Locations

Wherever you are, it’s unlikely you’ll have to travel far to find some interesting bugs. And because the background in macrophotography is so small - often just a few centimetres or inches - you don’t have to go anywhere scenic. Most of the insect pictures on this website were taken in and around Strasbourg: Petite France, Orangerie, Parc de Pourtales. That said, several were taken at Podere Conti, an agriturisimo in Italy, so it certainly doesn’t hurt to be in a garden full of beautiful flowers attracting butterflies and other small fauna.

It’s also possible to see a surprising number of bird species from a city-centre terrace, and not just the usual suspects like sparrows, great tits and blackbirds. I’ve seen a variety of raptors here, from the passing kestrels and red kites, to the sparrowhawks sitting patiently under the bird feeder, and to the buzzards and peregrine falcons getting into scraps with crows and yellow-legged gulls. Stork flyovers are common, and pigeons become less mundane when a closer look reveals the presence of rock doves, stock doves and wood pigeons, sometimes all together. Black redstarts are rare in the UK but regular tail-waggers here.

Wacken has a lot of birdlife condensed into a small area, and allows for easy shots of gulls, herons and occasionally even terns catching fish. Spotted flycatchers are keen visitors too.

Outside Strasbourg but still in Alsace, Rohrmatten just outside Selestat is a great place to photograph harriers and the like. There’s an observatory, which can get quite busy and sometimes be flooded, but it’s worth making an effort, especially to see the kingfishers that perch just in front. There’s also a good chance of seeing lapwings there, and they make the cutest noise ever.

Delta de la Sauer can be brilliant and offers very easy sightings of red-backed shrike, amongst others. You’ll hear lots of nightingales and golden orioles but good luck getting a photo through the foliage!

I often walk around the vineyards between Rosheim and Rosenwiller. In spring they’re full of the slightly less common passerines including the “little yellow jobs” (cirl bunting, yellowhammer and serin), stonechat and linnet, as well as skylarks and woodlarks, and numerous green woodpeckers. Buzzards and kestrels are guaranteed, hobbies possible, and it’s the one place I’ve seen a little owl and wryneck.

The artificial lake at Plobsheim is famous for its birds and is great if you’re into the science of ornithology, but I’m not the biggest fan of looking at small dots through a spotting scope. It’s generally a disappointing location for photography, although a couple of highly cooperative pygmy cormorants turned up a couple of years ago, so there’s always a chance of a pleasant surprise.

Then there’s Ile du Rohrschollen. The slopes of the shipping canal side of the Rhine don’t offer the prettiest background, but they do welcome some fabulous migrants including dunlin, little stint, sanderling and black-necked grebe, to go with the regular sandpipers, white wagtails and water pipits. It’s also the only place I’ve seen jack snipe. A wonderful chap named Clément posts his Rohrschollen observations on faune-alsace.org, alerting local enthusiasts to anything of particular interest.

In the west of France, I would heartily recommend visits to Le Croisic (gulls and pelagics), Château de Suscinio (spoonbills, stilts, terns) and Parc naturel régional de Brière, while in Scotland, the Hebrides (golden eagle, puffins, guillemots, gannets and kittiwakes) were incredible.

Perhaps the biggest frustration is that I grew up by one of the world’s finest locations for wading birds in their thousands: the Dee Estuary. Apart from a brief spell when I was about 8 or 9, I didn’t take much of an interest in birdwatching when I was young. If I had, I might have spent a lot of time on Hilbre Island and at Burton Mere.