fairly local areas to see migrants which have made it to this country. The winter of 2004 brought an invasion of Waxwings, a bird I had seen in books as child and never had the chance to see. I was delighted to catch up with a flock near to home. We have also caught up with several other unusual birds this year, follow the link to see our birding photographs.
A couple of years ago we took a holiday in Scotland. We were staying on Skye that year but found out that someone on the Isle of Mull led daily wildlife trips. On the way to Skye we stopped off at Oban so that we could go on one of the expeditions. That proved to be one of the best decisions we had made. We spent the day looking for and seeing some great wildlife. More importantly we learnt how to look for some of that wildlife ourselves. Last year we spent a week on the Isle of Mull where we saw Frisha and Skye, the two White Tailed Sea Eagles who were featured on BBC television this year, plus another family of Sea Eagles, Golden Eagles and Otters, plus lots of other wildlife. As we did not have our digital camera we did not get great photos but hope to put that right in December.
Other Wildlife
In addition to enjoying the wildlife of Scotland we love to go down to the New Forest, which is where I saw my first badgers. We simply love the wild spaces there, heaths and woodland alike. We recently went to the Forest to see the Red Deer rut. We got some good pictures and spent many happy hours looking for and watching the deer. One of the things we like to do while staying in the New Forest is to go out after dark and drive slowly and carefully through the forest to look for wildlife. By doing this we have seen deer (Red, Fallow and Muntjac), Foxes, Owls and of course Badgers. Unfortunately this is not the best way to take photographs, but the thrill of seeing our British Wildlife is still there. We have also seen Weasels and Stoats but again we have not yet managed to get photos of them.
While in Scotland we also fell in love with Otters and would love to see one on English soil. We know that they visit the local area and hope one day to be lucky enough to see one. We have had some great views of Otters in Scotland and although we got some good video we have not yet got a great photograph. It was David Woodhouse of Isle of Mull Wildlife Expeditions who taught us how to look for Otters. It was his "training" that helped us find this one on Skye. Not a great picture but we aim to get a better one on Mull this year.
