Topical Introductions to the Specific Wildlife Groups

To help you along the way to understanding more about the specific groups featured within my website, i have written a brief introduction to the groups or species in focus.

Introduction to Butterflies.

• The Butterfly image content of the website is mostly based on slide scans from an earlier era in the “Life of Brian”. I am currently still open to offers when I am out photographing and so am still taking the odd butterfly shot. As a result of this I expect to gradually replace many of the old scans with digital images as time goes on.

Due to the time consuming nature of successful butterfly photography, however, I cannot, in all honesty, see myself ever having the time again to launch a sustained effort on the butterfly front. However one of the things that I have learnt in life is that one can never realistically say never!

Fuller details of the ins and outs of butterfly photography can be found elsewhere in the website in the section on Tips, Techniques and Tutorials under the heading Butterfly Photography.

Introduction to Dragon Flies & Damselflies (Odonata).

• There are some gaps in my coverage of these two sections. More so in Dragonflies than in Damselflies which latter I have managed to redo almost in its entirety this year 2009. Where possible I have included almost all the colour forms as depicted in the reference books and field guides with which I work. Invariably there are some exceptions to which I can find no reference or cannot identify and these have been listed as such and signified with a ?. I suspect that in most instances they are just transitional forms either from juvenile to young adult or, as in the case of Blue Tails, from juvenile to adult where the differences are significant. However any input, suggestions or corrections will be welcomed so please let me know if you think you have the answers.

I hope to plug any gaps as soon as I can get around to it but, of course, the gaps are caused by those species that either are difficult and time consuming from a travel point of view, such as the extreme Northern varieties, or that need more than a reasonable amount of luck in the encountering of them. Time, at the moment, seems to be of the essence so it will be another case of “please don’t hold your breath”. However rest assured that I will get to it as soon as I can and, as they say, “watch this space!”.

More comprehensive editorial cover of photographing Dragon Flies & Damselflies can be found in the website section on “Photo tips, techniques and tutorials” and to this I refer you.

Introduction to Grasshoppers & Bush Crickets (Orthoptera).

• The section on Orthoptera of the U.K. contains images of virtually all the established UK resident species in most of their accepted colour forms. At time of posting the only exception that comes to mind is the Lesser Mottled Grasshopper that occurs only in a small area on the Isle of Man. I have placed it on my “to be done ASAP hit list” and would hope to fit in a trip for later this year.

In most instances there are shots of both male and female and any gaps will hopefully be plugged as soon as the opportunity arises. Nearly all the displayed images are taken from slide scans and some are many years old from a time when my paucity of ability and closeup equipment has resulted in the need for severe cropping in order to create reasonable sized images. To give maximum coverage to the range of colour variants I have, therefore, had to include images that vary from “very” to “fairly” to “reasonable” in terms of graininess. As soon as I am able these poorer images will be replaced with digital ones but since I have not even seen some of the colours depicted for many years please don’t hold your breath!

For those of you wanting to sally forth and “get your own” I can offer some advice, perhaps, of techniques acquired over the years and which will hopefully serve as aids in locating subjects and acquiring good quality images.

(For further information on photographing Grasshoppers and Bush Crickets, please refer to the relevant section under Tips, Techniques and Tutorials.)

Introduction to Narcissi.

I have covered my involvement with Narcissi in much greater depth in a number of articles to be found in the Wildlife Travelogues section of this website and to these I would refer those of you whose interest demands more information.

As regards the photographic coverage given to this fascinating Genus I would say the following. Having lived in Spain for a great number of years it was only ever a matter of time before these incredible plants demanded more of my time and effort than the casual and “in passing” relationship we had enjoyed during my earlier days of living there. Because of the constantly changing classification and reclassifications within this genus I am not too sure of the current species count. Suffice to say, however, that the bulk of them occur in the Iberian Peninsula and the Pyrenean and Near Pyrenean South of France. That left me well placed geographically to “give it some welly” and this I did over a couple of years around the period 2004 to 2006.

I managed to cover the vast majority of the species and subspecies concerned and images of them can be found in the main body of the website by taking the route Wildflowers >> Wild Narcissi of Great Britain and Europe. The earlier period of my coverage took in the end of my era of slide photography and many of these images are drawn from slide scans. By the end of that time, however, I had switched to digital and so the later images are all digitally based. The main flowering season in the wild takes place at various altitudes in the months April/ May/ June and I have promised myself a re-run of my Narcissus trips to update all those earlier slide images. However my love and affections of the moment are notoriously fickle and transient and since the Narcissus season coincides, though at different altitudes, with the season for Orchids, which have re-emerged for the umpteenth time as my current peccadillo, then it looks as though it will not be until at least next year before I am able to fit it in. When it does, finally, come to pass I have promised myself some time in North Africa to complete coverage of those species that I have not yet come across.

It would afford me the greatest of pleasures to ultimately be able to offer a definitive collection of Narcissus photographic images since, apart from John Blanchards book “Narcissus – a guide to wild daffodils”, I know of no other place where all the species are depicted in their entirety. Line drawings and artists impressions, which can be found scattered throughout various publications, frequently fail to differentiate between the often subtle differences that can separate one species from another. High quality photographs, carefully composed to accentuate these differences, can provide an absolutely invaluable tool for identification purposes as well as providing an aesthetically attractive section of one’s portfolio.

Introduction to the “Wildlife of the Falklands”.

I have had the pleasure of visiting the Falkland Islands on a number of occasions and it is my fervent wish that I have the opportunity to do so again before I become too decrepit to make it up and over the rocks. Of all the many wonderful places that it has been my privilege to visit over the years this is the one that would get my vote if I had to choose somewhere else to live. Other than the Galapagos, which of necessity and under eco tourism pressure has had to become somewhat regimented, this is one of the few places where the wildlife really makes you feel that you are either “one of the boys” or invisible. To be alone with, and seemingly accepted by, colonies of birds and seals sometimes thousands in number is a humbling and, I found, extremely moving experience.

Regrettably my last visit was in the “pre digital” stage of my metamorphosis with the consequence that all the images portrayed under this section are taken from slides. The scanning, digitizing and subsequent mild enhancing of these is fast becoming a nightmare from which I hope to awake one day to hopefully find that the sun is still shining, the birds are still singing and the world of wildlife, red wine, balmy breezes and gentle background melodies is prepared to welcome me back as a prodigal returned!

I am partway through a fairly lengthy dissertation on the Wildlife of the Falkland Islands and it will ultimately show itself in the Wildlife Travelogues section of the website. Watch this space as they say!

Introduction to Waterfowl of the World.

From boyhood memories of feeding the swans right through to my Wildlife photography days, waterfowl have always provided a certain fascination for me. In my Zoo owning days I kept a great number of species and their striking colours and general “busyness” meant that they were an ever popular attraction.

I have never made a concerted effort in the photographing of them but for many years now they have provided a safety valve for those periods when my photographic withdrawal symptoms have proved almost too much to bear for want of suitable subject matter in those dismal winter periods when not a lot else is happening in my preferred areas of interest.

I have never been much of a one for hides and so photographing waterfowl in the wild has always been something of a hit and miss affair. I have always taken advantage of wild opportunities around the world as and when they occurred but the bulk of my waterfowl images have been acquired, over the years, at the various reserves of the Wildfowl and Wetland Trust particularly at Slimbridge and Arundel.

When preparing images for this website I suddenly realised that I have covered an inordinate number of species, albeit some of which date back into pre history when my photographic equipment was some of the most basic known to man. I also noticed in wandering round the web that there were not too many sites offering a definitive selection of identification type images of a wide range of waterfowl species and so I decided to include as comprehensive a section as I can manage on my own site.

There will be those who feel that photography in places such as the reserves of the Wildfowl and Wetland Trust does not qualify as “Wildlife” photography and I would refer these superior souls to my article entitled “Subject Provenance” in the Photo Tips, Techniques and Tutorials section of my website where my sentiments on this subject are laid out fairly succinctly.

For me the prime purpose of the Waterfowl section on this website is to provide an identification and reference guide to as many species as possible even at the expense of having to use some old slides and images that, by choice, I may have preferred not to use. Many of the images are, in fact, digital and now that I have got the bit between my teeth again I shall be making every effort to upgrade the others as soon as possible.

I am working on a “full length” article on the do’s, dont’s and pitfalls of waterfowl photography and this will eventually make itself known in the “Tips, Techniques and Tutorials” section of the site.

Introduction to Wildflowers.

It would probably be virtually impossible for any devotee of any aspect of colour photography not to experience at least a passing dalliance with flowers at some time in their career. The strength of their colours almost begs to be recorded, if not for posterity, then at least in recognition of their inherent beauty and ephemeral fragility.

For myself my circumstances have never allowed for an intense relationship or indulgence in Wild Flower photography per se though I have favoured bulbous plants as a specialist area often with unbridled enthusiasm over the years.

The ubiquitous nature of wild flowers, however, often defies you to pass by without taking time out to record their beauty – and so it has been for me over the years. My passion for bulbous plants – which are covered separately in their own respective groups- has taken me to many of the Worlds Wild Botanical Places and I have built up, over the years, a sizeable portfolio of wild flowering plants that owes nothing to planning and everything to happenstance. Generally speaking most of the shots were taken as an aside while I was in search of something else and so there has been no cohesive pattern to the picture taking. For this reason I am presenting them here on this website in the haphazard way in which they were taken. Perhaps in the future, if, one day, time permits then I may be able to attempt to structure order out of chaos but from where I’m sitting at present I would have to say “don’t hold your breath”.

Where possible I have sectionalised certain groups but, in the main, it is a random assortment from different seasons and different countries of origin. You could end up looking at Flame Lily from Zimbabwe alongside a Primrose from Dorset!

I hope that you enjoy looking at my pictures of wildflowers, as much as I did photographing them!

Brian Pettit