Wild Owls & birds of Elmley Nature Reserve

Set in 3,300 acres of open wilderness, Elmley Nature Reserve is a family run farm where the owners have worked tirelessly over the last 40 years to restore and support a huge range of wildlife. During the winter months the reserve comes alive with birdlife and as well as the Barn and Short-eared owls you can also see flocks of migrating waders and wildfowl and tens of thousands of Lapwing, Golden Plover, Teal and Widgeon and if you are lucky you may also catch a glimpse of a little owl.

Our guided tour will be led by Elmley wildlife expert Simon who will take us to some of the best places to capture the short eared and barn owls. The short-eared owls were strong in numbers here in 2024, so we hope it will also be the case for 2025. They hunt during daylight hours so we will spend the first part of the afternoon trying to capture them as they glide above the long grass looking for prey. The tour will see us photograph into dusk when the barn owls are most likely to begin their evening hunts, and Simon will give us access to an area that is not open to the public that will take us close by to where the Barn owls nest. Simon will also be telling us some great facts about the birds and will be keeping a keen eye out with his binoculars to see if any other interesting birds make an appearance.

As this is a wild site with wild birds a long lens is reccomended and using something in the range of 500-600m or more will aid you in getting close up images of the wildlife. A high quality camera like a 35 or 45mpx will also help when you crop in to keep a good amount of detail and lower aperture lenses will aid you in letting in more light. We also reccomend bringing one wider lens if you wish to capture some wide shots of the birds in the landscape as it is quite an atmospheric landscape to capture, especially if we get a nice sunset.

Emily Mudie will be your LeadingLines host for this shoot and will be on hand to assist you with camera settings and photo tips. Emily is a full time professional photographers and previously worked as the training co-ordinator at Nikon and has photographed Wild owls at Elmley and was really inspired by the reserve & wildlife there. All images were taken by Emily in 2023 & 2024 with a 200-600 F/5.6 lens.

This event will be limited to a small group of 12 photographers and will run from 13:00-16:00 for the opportinuty to capture in the birds in the evening light.

*Please note that we would postpone this day if adverse weather were forecast as it is a very open & wild landscape so we would advise everyone in advance if adverse weather was looking likely to be an issue. This is an event capturing wild birds so activity is out of our control so we cannot take any responsibility for any wildlife not showing, but will be giving the best chance by our expert guide who is knowledgeable of their habits and activities.