Nick Bartrum

WILDLIFE PHOTOGRAPHY

The Fenland Wanderer

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Let Sleeping Hawks Lie

Aug 24, 2018

Let Sleeping Hawks Lie

A Sparrowhawk embodies a wildness otherwise absent from the English landscape. To see one is to witness a defiant last stand of the wild in our diminished (and overmanaged) countryside. When a hawk speeds low across the field, over the hedge and into the garden (or through a woodland glade) it splinters the air, creating a super-charged frisson, sending other birds into a panic stricken phrenzy. They are much misunderstood and maligned as being the peril of songbirds, and are

The Wild Wash

Nov 4, 2017

The Wild Wash

The Wash is a beguiling and unfathomable place. It’s neither land nor sea, but somewhere in-between, stretching for as far as the eye can see. The Lincolnshire shore visible (just) but hazy and shimmering. Everything out of focus and dreamlike. At high tide, fishing boats appear on the distant horizon, clouded in gulls and looking immense through the magnifying lenses of binoculars. I had hoped that my visit to RSPB Snettisham would coincide with a tide high enough to drive t

The Pale Ghost of the Fen

Oct 24, 2017

The Pale Ghost of the Fen

I hope I’ve chosen the perfect spot, close to cover, out of sight and quiet, with a panoramic views across middle fen, in a favourite barn owl hunting area. Camera ready. Now it’s a case of patiently waiting and hoping that the owls choose to come out tonight. After an hour, and with fading light, I begin to feel that luck is not on my side this evening, an ominous bank of cloud looms over the sunset threatening to deaden the light. The barn owl appears so suddenly I think I’