One little known highlight of the UK's coastline is a beautiful aerial dance called a murmuration, which is performed by dunlins and some other waterbird species. Starlings also exhibit similar behaviour. However, for someone new to bird photography like myself, photographing murmurations turned out to be one of the more challenging aspects and this post gives a few tips that I've picked up along the way. Dunlins frequent the UK's coasts and estuaries in the winter months so a first question was which sites to visit, and when. Some online research helped here on the websites of the RSPB and Continue Reading
Inland ports on the Dee and Mersey estuaries
The onset of the Industrial Revolution saw the need for improved ways to move raw materials and finished goods around. This was long before the days of road and rail so water transport was an obvious solution. Inland ports soon sprang up around the country able to handle barges and other small vessels, in some cases a surprisingly long way inland. In Cheshire, this included docks, wharves and shipbuilding yards at Chester, Warrington, Widnes, Runcorn, Frodsham and Ellesmere Port on the Dee and Mersey estuaries. First established as a port in Roman times, Chester lies at the tidal limit of Continue Reading
Murmurations: dance of the dunlins
From nature documentaries such as the BBC’s Blue Planet, we know that some fish species swim in huge shimmering shoals to confuse or deter predators. Perhaps less well known, though, is that some birds such as dunlins do this too, in aerial displays called murmurations. In the UK, the autumnal and winter displays by starlings are the most common as birds gather in vast flocks near dusk, wheeling and soaring almost as one for a few minutes, before dropping down onto the roost. This behaviour can be seen in many towns and cities. However, some wading birds also exhibit this Continue Reading
