“Photography is a way of feeling, of touching, of loving. What you have caught on film is captured forever… It remembers little things, long after you have forgotten everything.”
– Aaron Siskind

While always having a fondness and fascination with birds, it’s only since I moved to the country that I have truly begun to appreciate them. With gardens that back onto ancient bluebell woodlands and being a stone’s throw from open fields, we very much share our space with a large variety of feathered friends. Over time we have learned to recognise the many different species not just by sight, but by song – from the tiniest wren with it’s huge voice to the enormous red kites that remain eerily quiet, especially compared to constant mewling of the buzzards. It was lockdown however that opened up the opportunity to actually spend quality time outdoors with a camera and some of my most memorable times of that surreal period of life were spent sitting by a local river watching the kingfisher’s hunt while behind me a barn owl was quartering the field in its silent pursuit of prey.