At the beginning of the month, before the COVID-19 pandemic fully hit the UK and getting outside became limited to a stroll near home once a day, I visited Argaty Red Kites to spend a couple of hours shooting from their woodland hide.
My partner and I met Ross at Argaty on a grey and wet Saturday morning. As we got ready to be taken to the hide, a flock of 10 lapwings flew overhead. My concerns that we might be looking at a wildlife washout flew away with them; sometimes you just know you’re going to have a lucky day! Reflecting on it now, I realise I was a little nervous. I had never rented a hide before. I shouldn’t have worried, our experience at the woodland hide at Argaty was worth every penny.
The hide is set in secluded woodland and accommodates up to four people, so there was plenty of space inside for the two of us to move around and try different shooting positions. The hide is fitted out with comfy stools and has the addition of floor-level hatches for getting ground-level shots. When we arrived, Ross replenished the feeding stations before leaving us for our allotted two hours. The birds flocked down as soon as he appeared with the food.
I wish I had recorded the sounds as we got ourselves set up. The wind would occasionally blast through the trees causing their limbs to creak and crack. The rain came pattering through the canopy as the branches shook. And of course, there were the constant calls from the birds. I wish I had it as a soundtrack to replay as I sit working from home.
The whole wood was brimming with life, which made for a very productive couple of hours of photography. We had brilliant views of numerous red squirrels of all shades, as you can see from my images. Other woodland species we saw included great spotted woodpecker, long-tailed tit, nuthatch, treecreeper and siskin. I have also never seen so many chaffinches in one space before, which was particularly heartening considering the recent declines in their populations highlighted by the British Trust for Ornithology. An obvious advantage of using a hide such as this is that, as well as using the area as a reliable food source, the wildlife is also used to people moving around in the hide. We kept as quiet and still as possible, but it was reassuring that there wasn’t a mass exodus as soon as we opened one of the floor hatches. At one point, one red squirrel ran around on top of the hide and a blue tit nearly flew right inside!
Another advantage of using a hide such as this, as I quickly discovered, is that you have the luxury of time. It is almost the reverse of the circumstances I usually work with; instead of me scouring an area for wildlife for a limited time and hoping for the best, there were subjects to photograph everywhere I looked and I knew I didn’t have to change locations. I also didn’t have to deal with the usual hide frustration; where you enter and someone helpfully tells you that you should have been there half an hour ago when the kingfisher/marsh harrier/tiger/orca (delete as appropriate) was showing beautifully! This meant that I could approach my photography thinking about the shot I wanted to achieve, rather than worrying about the wildlife disappearing. The Argaty woodland hide is also perfectly set up for this as there are plenty of natural perches, as well as feeders, to point your camera at in anticipation of a subject arriving there.
It wasn’t all easy photography, however; there were some challenges. It was a cloudy, wet day and quite dark in the cover of the trees. It was, therefore, necessary to set ISO to a higher level than I would normally use for wildlife photography with some of my images being taken at ISO 1600. However, I think I have done a reasonable job of cleaning up the images in Lightroom. For anyone interested, all my images from this session were taken with my 70-300mm Nikon lens on my D500.
Another challenge, as I’ve already alluded to, was resisting the temptation to try to shoot everything in every position. This wouldn’t only be impossible, with the amount of wildlife in front of the hide, but also a great way to eat up memory cards.
In summary, we will be heading back to Argaty Red Kites to photograph their red squirrels and other woodland creatures as soon as we can. I can’t recommend their hides enough, particularly if you are an amateur photographer who struggles to discover good locations for woodland wildlife. Here you can save time hunting around and, if you’re as fortunate as we were, let the abundance of wildlife come to you.