Matt Debouge Photography Blog
About my photography and other things I get upto.
RSPB – Minsmere Trip
0RSPB Minsmere is a nature reserve in Saxmundham where visitors can see the huge range of birds that pass along the Suffolk coast. You may have heard of Minsmere from BBC Spring watch / autumn watch program, the presenters are often visiting the reserve. We thought we would give the place a visit last November (2011). The weather was off and on, still very mild for this time of year so we booked a hotel near Minsmere and set off on the 3 hour drive from our house.
We set off late so only got to Minsmere about an 2 hours before sunset, we parked up and went straight to the visitors centre. Map in hand we walked to one of the hides and sat down, within 5mins we saw a Hen Harrier
Hen Harrier – Once predating free-range fowl, earning its present name, its effect on the number of grouse available to shoot is the cause of modern conflict and threatens its survival in some parts of the UK, particularly on the driven grouse moors of England and Scotland.
If you click the photo you might just be able to see the Hen Harrier.
Starling Murmuration – During autumn, dark clouds begin to form in the sky above fields, woodlands and reedbeds. But these are no ordinary clouds. They are one of the UK’s most incredible wildlife spectacles.
As it started to get darker we began to see the starling roost begin, quite a big gathering of starlings to watch flying around the sky in tight formation. Once the starling action had calmed down we set off to the pub.
We got up nice and early in the morning for first light, it was well worth rolling out of bed at 6:30. Beautiful clear skies to photography.
For All the landscape photos I used a Nikon 7000 with Sigma 10-20mm lens, sitting on a bean bag.
Over the few hours we spent at Minsmere we spotted more Hen & Marsh harriers, water rails, red deer (see below), starling roost any many more different birds.
Red deer spotted in the morning crossing the marsh land.
Minsmere is an amazing place to visit, it doesn’t disappoint when it comes to the amount of wildlife and habitats it offers. To find out more take a look here http://www.rspb.org.uk/reserves/guide/m/minsmere/ you can also Follow Ian on Twitter at http://twitter.com/RSPBMinsmere
We plan to visit Minsmere again in September 2012 – Keep you posted.
The Cow
0Few photos taken from the field that my mother-in-laws house looks onto. In the field they have a few of the following rare breed cows, not sure what type of cow they are. Photos taken with D90 and my basic 70-300mm lens.
Playing around with the processing, not to everyone’s taste but I like them.
Cow 1
Cow 2
Cow 3
Let me know what you think?
Peak District Trip 2011
0Late October 2011 we visited the Peak District, we invited my mum and sister along for the trip. My sister Charlotte is getting into photography so I thought she would enjoy a mini photo trip. We drove up to Padley Gorge first, beautiful place. Padley Gorge is one of the finest remaining examples of the oak/birch woodland once characteristic of the edges and valley sides of the Dark Peak. The woodland mainly consists of sessile oak and birch with alder along the stream side and holly and rowan scattered throughout the remainder of the wood. I would recommend you get there early as it gets busy.
I tried a few long exposures but the light wasn’t great at 12:30 in the afternoon. After a nice walk around the gorge we went for a pub lunch and killed some time before a walk up Curbar Gap for the sunset.
Sunset at Curbar Gap
We watched the sunset then it was back in the car to try and find our accommodation for the night.
In the morning we had breakfast then travelled down the road to Bakewell to do some photography near the river.
I captured this shot and processed it to make it look old, matching the old village bridge.
After some more photos it was off to sample the famous Bakewell tart (they like to call it bakewell pudding)
Very nice weekend, not a great deal of photos to show for it, but a good time for all of us.
Review – Bushnell 8MP Trophy Cam – Example Photos
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I’ve been testing my Bushnell Trophy Cam at a local farm. The camera has performed well so far. I’ve been using the camera with the Bushnell security case, the case works well and enables me to fix the camera to a tree quite easily.
The camera is very is to setup, just add 8 AA batteries, set the camera to the mode you would like to use. Then just switch the camera to on and place the camera where you want it.
I’ve only used the photo mode so far but plan to try the video mode soon.
So far the camera has captured a few birds, the local cat, pheasant and a fox.
The camera has 3 sensitivity modes, on normal it seems to work fine.
When setting the camera I would suggest you think about the position very carefully, think about the sun position throughout the day, you don’t want the sun facing directly into the lens. Something else to think about how low the camera should be, I would say 1m is a good height.
Below are a few examples of the photos the camera has captured so far.
Below are a couple time lapse vids I made from the trophy camera photos over about 1 week of use.
Mushrooms of 2011
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For me 2011 was the year of the mushroom, well photography wise anyway.
I managed to find and photograph quite a few different species of fungi.
We didn’t really have to try that hard to find them, we had a wet end of summer and a super mild autumn so the mushrooms were abundant.
I enjoy Macro , close up photography so mushrooms are great to photograph with all the detail they have. I have always wanted to photograph a Fly Agaric, but every time I found one someone had kicked it over or it had been eaten by a slug. We visited a local woods and found quite a few Fly Agaric’s in good condition.
Fly Agaric – Berserker Mushroom
Modern scholars believe certain examples of berserker rage to have been induced voluntarily by the consumption of drugs such as the hallucinogenic mushroom Amanita muscaria, commonly known as the fly agaric or fly Amanita.
I also managed to grab a photo of a Death Cap, Amanita phalloides
A very appropriate common name for this species. Eating one of these will very likely be fatal if hospital treatment is not sought. Even then, survival is far from certain. There is no antidote.
it is estimated that 30 grams (1 oz), or half a cap, of this mushroom is enough to kill a human.
Another find was this Cauliflower mushroom (below)
Perfectly lit by the light coming though the trees of the Forest of Dean
Another interesting mushroom to photograph are the Shaggy ink Caps. (photographed just off a golf course, we looked a bit weird photographing these monsters while golfers walked onto the next hole.)
The Shaggy Ink caps start to melt once they have become full size, they produce a black slime like tar that melts slowly off the mushroom. In the photo below you can see some of the slime blowing in the wind.
Mushroom photos from 2011
Hope you enjoyed my mushroom photos from 2011, Please leave a comment
Wild Boar in the Forest of Dean
2Late September last year we visited the Forest of Dean, after spending couple hours driving we arrived at our hotel. We had already booked at a hotel run by ex Gurkha’s, the hotel also had a restaurant serving authentic Nepalese food. We got our bags in and went straight out again to make the most of the good weather, it had been raining solid for the last few days. We stopped off at Cannop Ponds and went for a walk.
Just 25mins into the walk I heard some boar. We crept up the path slowly to see 3 Wild Boars rooting around in the leaves.
I moved on ahead to try and get closer without spooking them too much.
The light was poor and I was shooting hand-held so the shots could have been better but I was happy to see the boar nether mind get a photo. Some people visit the wood searching for boar for the week and don’t come across any. We had been in the woods about 30mins and found some and photographed them.
We left the Boar to do their business and carried on with our walk. We did a circular route around that part of the forest and covered about 2 miles, well that’s what endomondo GPS tracking seemed to think, It seemed like more than 2 miles to me 
Well after the walk we went back to our hotel to get ready for some Nepalese food , the food was great, so nice and fresh tasting. A few beers then off to bed as we planned to get up early the next day.
The next morning we woke up and the weather was grim, rain again 
, we had a relaxing breakfast and waited for the rain to pass. couple hours later the weather was good so we set off to a different part of the forest for a fungi foray the OH had planned.
We saw loads of cool mushrooms and a few rare ones, see next blog post mushroom photos.
while walking around the forest we came across a family of Wild boar this time. They walked about 10m away from us just passing not bothered at all.
Harsh light and poor composition , but still a good experience.
Its was time to go home after this, excellent weekend. We had managed to see boar on both days and the weather was kind to us.
Northumberland trip – Farne Islands
0Day 2 in Northumberland we got the boat over to the Farne Islands. Excellent weather, beautiful blue sky. The boat trip was nice and calm. It was a very low tide so we had to get a dingy from the boat to Inner Farne. The Inner Farne is quite a small island with little church and small building where the wardens live. He had a nice walk around the island, not a great deal of bid life as it was too late in the year. We spent about 30mins on the island before the boat picked us up. Back on the boat we continued our trip around the other mini islands. We saw lots of grey seals and some bird life.
Below are some photos from the trip
Northumberland trip – Seahouses
0September 2011 we went for a trip up north, we drove from Milton Keynes to Yorkshire, then the next day we went upto Seahouses in Northumberland. We stayed in a lovely B&B about 5mins walk from the beach. Seahouses, known as ‘The Gateway to the Farne Islands, Its a small seaside town with a harbour. It has loads of B&B’s and fish & chip shops everywhere, proper ones that sell buttered bread for chip butties.
We went down to the beach as soon as we arrived to checkout Bamburgh castle.
It was getting late and a storm seemed to be approaching from the East. I setup my tripod and started to compose a shot of the approaching storm.
The storm seemed to pass by us standing on the hill, all but a few spots of rain got us. The light was beautiful. We packed up and set off for some grub.
We planned to get a boat over to the Farne Islands the following day.
Maine Coons in the garden again – Gotta love cat photos.
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August 2011 we had some nice sunny days, as I was working from home on some web design projects I had the chance to have lunch in the garden with our Maine Coon cats, Myrtle and Marmalade. Next doors cat Jerry popped over as well.
Below Bad Boy Jerry
Nothing is safe in the garden, Myrtle chases anything that moves. Thats a stone (in weight) cat flying around the garden.
Hope you enjoyed the cat photos.
Parrot Sitting – Ouch!
0In August 2011 I went over to my mums, she was looking after Nancy the African grey parrot.
Nancy is about 8 years old now, when her owner goes on holiday my mum and sister care for her.
She’s a naughty parrot and only takes orders from her owner. Me and my sister took her out of her cage for some exercise and thought it would be a great opportunity for a Nancy photo shoot.
Nancy had other ideas and as I got her out of the cage she gave me a little bite. Once I had stopped the bleeding we got some nice photos of Evil Nancy. She seemed happy that she had managed to bite me.
Evil Parrot
Nice Nancy
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