Cetacean autopsy photos

Yes, I know, I’ve been awful at writing posts recently. Third year of my degree and an unwillingness to refuse any opportunity is the cause. But I’m actively making an effort now! I do tend to update my facebook page a little more frequently, so if you wish to follow that, this is the link here!

So lots of exciting things have been going on recently, but I’m going to talk about this week as it’s fresh in my mind. On monday and tuesday of this week, myself and a team of 3 others were filming a seal and porpoise autopsy, for Exeter university, who share a campus with us studying at Falmouth university. The autopsy was conducted by scientists from the Exeter Environment and Sustainability Institute (also based on the same campus), including external scientists and assistants.

This was a fantastic experience, not only to be able to sit in and watch purely from an interest point of view, but also to be able to help set-up the live streaming, the audio, and then also filming for an edit was a lot of fun.

Collectively, the team is going to work on an edit which we will aim to produce in the near future, but for now I’m just going to share a few stills, though I didn’t actually take many over the two days. Be warned.. these may look a little gory..

Autopsy on day 1 – the porpoise was actually found to have died due to bottlenose dolphin attack. This can often happen, just a random act of aggression on the dolphins part – they aren’t always a lovely smiling animal!

The harbour porpoise on day 1 was also found to be pregnant! This is a baby harbour porpoise, probably about 30cm in length, taken out of the uterus. It does make the dolphin attack seem a little more harsh knowing that this tiny porpoise also died for no reason. 

Autopsy day 2 – A new porpoise and seal, though due to the angle I have very few shots of the seal. The scientists assess the body and take measurements; this harbour porpoise was much smaller than the first. 

Mid autopsy – samples of blood and organs were collected for further analysing. This porpoise was discovered to have died from fishing; bycatch or similar. Another massive shame, and hopefully in the future we can prevent so many unnatural cetacean deaths. That’s it, just a brief blog, apologies for the sombre tone. It really was a fascinating couple of days and not all about death!

Thanks to all the scientists, assistants and everyone involved, and for letting us be a part of it. The short film shall appear online in the near future so watch this space!

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Photos of 2013

I’m jumping on that bandwagon, and making one of those ‘my images from 2013’ type posts. We all do them, and lets face it, it’s a good way to see some of the best images from one year in one post.

I’ve not done one of these before, and I wasn’t sure whether to try have one image taken per month, or just 12 of the best. I’ve decided on a selection of the best, because for some of the first few months of early 2013 I was doing much more editing and video shooting rather than stills.

This has been a fantastic year for me personally, and a lot of wonderful first sightings, some of which will feature below. So here’s my chosen set, in chronological order, of some of the best wildlife photographs I have enjoyed taking this year:

1- Barn owl from Screech owl sanctuary (captive). A great day, and a lovely bird to be able to get close proximity to. Later on in the year I did photograph a wild barn owl, but the images were nowhere near as strong as this one. I do love backlighting. 

 

2- Sea urchin. One very very cold dive. But a pretty cool subject!

 

3- Turnstone – the Outer Hebrides. A seriously awesome trip with some amazing people. 

4- Purple Sandpiper. Another from the Hebrides trip, I definitely couldn’t narrow it down to just the one image! Other highlights of this trip was sightings of golden eagle, white tailed sea eagle, and wild snowy owl. Phenomenal. 

5- Pomarine Skuas – the Outer Hebrides (again yes). The time I spent sat on this headland in the stormy weather was exhilarating, and one of my favourite moments from the week. 

 

6- Fox cubs! My first sightings of wild cubs. 

 

7- Juvenile cuttlefish. The first half of my year was much about birds, and other land based photography, the second half I began to focus on my underwater photography, which I have really loved. 

 

8- Snorkelling with grey seals. This doesn’t really need explaining! 

 

9- The Scylla & the James Eagan Layne shipwrecks. The beginnings of my project, this image is in fact the Eagan Layne but both were dived in the same day and were great dives. My love for this beautiful green tinge you get in British waters grows. 

 

10- Compass Jellyfish. One of the more abstract images I took, focusing on the water surface instead. Jellyfish are beautiful subjects to work with. 

 

11- Nudibranch, Coryphella browni. My first EVER nudibranch (sea slug) sighting! Extremely exciting. 

 

12- Syracusa shipwreck. The project continues. 

 

13- Obelia hydriod sample under the microscope. More recent project work. 

 

I may have squeezed in 13 instead of 12 images, but they were all too important for me to cut out any! There was so many more events and photo-shoots I could have spoken about here, but I think this set gives the most balanced and varied representation of my year in wildlife photography!

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Happy 2014!

 

Scilly Seals Video

So here is the video I mentioned earlier, I won’t talk about it much as I’ve already done a post on the same snorkelling with seals trip.
Filmed with a Nikon D7000, Tokina 10-17mm lens, and Nauticam housing.

Isles of Scilly part 2 – Grey Seals

Whilst on the scillies, we had booked onto a snorkelling with seals trip. There are a fairly large number of grey seals around these islands, particularly on the Eastern Isles, and most of them are very curious and playful.

It was an incredible experience to be in the water with these mammals; they have a tendency to sneak up behind you and watch you for a few moments without you realising, and then you turn around and there’s a seal on your fins!

I took more video than still imagery on this trip, but I will post the video up later on this week when I’ve worked on it a bit more. Therefore, this is just a few images that convey the seals and their playful attitudes.

Switching from diving to snorkelling was something I was unused to, and so should probably practice snorkelling more! As I’m used to diving, I kept forgetting that I couldn’t do all my usual manoeuvres whilst filming without getting seawater in my snorkel, which was interesting to say the least. It was also strange floating on the surface looking down on the subject rather than from the seabed looking up. It’s good to change perspectives, though I would love to have the opportunity in the future to actually dive or freedive with these animals, to be able to work eye level with them in their world.

This first one is a fairly humorous photo of a faceless seal, quite calmly floating at the water surface. The white tag on it’s tail flippers is just visible; this means it has been one that has been rescued, rehabilitated, and then released by the Cornwall Seal Sanctuary in Gweek. It’s lovely to see these seals living so well in the wild after having a poor start in life or attaining various injuries. 

I just wanted to include this one to show the beautiful sunny day we had. If only I had been closer to the seal and got it’s head in view as well! 

Seal acrobatics, a common sight whilst in the water. The kelp forest is visible in this shot too. Though the water wasn’t particularly deep, it was covered with kelp. The seals liked to hide within the knots and tangles. 

I loved the light rays through the water in this image, although I feel the composition isn’t as strong as it could be. I also love the light dancing on the seal’s head and back. 

This grey seal appeared to enjoy blowing bubbles, as my video will also show later. I wanted to go for the grainy film look edit with this image, as because of the distance from the camera and strobes the colours weren’t particularly striking. 

Another faceless seal, this image demonstrates the use of their flippers to pull their pretty weighty bodies through the water.

And probably my favourite still from the trip; the young female surrounded by light rays looking right up at me, wonderful. 

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Dolphins!

I was lucky to have this incredible wildlife encounter of having two common dolphins playing around our boat and then leaping out of the water. We had heard they were in the area but it was nearing the end of our trip before we came across them. I’ve seen dolphins before but never seen them leap like this, it was amazing to watch, they are really beautiful animals!

Being so fast and underwater so generally out of sight it was a bit of a struggle to capture the images quick enough, but I succeeded with a few.

There were another couple for boats in the area that were sitting watching the dolphins. They weren’t bothered and were playfully swimming from boat to boat, seemingly curious. 

I wasn’t sure about this image at first, but I wanted to include it as it displays the action and is a little different to my other shots. They were right next to the boat almost too close for focusing and it was a challenge to actually focus quick enough as they leapt out the water. And then suddenly this one common dolphin starting jumping clear out the water These next two images are my favourites. I love the way the water splash is shaped in the first one

To those who may live near me or know the Falmouth area this image will show context, as pendennis castle is visible in the background

Fox cubs 3

For the first time last night I went to visit the cubs and I didn’t see them. Despite waiting nearly 3 hours and it being sunny weather they were nowhere to be seen.

My theories are that because it was a saturday the area had a few more people around than in the week, and therefore they may have been hiding. Also it was extremely windy and the direction had changed so was blowing my scent towards them, which may have been a factor. Or simply they were asleep and it was bad timing.

So here’s an old photo from one of my first shoots –

A higher res edit of this image can be found can be found by clicking here.

I love fox cubs.

 

 

Fox cubs development

It had been a week since I had visited the cubs due to other commitments so was very happy to see them as soon as I arrived last night. I was sceptical whether they would be around because instead of the sunny weather it has now turned to rain and cloud around here.

Though there originally were 3, I only saw 2 at this visit. I’m also yet to see either the vixen or dog fox, and I’m thinking about putting a camera trap out to capture them one night soon.

These images were taken really early in the shoot. Despite waiting there for a few hours, they only reappeared once for a very short time. I plan on returning when the rain stops, hopefully in a few days, when they will be out and about a bit more.

Personally my favourite image of this set is the last one, because it shows more context, and the profile view of the cub highlights how small and young it still is. Enjoy!

Fox cubs!

A long time ago I tried doing a project partially on foxes, and despite my efforts I wasn’t very successful with it. However due to a bit of luck this is now something I can pursue again.

I came across these fox cubs first with a couple of friends, and I recently returned to try and photograph them again. Watching the three little cubs play together apparently oblivious to my presence has honestly been one of the best wildlife moments I’ve ever had. I nearly got a bit emotional whilst watching them!

These images are from this shoot, I fully intend to go back as much as possible, but its a start which i’m very happy with!

 

I visited the cubs again today, some cows have just been moved into their field so I thought they might have been disturbed and a bit more wary. I didn’t see them for a while but them when I changed positions I discovered two of them were just sleeping outside their den in the evening sun. I couldn’t get any closer and as they weren’t very active I didn’t take many images but here’s a sleeping cub –

Another shot of when he/she sat up outside the den entrance – And some buttercups I photographed earlier on whilst I was waiting for the cubs to come out – More on these again soon!

Captive Mammal Centre Launceston

Quick post before I start my 7 hour train journey!

After the Screech Owl Sanctuary this was the next field trip I went on. I don’t like to take too many photos of captive animals, however this was a chance to photograph a couple of subjects I have never done before, which is always good practice and for stock images!

The centre itself is known as the Westcountry Wildlife Photography Centre, see website here.

Though they have many more species, the ones we went to photograph were water vole, harvest mouse, scottish wildcat, red fox, muntjac deer and the european otters. 

See more of my photographs here

Thanks for looking!