14 April 2013

A photographer in the making

Week 13, 30 March 2013 - Jahra Pools Reserve (Click to enlarge image)

An upcoming photographic competition in the UK was the push for the outing to Jahra Pools. More specifically so that I could enter some images in the junior category for my 10-year old son Jaden.

On arrival, I set him up on the back seat of my car with my camera and prime lens and I was the nominated driver/guide to get him onto the birds.


He struggled a little with the weight and finding the birds through the viewfinder initially, but it didn't take long before he was shooting away like a veteran.

A White-spotted Bluethroat (a ssp I hadn't yet seen in Kuwait) had been seen at the pools a few days back and amazingly this was almost the first bird we saw. It is quite small, but Jaden did well to get some good images of this species. As far as I know this is the first time this ssp has been photographed in Kuwait; first by Khaled Al Ghanem and then a few others. I have been wandering what phenomena has caused this and the Caucasian Bluethroat (magna) I photographed on the 22nd to suddenly make an appearance in Kuwait.

White-spotted Bluethroat (Luscinia s. cyanecula)


It was quite difficult to get Jaden to photograph this small bird, as many larger and more colourful Purple Swamphen's were wandering about like farmyard chickens.

Purple Swamphen (Porphyrio  porphyrio)




There were numbers of waders foraging in the pools near the road, here a Ruff starting to come into it's breeding plumage

Ruff (Philomachus pugnax)
A Green Sandpiper

Green Sandpiper (Tringa ochropus)
and a Temminck's Stint, the most interesting of the waders seen.

Temminck’s Stint (Calidris temminckii)

We were both was really pleased with his images and the best 3 have now been sent off to the competition - fingers crossed! 


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