Alan Mackenzie Photography

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View of the South Downs from Waterpit Hill

Waterpit Hill, South Downs National Park

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The Beautiful Starling Murmurations at Brighton Pier

Every winter, starlings escaping the harsh Scandinavian winter migrate to the British Isles and other mild European countries. Starlings feed in gardens and farmland in the daytime and gather in huge groups called murmurations over Brighton Pier in late afternoon. Murmurations are thought to serve a number of purposes. Firstly, they are a defensive strategy against birds of prey; each starling monitors and shadows seven of its neighbours and this leads to murmurations adopting a typical fluid movement. Should a predatory bird attempt to intercept a murmuration, each starling in its path will automatically move aside, allowing the adversary to pass straight through. Flying in murmurations generates body heat and the collective warmth of bodies acts as a giant radiator when the starlings roost. Competition for the most sheltered places to roost is fierce and dominant males get first preference. Females and juveniles have to sleep in more exposed spots. Although migrant starling...

The Secret Bluebell Woods of Sussex

When the trees grow leaves and bluebells appear, I always feel a sense of achievement that I've made it through winter, and can now look forward to long daylight hours, warm temperatures and all the things I enjoy about the natural world. Plenty of sunlight reaches the ground in May, allowing wood anemones and yellow archangels to bloom alongside bluebells, before the tree canopy thickens, and forests become dark silent places over the summer. Things didn't begin too well for me, after suffering two coronavirus infections and a third untested illness in a short period, despite being 'fully vaccinationized' and having (whisper...natural immunity). Feeling unwell, I walked 26000 steps from the railway station to the forest and back, uphill both ways, twice over, with blisters and chafed inner thighs and I even managed to have 20 minutes spare at the end to buy chips, if I was lucky. I made life easier for myself by subsequently completing the walking segment of my journey...

Early Summer Roe Deer Project 2019

Don't miss my roe deer projects from 2020 and 2021 . 23rd May 2019: I was so pleased with the images from my first visit, that I could easily have finished the project in one evening. Temperatures were a good seven degrees warmer inland, reaching 23 °C and the Roe deer were just shedding the last of their thick winter coats. Grass height was still short enough to allow the easy observation of these small deer. The three babies from last year survived the winter; two bucks and one doe. The young buck was quite tolerant of me. When people wandered through the field, the buck went and hovered about the perimeter until they disappeared before returning to grazing on buttercups. Two adult does were present, but neither were pregnant. An adult buck accompanied one of the does. Possibly mistaking her availability, the buck chased the doe around the field in an unusually early display of courtship. My theory is that the doe is infertile, as she was not pregnant in 2018 either....

Early Summer Roe Deer Project - 2022

I've been visiting a nature reserve on the Sussex/Surrey border since 2011, and it's an ideal place to photograph Roe deer, especially in early summer, when the grass isn't too tall and food sources are plentiful. Human visitors to the reserve are almost always polite and considerate to me. The fact that roe deer can be observed from close quarters in plain sight is testament to how much local people care about the animals and birds living here. Although a few photographers know about the reserve, I prefer not to share the location, as photographers would be at cross-purposes, with one person having to structure their activity around the others'. The mature buck (see below) is chasing a younger, smaller buck away from his territory, following one of many incursions. The unfortunate victim of chasing had a rotten day. More on this later. Visitors to this site will be delighted to recognise the same mature buck from 2021. It's a pity that I wasn't able to spot any...

Brighton and Hove Snow Diary 2010

The temperature on December 1st 2010 never rose above -0.3ºC and heavy snow fell across Sussex. I started taking photographs two hours before work, in the afternoon and resumed photography after an early finish due to severe weather conditions. Continuous light snow fell until 19:45, when the powdery snow turned very heavy, dumping 15 - 25cm in just a few hours. I caught the number 6 bus into Brighton city centre, where I spent two hours meeting friendly faces and photographing familiar places in unfamiliar conditions. As I braced myself for a long walk home, I thought I'd pop into Brighton Station on the off-chance that tonight's snow was of the 'right kind'. Miraculously, the 22:34 Southern train to Chichester was on Platform 2. The train crawled up to Preston Park, reversed and struggled along to Portslade. I met Frank on a very cold, snow-swept Hove Promenade. He was out walking his West Highland Terrier. He told me that he owns the Snoopers Paradise on...

Brighton Starling Murmurations - 2020 / 2021

Welcome to my starling murmuration essay for 2020/21. I had planned to photograph something else this winter, but I changed my mind on a whim, after going to Brighton Pier a few days after the second lockdown ended. By the forth visit, I had enough creative images to stop and publish the essay — and the twenty images here are from a total of six trips to the pier . Some of my images are highly unusual, and left me wondering how I even managed to take them. Take the first picture — a night city motion blur shot of birds and light trails from evening traffic. Shots three and four give us an idea of what a starling murmuration would look like, if photographed from within the atmosphere of Jupiter. The monochromatic motion blur images (ten to eighteen) look like they've been sketched on art paper using a pencil. I captured the strangeness of the murmuration, as it compacted into an oval before unravelling like a rope in pouring rain well after sunset, as most other photogr...

Early Summer Roe Deer Project - June 2021

I felt like a fraud at first, but I returned to the deer meadow in 2021 by train and bike. Last year's prohibitions on the use of public transport for non-essential journeys meant completing the entire 52 mile round trip by bicycle. I can now step off the train and cycle to the nature reserve, but I still get 8 miles of cycling. I am drawn to the meadow in early June because an explosion of wildflowers attracts Roe deer from surrounding land to feed, raise young and establish territory for the rutting season. I've struck lucky with a tolerant older buck this summer (see below). At first, I thought he was the same buck from 2019 and 2020, but they are probably just related. He was a little nervous on the first encounter. The buck got up, ate as many buttercups as he could and moved to a different spot nearby. It's almost as if was hedging his bets. My presence didn't frighten him, but the deer stocked up on energy in case I turned out to be one of the unfortunate recen...

The Sussex Bluebell Showcase

The mild, wet winter and cold April led to peak bluebell flowering before the beginning of May at an ancient bluebell wood in East Sussex. It was interesting to see how much individual trees had changed in just 12 months. The decaying lower branches of a particular old oak gave way at some point since my last visit. I wouldn't have liked to be in the vicinity when they fell. Best practice is to avoid the popular public stomping grounds and visit much less well-known woods up the muddy tracks. The advantage is that I can photograph pristine carpets of bluebells before they get disturbed. Bluebells cannot generate energy to regrow bulbs if people crush the foliage, something annoyingly visible every year, as social media influencers drape themselves, their children and brides among the flowers. If a route to a good vantage point is not immediately obvious, I will find an indirect route, taking care to step on bare patches and leap over clumps of flowers. Since my somnolent ri...

The Sussex Bluebell Season

Welcome to my 2022 bluebell woodland project, which this year took me to quiet woodlands in East Sussex. The majority of people enjoy bluebell displays at a very popular nearby woodland, but other woodlands can be discovered through (occasional) word of mouth. To protect these woodlands, I will not share the location names, and not without good reason. I noticed severe damage to bluebells in near a popular car park, caused by intentional trampling. In the past, saying hello to people and starting up conversations in the countryside was the norm, but in the last few years, I've begun to notice that the majority of walkers refuse to speak to me out of fear. Ten years ago, people would stop and ask me about my photography, take my card and bring up my work the next time we met. That has all gone, possibly forever. Another exceptionally mild (and dry) winter and spring lead to early flowering, with the peak height and blooming around 25th April. I visited the woods on 30th April las...

Photos of the Year - 2022

From Sussex bluebells to Brighton in the snow, 2022 has been a great year for photography. As my mother and I sipped Aloxe Corton Pinot noir on my birthday, and we prepared to sit through 24 hours of Carry On films on ITV3 over Christmas, we looked back at the last 12 months of gardening and photography. The garden is (mostly) dormant, but the snowdrop bulbs I planted in November are sprouting through the central bed and should provide the first flowers in the new year. One hundred English bluebell bulbs sit 10cm below the surface in my newly-created woodland bed, along with crocuses, snowdrops, and anemones. Over in East Sussex, I was very pleased to discover two new bluebell sites. Dense, established carpets of bluebells is a sign of ancient woodland. In the coming years, my bluebell bulbs will multiply, self-seed and push themselves deeper underground in search of moisture. Despite having taken wildlife photos for 20 years, I never managed to get even a half-decent picture of ...

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