The online presence of Tim Collier. Photographer, course leader, lecturer and blogger.
Falmouth Press and Editorial final year degree show, Arvor, is on at the moment and over the weekend I went down to have a look. My daughter graduates from the course this year and has been involved in the organisation of the event.
A trip up to  RSPB Dinas, and a new CCW reserve for me yesterday, proved very productive with regards to the expected species, although the woods did seem a little quiet for this time of year than I remember from previous seasons. I’m wondering if this has anything to do with the lateness of spring in general?
The new calendar for 2014 is finally on its way! (check out the 2012 one here – 2013 we missed due to my illness!) We’ve already cancelled two dates due to very unseasonal weather but today we were lucky and the weather was ideal for the work we had planned.
The cuckoo is a remarkable bird and has always had a special relationship with spring. Since the 1980’s they have declined by 65% and I certainly remember them in places that they have long since gone. Why, is a bit of a mystery.
Surely a case of crossing the line with this construction of an egret and a frog by Bryan Patrick.
A recent visit to Slimbridge served to emphasise how images can be applied to various different aspects within the field of bird photography.
I was walking through the grounds in the morning and became aware of one of the wardens, James Lees, searching a particular stretch of bushes by the side of the South Finger hide. He’d thought he’d heard the call of a rare warbler but couldn’t locate it. I owned up that if I saw the warbler he was on about I wouldn’t recognise it for what it was, let alone be in a position to identify its call.
I was recently asked to participate in a transatlantic conference with Rochester Institute of Technology in New York.
A few days spent on the river Wye, close to Fownhope, gave a good opportunity to work with what appeared to be a resident and local population of mute swans. There were 25 birds in all and during the time I was there spent all of their time within an area of a couple of hundred yards.Continue reading
A run up to Dinas, always a favourite haunt, and a good walk around the ‘rock’ past Twm Sion Cati’s cave in still very cold conditions produced some really fine icicles and ice sculptures. It was difficult to get a sense of the beauty through photographs and I felt dissatisfied when I left them, never an easy thing to do, and this disappointment was confirmed when I downloaded the images.
A passage male and female ring ouzel turned up at Ogmore recently and as I was waiting crouched tight against a stone wall, a male sparrowhawk made a brief but welcome appearance.
Up on the mountain road yesterday, between Bridgend and Maesteg, I came across six fieldfares and a redwing, a little further on and a small group of mistle thrushes were feeding in the short grass.
Today I ran a training day for the Countryside Wardens Rangers (Thanks for the correction Jon) at Caerphilly County Council. Some time back they asked me to recommend a camera that would suit their needs and after some research I came up with what I felt would meet the brief.
A few more images in a way that I’ve been working lately. I’m putting them into a warm toned  black and white and again looking a the wider aspect of the birds in relationship to their habitat.
I’ve posted a new essay in the ‘Birds Eloquent’ section of the web site that looks at a telling incident at Slimbrigde with a rare warbler and a common wood-pigeon – check it out here.
I’ve had a reply from a few folk from ‘Tracking Marked Geese’ about the ringed white-front that I mentioned in the post a few days back.
The white-fronts appear to have gone and the Bewick swans are on their way. Favourable weather for migration over the last day or so has encouraged the move and it wont be till late next autumn that the chance to see these classic birds comes our way again.Continue reading
The  European white-fronted geese at Slimbridge will be on their way back to their breeding grounds soon so I wanted to photograph them once more before they departed.
There’s an exhibition on at the moment at Cardiff Central Library showing work from students I’ve been mentoring over the last few weeks. They’ve been working towards the show in their spare time, painting the boards, shooting new work and preparing the prints.
Continue reading
This set of images are beginning to acknowledge the context in which the geese and swans birds are experienced and were all taken at Pilling, Lancashire. Rather than always trying to get closer and closer and thus denying the space that they exist within, the aim is to give over a more holistic experience of being in the landscape with the birds.