David Read is an admin and regular contributor to the Wye Life Photo Corner. Recently David posted a series of images which caught our eye and we had to share them with you. Here David explains how the opportunity to take the series of images came about.
Sunday morning. Phone call from brother-in-law. “Hello, thought you may be interested, we have foxes back in the garden!” They had been coming for three years. But I was never there to photograph them. “Okay, log the times they come for a couple of days while they settle in and I’ll come up on Wednesday afternoon.”
The lay of the land behind the garden is an old site – an old gas works contaminated with Mercury and other chemicals so it has run wild for fifty years and is now impenetrable. I used to go there fifteen years ago for birds and deer. Now the only thing to get in there will be a bulldozer one day.
Wednesday afternoon I get up there, it’s 100 yards away. Unlock my caravan (parked in his garden) and settle down. Two hours and nothing, so leave to get dinner. I returned after dinner. Nowt! Stayed for another two hours. Thursday, I go up in the evening at 6.15pm. I wait for ninety mins and one appears, then two, then another three – click, click, one little bugger that was closer hears the clapping for NHS and off he goes faster than Top Gun and the others follow in his wake! I hung around for another thirty minutes, then went home with eight good shots.
So, Friday 2pm, off up to the van. Made myself comfortable on the double bed (no wife!). Opened window and waited. And waited. And waited, four and a half hours and nothing. But I could hear them in the scrub land behind the garden hedge squealing and aiming little sharp barks at each other, so I knew they were around.
My wife then joins me for a look and we wait till 6.15pm and wife says” time for dinner and your cooking”! “Bugger”! Thinks I, “Ok, ten minutes and we will leave”! Start to pack up the bits and she whispers: “There, a fox!” And then two appear from under the trailer and one through the fir tree lower branches, but only the three cubs. All looking very nervous and not coming far from the cover of the trailer, so something had frightened them for sure and mum was lying down the other side of the trailer watching them but never interfering in what the cubs were doing, which wasn’t a lot.
Anyway I click a few images then someone close bangs something and they are gone. All quiet on the fox front! Now what? We decide to stay till 7pm and twenty mins later they are back – still nervous for sure so more clicks and the banging starts again. “Bollocks!” say I. And off they go, mum as well. So we pack up, lock the van and walk off… perhaps we’ll try again on Sunday.
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David Read is keen photographer and an admin on the Wye Life Photo Corner.
If you’re a keen photographer (smart phone or camera) you can join by visiting the group on Facebook. Click here.
The group has over 3,000 members – some are very active; some contribute occasionally and some just enjoy the images. Wye Life magazine’s area includes the West Gloucestershire, Herefordshire, Monmouthshire, Forest of Dean, Wye Valley, South Powys including Elan Valley, plus Teme Valley and South Worcesterhire.
Whatever your skill level, we’d love to see you at the Wye Life Photo Corner. You’ll be most welcome.
Photographs copyright David Read 2020.
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