Young Birders

Going back to h
THE NEXT GENERATION
At the age of 24, photographer Luke Massey has accomplished a lot, but a trip to France took
BY LUKE MASSEY
him
BEING A WILDLIFE photographer and cameraman is
awesome. In my opinion, it is the best job in the world.
Every time I meet up with old schoolmates or meet new
people, they tell me how cool and amazing my job is. Apart
from carrying a camera, and filming and taking photos of
animals, there’s no difference between me and any other
bird/nature watcher, yet a lot of the same people who tell me
how cool my job is, will probably laugh at and ridicule
regular birdwatchers.
I recently spent a week in the south of France in
a small town called Capestang. It sits on the edge
of a vast expanse of reedbeds and pools. These
pools seem to be magnets for birds. I saw White
Storks, Bitterns, Great White Egrets, Shelducks,
Marsh Harriers, Snipe, Penduline Tits and
countless other feathered beings, as well as a few
Wild Boar and Coypu to correct the mammalian
balance.
That week transported me back 10 years. The
reason being, although those pools were fantastic,
I struggled to photograph much. Surrounded by
reedbeds, it was hard to approach them without
flushing every living thing in sight. With more
time, I’d have set up a few hides and hopefully
That week in France
reconnected me with what started
it all off for me. Yes, when I take
photos and film I still avidly watch
animal behaviour and spot as
many species as possible, but
when forced to forget the camera,
I took everything for what it is
Great Crested Grebe
Luke Massey
reaped the rewards, but in the end I just enjoyed
exploring and seeing what I could find.
Alongside that, I was carless, with just a bicycle
for transport. Before I even picked up a camera
back home I’d spend most of my spare time on my
bike, cycling to the local wildlife hotspots with my
binoculars to see what I could find. No photos
would be taken, but I am sure if my mates had
known, I would have had the ‘geek’, ‘nerd’ and
‘twitcher’ comments thrown at me quite readily.
That week in France reconnected me with what
started it all off for me. Yes, when I take photos
and film I still avidly watch animal behaviour and
spot as many species as possible, but when forced
to forget the camera, I simply took everything for
what it was.
I turned off the part of my brain that tells me
that the distant Black-winged Stilt is too far away
and to keep cycling, and instead I watched it
intently, elegantly wading through the water,
dipping its beak in and out. The flock of Penduline
Tits darting about the tops of the willow in the
harsh midday light weren’t ignored as being
unphotographable silhouettes. Instead I watched as
they hung, completely inverted, snatching at
whatever was embedded among the catkins, lifting
off as one and disappearing into the reeds at the
first sign of danger only to reappear minutes later,
their soft pinging contact calls echoing around me.
While I was in France, I tweeted the geekiest
thing I think I’ve ever tweeted. The trigger was
one of the best bird moments of 2015 for me, which
is saying something since I’ve had the pleasure of
watching an Osprey fishing over a coral reef and
been feet from a Resplendent Quetzal.
I’d taken my girlfriend Katie (read her blog at
naturenibbles.com) down to the marshes to try and
show her the Wild Boar (I know, what a
romantic!), and had left her sitting waiting while I
went and checked another spot.
For some reason I looked above me, and 30 Black
Kites were circling, clearly recently arrived from
further south. The winds had changed and I’d
2 February 2016