I’m a fairly regular visitor to the Teifi Marshes, at Cardigan, which has a selection of easily accessible hides allowing excellent views of interesting birds at close quarters. It must be one of the best places in the UK to photograph water rails, for example (see this post), and kingfisher. It is about fifty miles away from home, and I tend to visit the reserve if I am on my way down to Pembrokeshire for some reason. What I usually do is leave home the previous evening and sleep in the van, meaning that an early morning visit is easy. For a number of years I had a favourite park-up, about a mile away, in a very wide and deep farm gateway, where I had never seen any farming activity.
One such visit was late last winter. It was a cold and frosty night and I woke early to find the van enveloped in thick valley fog. I opened the rear doors to see a group of white ponies standing the other side of the gate in a white-out. It really was magical. I put the kettle on and began making my breakfast. Then I heard a vehicle arrive next to mine and its door opening. “Oi…. you can’t park there ….it’s private property!” came a voice (or words to that effect) . It was the farmer, coming to feed his animals. I hurriedly threw on some clothes and apologised profusely, switching off the kettle and moving into the driver’s seat. Turning the ignition key there was a click, and then silence. The battery had died overnight. I was so embarrassed! To his credit the farmer could see that I was harmless and was in an impossible situation. He easily carried his bales of hay the few extra yards from his trailer to the gate, and was away. I called the breakdown service and settled down to a long wait and a leisurely breakfast. I wouldn’t be visiting the Marshes that morning…….
Since then I’ve found another park-up not far away and have spent a few nights there. One such was last week, and I arrived at the reserve about 7 o’clock on Thursday morning; the tide was high, the river full and the hide overlooking the (tidal) creek seemed to be a good place to start. I spent some time there and saw a very good selection of species – kingfisher, water rail, greenshank, and curlew among others. The problem for the photographer is that both the Creek and Kingfisher hides face east; the light can be very difficult at both until at least mid-morning. Nevertheless I did manage some close-up images of a kingfisher from the latter; I also watched a water rail there fly to the island, and then swim back to the main reedbed a few minutes later! Returning to the Creek hide I photographed a small wader creeping around at the water’s edge. Although the photograph is nothing to write home about it was good enough to identify the bird as a green sandpiper.
It had been reported earlier in the week that three different ospreys had been seen fishing on the Teifi river alongside the marshes. They had been identified by the colour rings fitted to their legs as nestlings. One was unringed, another had been ringed in Germany and the third in Scotland. I returned to the Curlew hide on the river-bank in the hope that one would turn up. And turn up it did! Another photographer was droning away about all the birds he’d seen and where, when I noticed the gulls on the river had all flown and scattered. There was obviously “something about”. And sure enough, an osprey appeared over the river and, at its first attempt, proceeded to catch a fish right in front of the hide! During the minute it took the bird to gain enough height to fly away I was able to get a sequence of images of it with its prey. They weren’t all sharp but by judicious use of the denoise, selection and sharpening tools in Lightroom (and even a tweak in Topaz Photo AI) I was able to get several I am very pleased with.
I’m not sure if ironic is the correct word to use here but I chose the main photograph from the sequence because of the fish’s position. I doubt if the poor creature appreciated how this single split second (one four-thousandth to be exact) during its final moments of life in the osprey’s talons gave this meticulous photographer the most creative satisfaction.
NB. I’ve just cropped the main photo to enlarge the bird.
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