I went to the North West Bird Fair last weekend at Martin Mere in Lancashire. I’ve been to Martin Mere many times before but not to the bird fair. It was good. There was a steady stream of people past the stall and I was amazed at how many people from that part of the world visit Norfolk.
One chap I struck up a conversation with mentioned there were a couple of Tawny Owls out on the reserve roosting in a tree.
“Are they photographable?” I asked;
“Absolutely” he replied.
I grabbed Julian from the Wildsounds stall as I knew he, as well as I, would want to photograph them. Even though the reserve staff knew nothing about them we pushed on to where I’d been told they were. When we arrived at the place there was a small throng of people gathered looking towards the canopy
“We’re in” said I. How wrong could I have been?
When we got closer to the crowd we realised there was much rubbing of sore necks and mutterings of “where?”, “what branch?”, “well I can’t see them”, “come on I’m fed up we’ve been here 30 minutes” – hardly encouraging.
Although Julian found them with relative ease it took me a bit longer. No, they weren’t photographable at all. Photographable is when they are close and have no intervening vegetation. This is the best shot I could achieve.
I know… but they are in there.
This is photographable. Taken a few years ago in Suffolk.
Letter From Norfolk 