Author: DMcA

Bempton cliffs on the east Yorkshire Coast is an excellent RSPB nature reserve. Its great feature is that the cliffs are over 300 ft high and as a result shots can be taken of the birds at eye level. The year-long residents of the cliffs are Gannets although in summer Puffins and other seabirds congregate there. Gannets are large birds and whilst attractive, they’re not particularly interesting in flight until they start to land, when their feet and wing movements are beautiful and comic at the same time.




Capturing these landing moments is pretty difficult because they fly in at high speed from the sea and at the last minute either drop down or carry on, giving the photographer only a second or two to capture the landing . With most cameras, it’s very hard to do this, because by the time you recognise a landing is about to happen, you’ve missed it. With the latest Olympus OMD cameras however, there’s a feature called Pro Capture which is specifically designed for capturing split second events. Over the course of around 3 hours. I got around 800 in-focus shots of Gannetts landing. This is a selection of around 30 of the best of those, chosen because of the beauty of their wings or the comedy of their feet (or both).




Touch or click any image to go to a lightbox view and then touch the full screen icon in the top right hand corner to get the best viewing experience. And for information on the shot and the location, be sure to click the little ‘i’ icon

Hogsmill Nature reserve is a perfect little wildlide refuge in an obscure part of Berrylands in south London. These shots were taken on my first ever visit. Around 120 bird species have been recorded at Hogsmill, some quite rare.

These are shots of the very common Gull (plus a swan and a goose). In flight and loafing around, common Gulls are unremarkable, but when diving into and emerging from the water, they look quite beautiful. These shots were taken with the Olympus EM1x, using the Procapture feature plus Bird recognition autofocus, which enables the capture of events that occur before the shutter is pressed . No full frame camera at any price can do this.


Touch or click any image to go to a lightbox view and then touch the full screen icon in the top right hand corner to get the best viewing experience. And for information on the shot and the location, be sure to click the little ‘i’ icon

Hogsmill Nature reserve is a perfect little wildlife refuge in an obscure part of Berrylands in south London. These shots were taken on my first ever visit. Around 120 bird species have been recorded at Hogsmill, some quite rare.

There are two hides, and outside one of them are several birdfeeders that attract a range of small songbirds. These are extremely nervous and move super fast. Normally they are impossible to capture in flight. However, using Olympus technology (Pro capture), I got a surprisingly high number of shots. The difference between these little birds at rest, and in flight is profound – they turn into proud and beautiful avians, with more impressive plumage than many larger birds.

Touch or click any image to go to a lightbox view and then touch the full screen icon in the top right hand corner to get the best viewing experience. And for information on the shot and the location, be sure to click the little ‘i’ icon

Photos from various Camera tests at the Richmond Park Pen Ponds in summer 2021, all with the Olympus EM1x and various lenses including the extremely exotic 15-1400mm lens, which is both rare and expensive ($7500).