Every year I manage to get a couple of short trips away with my good friend Andy, where we head off for a couple of days and have a concentrated session on a particular species. These trips always seem to be very productive and its always good to catch up, escape our busy lives for a while and spend some time just totally focused on the wildlife in great surroundings.
This summer has been a particularly good year for the flowering of the moorland heather where these upland areas become draped in a pink-purple blanket. Typically the flowering peaks around mid-August and coincides with the 'Glorious 12th' which is the start of the Red Grouse shooting season. The moorland areas are actively managed to maximise these wild populations. This typically involves periodic burning of areas of heather to encourage fresh growth for the grouse to feed on. Unfortunately the gamekeepers also take an aversion to predators that may impact on grouse numbers and there has been a lot of illegal killing of raptors to the point that the hen harrier is now nearly extinct as a breeding species in England.
We timed our visit to the Yorkshire Dales (around two hour drive north from my home) around the start of September when hopefully the birds will have had time to settle back down a bit and also the heather would still be showing good colour.
Below is a selection of images from the trip which consisted of two morning and one evening session (there is too much air haze on the moors to photograph them in the middle of the day).
Terrific set Richard. Beautiful images, due in large part to the environment. #3, 5, and the last are my favourites. You really did a great job in capturing both the bird and the heath. Many thumbs up.
Magnificent series Richard, and thanks for the story behind the images, I enjoyed reading it.
All of these are captured in marvelous light, your compositions to showcase the habitat are terrific, and the Red Grouse is a beautiful subject.
Excellent work.
Thanks for the comments which are greatly appreciated. What I didn't mention is the second morning we woke up to thick fog. Fortunately once we got right up on the moorland we had got above it.
