Richards Photography

Herring Gull @ Tice’s Meadow Nature Reserve 6th January 2026. 1/2000s f5.6 ISO 10000

Welcome to my photography log which is all about the journey not the image quality! This is more blog than gallery. A gallery would contain the best images I’ve taken, whereas this is record of what I’ve been doing, where I’ve been and what I’ve been taking photographs of.

This space captures the images I’ve created since upgrading my camera in the summer of 2024. After two decades with a Canon EOS 350D, I’m now shooting with a Fuji X-T5, paired with the Fuji XF 16-50mm f/2.8-4.8, Fuji XF 70-300mm f/4-5.6 and Fuji XF 500mm f5.6 (the most used lens).

For a list of specific species I’ve photographed, see here.

Click on any image to enlarge it. Best viewed on a larger screen rather than a mobile phone.

This website is hosted on a small NAS server in my office at home. BT haven’t rolled out fibre broadband to my street so my upload speed is limited to 3Mbps, which limits your download speed to 3Mbps. You may have to be a little patient whilst the page builds. 🙂

Previously:

2025 July – December

2025 January – June

2024 August – December

March 5th 2026 – Tice’s Meadow

After the success of Thursley it was back to the meadow to see what’s happening in the sun today. A partially obscured male Reed Bunting and a Stonechat.

Lots of Tufted Duck today. The birds that all left when the working froze over in January and gradually returning.

March 5th 2026 – Thursley Nature Reserve

I have seen a couple of posts on Facebook this week of the Dartford Warbler. A bird I have never seen, so I went out at lunchtime on a mission to take its photograph. I expected it to take ages, and to probably not see it at all.

I walked out of the car park at Moat Pond down the dirt track, and as I had no idea what it sounded like I used Merlin on my phone. Within 5 minutes slow walk Merlin picked it up and all I had to do and stand still and wait. Sure enough, in no time at all, it hopped onto a branch, started singing and remained in place long enough for me to get, what I think probably my best bird photograph yet!

Dunnock and Stonechat.

Two different Buzzards.

A Mallard, Goldfinch, Tufted Duck, a pair of Mallard and a Robin.

March 4th 2026 – Tice’s Meadow

The BBC forecast sun all day, but it was misty and cloudy on the meadow. I hung around for 2 hours before giving up and going home, and literally as I sat down the sun came out and stayed out for the rest of the day.

Nice to see that a pair of Great Crested Grebe have returned. They are one of the species that left the works when it froze over in January.

Dunnock singing, Canada Goose, 2 Cormorant (the other dozen left during the January freeze too) and Mute Swans in flight.

The Black-headed Gulls are very noisy and active at the moment. Many now have there summer breading plumage.

March 2nd 2026 – Tice’s Meadow

A good day for sunshine, but I did it again. I took ages to figure out I could not get images sharp before realizing the focus selector switch has been knocked out of position. So, these are those taken once I finally figured it out.

This Red Kite was being harassed by a crow for quite some time. I suspect the crow is being territorial. After soaring for a while, it dived down to the ground and was quickly surrounded by crows. I suspect it caught lunch in the process. The images of it on the ground were very distant.

Coal Tit, House Sparrow, Great Tit, Goldfinch on the feeders.

Canada Goose and Crows on the ground, Crow, Dunnock.

I wasn’t sure what this was, but Len knew immediately its a male Reed Bunting. Checking afterwards, its because this is the summer plumage which differs from the winter plumage I had seen previously.

Tufted Duck, Black-headed Gull and Wood Pigeon.

February 28th 2026 – Tice’s Meadow

Since Thursley seemed to quiet, I returned to Tice’s Meadow.

Nice to see the Canada Goose again. I expect there will dozens by the summer.

A Squirrel on a telegraph pole, Blue Tit and Black-headed Gull.

A distant Red Kite and Tufted Ducks.

February 28th 2026 – Thursley Nature Reserve

I felt the need for a change and I haven’t been to Thursley for a while. Still very quiet….

Its been a good week for Buzzards though…

Stonechat.

February 25th 2026 – Tice’s Meadow

The sun is back!! And today the raptures were up, both Red Kite and Buzzards were hunting, and not so high I could not get images of them. Unfortunate I set exposure compensation in the wrong direction when trying to bring some light onto the underside of the birds against a bright sky. Lesson learnt (again).

Buzzard.

Red Kite.

Swan.

Jay.

Black-headed Gull.

Grey Heron, Canada Goose and an Airbus Helicopter.

February 23rd 2026 – U3A Photography Monopoly

Upon arrival we were all given 3 locations at random to take a picture. These will be shown at a future meeting to see what variety of images can be taken between us. I’m not very happy with my images, but tried to do something that I thought others might not have already done. I could see people taking close up images, which is the obvious answer, something to create an abstract based on shapes and colour.

The first image is the statue of a shivering boy in Victoria Gardens with a double exposure to give it a ghostly feel. The second is also a double exposure of 3 statues in the new Brightwells area, again giving a kind of ghostly feel. The final image is a close up of a crane doing construction work on East Street. I may submit one of the versions where I have reduced the sky to a much darker and more dramatic feal.

February 21st 2026 – Tices Meadow

Yet another visit, but still very muddy and bird activity seems to be pretty low. The cloud was quite dark and that is reflected in these images.

A Wren and a Redwing.

In the stream/river that runs though the meadow, there was a lot of woody material that looked like it might cause a blockage. I noticed some movement and it turns out to be a Siskin having a bath, and a Goldfinch taking a drink.

My previous Red Kite images were all taken when the bird was very high and the images had to be cropped heavily. Today, it was very high too, soaring on the wind looking for prey to eat. But after a while it appeared behind my much lower in the sky over trees. So, these retained some image quality by not having to cropped so heavily, but suffer from the sky being so dark. One day, I’ll be in the right place at the right time and catch a Red Kite that is not too high, not too far away and in good light.

The Egyptian Goose we making lots of noise, may be building up to the breeding season.

Not so many Cormorant around at the moment. I’ve figured out that the white feathers that some not have on there head, indicate breading plumage. No sign of them building nests that I could see and its hard to see where they would do that on the workings, so I guess they might go elsewhere for that. The Little Egret and Grey Heron have all disappeared probably to nest somewhere else.

Black Headed Gulls. The head turns black in a breeding season and you can see that on some.

As always there are Mallard, Tufted Duck and Blue Tits. I also saw a pair of teal but they were so far away that image has no quality left at all after cropping.

February 17th 2026 – Farnham Heath

Not many birds to see this afternoon. I expect that in a month of so it will come to life and the weather improves, summer migrants arrive and the breading season gets underway.

Blue Tit and a Robin.

A Crow feeding on the ground.

Long Tailed Tit.

February 14th 2026 – Tice’s Meadow

Finally some sun. Still not that many birds about though!

Dunnock.

Stonechat and one of the meadows 3 cows.

Shoveler.

Black-Headed Gull and Coot.

Goldfinch.

Pied Wagtail.

Tufted Duck, Robin, Chaffinch, Great Tit, Long-Tailed Tit and House Sparrow.

Red Kite and Red Poll.

February 10th 2026 – Tice’s Meadow

Very dull and damp. Light rain at times but did see some Goldfinch.

February 6th 2026 – Farnham

A quick trip to see if the Peregrines are back on the church tower. They weren’t but maybe next time. Very little to photograph at the moment just Jackdaw, Magpie and Herring Gull. But, spring is only a few weeks away!

February 4th 2026 – Tice’s Meadow

Nice to have some sun today and thankfully isn’t wasn’t even cold enough to necessitate gloves. Still not many birds about though and the paths remain muddy with ankle deep water in places.

Blue Tits still present in large numbers.

Dunnock.

Coot, Teal, Tufted Duck, Egyption Goose, Cormorant.

Little Egret, Lapwing and Herring Gull in flight.

British Airways, sleeping Pochard, male and female Tufted Dusks, Robin, House Sparrow, Blue Tit, Great Tit and Long Tailed Tit.

February 1st 2026 – Tice’s Meadow

Another winters day at the meadow. Damp, dull and muddy. Not so many birds around these days, though Merlin picks up there noise, I’m not seeing them. As an experiment, todays images were edited using DXO Photolab 9, which has a 1 month free trial. Its quite expensive to buy, so I’ll probably revert back to Capture One once the free trial is over.

First up is a Jackdaw, which was present last spring in huge numbers so it will be interesting to see if the same thing happens this year. As usual there were countless squirrels in forest, lots of tits and of course the 3 resident cattle.

A pair of Redwing. I saw someone else had spotted a fieldfare today on the meadow and posted a great image of it on facebook but I’ve not seen one myself yet.

Blue tits, Dunnock, , Blackbird, Chaffinch

Black-headed Gull

On my last visit I saw Cormorant doing a mating style dance, today its the Egyptian Goose. Spring must be round the corner.

Whilst I have captured them in flight before, this is the first time I’ve seen them taking off.

Nice to see a Jay.

Lapwing.

So, what do I think of DXO Photolab 9. It got the expose better than Capture One, but I’ve over done the colour saturation. It reduced the export times but I could achieve the same in Capture One with a little more discipline.

January 28th 2026 – Tice’s Meadow

A quite walk around the meadow this morning. I only saw one other person. From a bird perspective it seemed quiet. The first bird I encountered was this Dunnock.

This Reed Bunting was on the reads next to the hide.

Stonechat.

Herring Gull, Moorhen, a pair of Tufted Duck, Coot, Pochard, Swan, Pied Wagtail.

And the obligatory Cormorant, Lapwing and Herring Gull. Two of the Cormorant appeared to be doing some kind of co-ordinated mating ritual, must be the good weather today.

January 25th 2026 – RSPB Pulborough Brookes

The nature reserve is an hours drive away, and cost £3.50 to park and £5 entry as a non member. Entry is free to RSPB members, but that itself is £5 per month. I won’t be returning very often at this price. 😊

The reserve has 4 hides, 3 of which I found. 1 had no birds in view at all, 1 was closed because of flooding but the remaing hide was very good. The reserve had lots of visitors, I’ve never seen so many people with spotting scopes and binoculars.

As you can see in this first images, there was a huge number of birds on the water.

These Meadow Pipits are new to me.

Another first for me is the Pintail.

More Teal than you can shake a stick at!

Nice to see Canada Geese again, they disappeared from Tice’s Meadow in the autumn.

Widgin also present in large numbers.

A good number of Shoveler.

Some deer were seen crossing the water at the far side. Someone owns a nice house on the shoreline, and a fox on patrol.

Is there anywhere in the world that Mallard have not conquered?

If you look carefully, you can spot Snipe and a Lapwing here.

January 22nd 2026 – Tice’s Meadow

A quick afternoon walk around the meadow today. Very muddy, plenty of standing water and didn’t stop raining the whole time. Thus, not too many birds to photograph. As before, a lot fewer birds on the water since the ice at the start of the month.

The water level is risen sharply lately.

Some nice in flight shots, particularly the Shoveler as it really shows off the colours on their wings. Shame it wasn’t a sunny day .

This female Pochard was a surprise, took a few minutes to confirm its ID online.

Even the paths are flooding at the moment.

House Sparrows both male and female, Blue Tits and Dunnock.

January 20th 2026 – U3A Birdwatching – Frensham Little Pond

I joined the group for a walk this morning for the first time. It was cloudy and cold and dull lighting for the most part. The highlight was spotting a Crossbill, a first time for me. I was surprised at how close I could get without it taking flight.

My shutter speed wasn’t really high enough but these are the best I managed of the Heron.

I thought I was looking at Tufted Ducks, but Richard correctly identified these as Pochard.

And these are the real deal, Tufted Ducks.

Great Crested Grebe.

Cormorant.

And finally, who doesn’t like a few Swann images.

And to complete the record of birds I saw on the walk, a Black-headed Gull, Coot and Mallard.

January 16th 2026 – Tices Meadow

Another walk around the meadow today. Very quiet in the bird sense. Many birds on the water seem to have flown away when it froze over last week. Could not spot much in the forested areas either. However, I did spot a Red Kite soaring overhead.

A couple of environmental shots of the far distance.

Magpie‘s.

A Starling, Swan, Perrigin sat alone in the distance, a pair of Shoveler, Black Headed Gull staring down two Lapwing, Tufted Duck, Teal, Coot and a Herring Gull.

January 14th 2026 – Tice’s Meadow

A misty start to the morning in Tice’s Meadow and very few birds visible on the water.

January 13th 2026 – Bushey Park

We were driving to Surbiton today to collect another ebay purchase so called in at Bushey Park. It was overcast and raining the entire time, which you can see in many of the images. A birds, a Grey Heron and a few lots of Black-headed Gulls.

The deer were mostly congregate on one place, where the park staff put out food.

January 6th 2026 – Tices Meadow

A very cold day at the meadow today, but some nice snowy images which make a nice change. This fox was followed by crow for at least 10 minutes, must have been hoping for some scraps?

The pair of peregrine falcons were both present, eating lunch. I think it was crow that was eaten.

I stalked a great spotted woodpecker for a couple of minutes until it flew off. This was the clearest image I managed to get. Same story for this jay.

This probably one of the nicest herring gull pictures I’ve captured for a while.

Some canada geese arrived back today too. I expect they were looking for water that was not frozen over.

But, the open water is very crowded now.

Nice to see a few goldfinch too.

Chaffinch.

House Sparrow.

There is always a robin about to be photographed.

And finally some other images I like.

January 4th 2026 – Tices Meadow

A cold walk around the meadow today. The workings were largely frozen over, and all the birds were over on the far side where there was still unfrozen water. Spotted my first Siskin.