Written by “I must go down to the seas again, to the lonely sea and the sky” (from Sea Fever, a poem by John Masefield). For me, it isn’t so much the sea as the coast.
At this time of the year, when my surrounding countryside is slinking into hibernation and is, to be frank, less than photogenic, the coast claims a higher priority on my list of places to go. I keep a seasoned eye on tides and weather, watching and waiting for optimal conditions to arrive (for me that means a falling tide and broken cloud at sunrise).
On such a morning I found myself heading for Robin Hood’s Bay where, while slowly freezing to the point of not being able to feel my fingertips, I spent some time photographing…
The twilight glow…
Dawn colours…
Sunrise over a boiling sea…
And oystercatchers foraging on the tide line.
After an hour of patiently working my way in onto these birds and just as I was about to hit the sweet spot, they lifted off as one. It was game over in an instant. Disappointment reigned as I slowly uncoiled my frozen joints and stood up, picked up my tripod, turned around and almost bumped into a surfboard. Its owner enthusiastically asked me, ‘Did you get any good pictures?’ ‘One or two thanks’, I said, ‘one or two’. Satisfied at that, he turned around and quickly walked back up the beach to join his surfing buddies, leaving me all alone without a single bird to be seen.
This occasional blog is a tasty serving of nature and wildlife photography, with a side dish of my experiences out in the field and lightly seasoned with any random thoughts that occur to me along the way.
