Outdoor Photography

Small groups of catt le egrets are not uncommon

these days, but six together is st ill notable. These

birds were feeding at Birkdale near Southport.

The sheep gives an almost quizzical look as

the catt le egret glides by before landing

and st arting to feed.

84 Outdoor Photography February 2018

According to my diary from the time I was

using a 400mm lens (manual focus of course)

to record the cattle egret, with Ilford XP1

(shooting at 1/30–1/60sec) for my black &

white shots and Fujichrome 100 (at around

1/8sec) for my colour photographs. Recording

the exposure details was something I did for

every photograph, and I was so keen back then

that I had even written a detailed description

of the egret. Quite why, I don’t know – it was

white with a yellow bill.

I would process and print the black & white

fi lms in the spare bedroom that doubled as

a darkroom, and while the slide shots from

this particular shoot were rubbish, the black

& whites were quite acceptable. Looking at the

prints that are still stuck in the diary pages

I am quite proud of them.

But how times have changed! Today,

the camera miraculously records all of the

exposure details for you, computers have made

the darkroom a thing of the past and there is

no longer any rarity value in a cattle egret. In

fact, quite the opposite. Like many species of

formerly rare herons, such as the little egret,

It was 27 December 1986, and a fl edgling bird photographer by

the name of Steve Young was racing to Thornsett in Derbyshire

to see a very rare cattle egret. An older and wiser Steve looks back

at how times have changed for both the photographer and the bird

On the wing

STEVE YOUNG

NATURE ZONE

I had no choice but to take a close-up of this individual, as it was too close to the

car for anything else. I love the st aring eye of catt le egrets – they just look comical!

breeding success occurring at RSPB Burton

Mere Wetlands in Cheshire where a pair raised

a young bird in 2017.

Small groups of birds are also not

uncommon these days; I photographed six

together in a fi eld near Birkdale earlier in

the year, so the excitement of seeing a cattle

egret has long gone. However, there is still

something that makes them more interesting

than the other heron species. The staring

yellow eyes and jaunty walk under the legs of

cows gives them a bit of character, so when

I heard a single bird had been seen in the

sheep fi elds near Hightown I still ambled over.

Driving along the narrow lane there was no

sign of it, so I turned around and drove slowly

back, catching a glimpse of a white head

bobbing along in the ditch a yard from my

car. As I stopped, the egret walked out of the

ditch and moved slowly along the top, so close

to me that I couldn’t fi t it all in the frame;

slightly diff erent from that fi rst bird all those

years ago! I was shooting into the sun, but the

results were quite pleasing, with a nice ‘rim

light’ around the bird.

As I write this in early November 2017

I have just returned from a visit to Marshside

RSPB in Southport on an unsuccessful trip to

try to photograph two long-billed dowitchers,

a rare American visitor. To while away a large

part of the time waiting for the dowitchers

I was photographing...yes, you guessed it,

cattle egrets. Five birds have been permanent

residents here for around a year and they were

busy feeding among the cattle on the reserve.

Presumably these are part of that group of

six I saw earlier in the year, but where did the

other one go?

Using my AF/VR 500mm lens and DSLR

set at ISO 800–1600 on a dull day, the whole

process was very easy compared to those shots

I’d taken over 30 years ago, and back home

there were no messy chemicals to deal with;

a cup of tea, my laptop and the images were all

ready to view in the comfort of a warm room.

I probably won’t be here, but I do wonder what

photography will be like in another 30 years...?

great white egret and spoonbill, the cattle

egret is now almost commonplace, with a few

breeding pairs dotted around the country.

Warmer winters have meant these species can

happily survive here, so over-shooting birds

from southern Europe no longer have to try

to migrate back; they can now over-winter

and fi nd a mate in suitable habit. As a result,

they have spread northwards, with the latest

84-85_ON_THE_WING_227_SW.indd 84 18/12/2017 16:02