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Sunrise At Ponta Da Piedade, Lagos

Ponta da Piedade is a stunning location near Lagos and can be found on the end of the headland, where there is a lighthouse too. The waterside at Ponta da Piedade is reached by what seems like thousands of steps and at 6am in December it is dark, completely dark. Armed with a powerful Mountain Bike LED light I reach the bottom only to be greeted with quite a rough sea. It was too dangerous to stand on the man-made concrete pad so changed my location to slightly higher up than planned. My plans of capturing the first light of the sun peeking around the rock formation was still perfect. As I waited everything became brighter and eventually I was bathed in sunshine capturing this shot which I have titled “Sunlight Arrives”.

It is available in print (framed and unframed) in the web shop, more details HERE.

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European Roller In Flight

This shot is one from the same session as last week. Trying to photograph birds in flight with a 500mm f/4 lens and 1.4x teleconverter is difficult at anytime, even more so when crouched on the floor amongst thick foliage covered with a camouflage net. It’s fair to say that the memory card had a lot of missed shots, but when you get a keeper like this, it makes it all the more worthwhile.

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European Rollers Of The Lower Alentejo

I remember being in South Africa in 2010 and spotting my first ever Lilac Breasted Roller, a stunning bird, so you can imagine my excitement when I found out that the European Roller breeds in the Lower Alentejo, just 30 minutes from the Quinta.

Although I’ve now lived in Portugal for almost 4 years I have never planned to go and photograph them. They are not great around humans and they are certainly one species of bird that I don’t want to interfere with. Although worldwide they are successful, they are an endangered species here in Portugal. The Liga para a Protecção da Natureza (LPN) centre near Castro Verde has certainly helped with their survival and has a dedicated nesting building for them. The lower Alentejo region has many abandoned and ruined farm buildings which makes it perfect for these birds to nest. Many buildings have been equipped to help too. Where you find the European Roller, you often also spot Lesser Kestrels as they use the same buildings to nest.

They always remind me of a colourful Jackdaw as their size, stock and beak shape is very similar.

I have been monitoring them at a site on two occasions over the last few weeks and yesterday I decided to head to the location before sunrise. I arrived at 5:30am and everything apart from the distant noise of early morning Crows was silent. I headed to a spot I had planned which was in thick overgrown flowers and crop, crouched down under the a camo net and waited. They were soon flying around making their really loud Crow-like call. Soon enough I had the chance to photograph a few. As you can see in the first photo, I have named this one (difficult to determine the sex as they are both identical) Scruffy due to the lose feather. I assume this will fall out so won’t be able to ID it next time. It spent most of the time I was there chasing off the Lesser Kestrels. Even after just one session, I can already see some different characters.

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Always On The Lookout! Lycosa Tarantula & Scorpion!

This morning I was shooting a landscape commission in the Lower Alentejo and once I was done I took a quick look around the area. Within just 5 meters of the car (I was down a dirt track) I found a Female Tarantula Wolf Spider (Lycosa tarantula) burrow and also a Common Yellow Scorpion (Buthus occitanus).

Of course, I’m no stranger to the Tarantula Wolf Spider which is how I noticed the burrow opening, Read my other Tarantula Blog Posts.


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