BY LEE BESSANT
I started my interest in photography around the year 2000 as a hobby with a basic compact camera and a desire to share my holiday experiences with friends and family.
I love to venture around the coast as there are so many varieties of wild birds and waterfowl. A few years’ later, I upgraded to a bridge camera as it had a super lens built-in while reviewing the new DSLRs that I aspire to for the future.
I have recently invested in a Panasonic G9, with a 100-400 lens including a 12-60 lens. The camera is a micro four senior with 20.3 megapixel and up to 20 frames per second. This enables me to get the good action shots and birds in flight. Although, I’m still learning its features, I have already been able to take amazing photos, some displayed here. I use social media as a sounding for my photography and I look forward to comments back from followers to improve in the future. It makes me happy when I’m out and about getting some exercise and fresh air being able to photograph our wildlife going about their business and share my work and what I see through the camera lens.
In Bushy park you can find parakeet and stone finch, herons, ducks, swans, some kingfisher, and mandarin ducks.
In Richmond Park you can also see a similar selection of species.
Here is a list of places for bird-watching that you could go to for photography, or watching with binoculars or a telescope:
1. Frensham Great pond
2. Frensham little pond
3. Rice’s Meadow Nature Reserve
4. Thursley Common
5. Winkworth Arboretum
6. Papercourt Meadows
7. Bridge Street
8. Bookham Common Ponds
9. Pennymead Lake
10. Staines Reservoirs
11. Isabella Plantation at Richmond park
12. Beddington Sewage Farm Reserve
You can find more on www.rspb.org.uk for other bird-watching areas.