Short-Eared Owls and a Winter Sunrise at Nene Washes

By Carol Leather

A 5.30am alarm on a frosty Sunday is a special kind of cruelty.

It sliced through the dark, and every sensible part of my brain said no. But another voice, the one hopelessly addicted to golden light and wild things, whispered about the Short-eared Owls of the Nene Washes.

That was the voice I listened to.

Come with me. I'll share the moments that made the cold worthwhile: the light, the hunters, and the winter travellers that call this place home.

A World of Frost and Fire

The forty-five-minute drive through narrow, icy Cambridgeshire lanes felt like a pilgrimage in the dark.

Then we crested a small humpback bridge and saw it.

The horizon was bleeding pink and orange, and the ridiculously early start suddenly felt like a stroke of genius. The vast, flat expanse of the washes, dusted with frost, lay under a sky that was slowly catching fire.

The air was so sharp it felt clean. The silence wasn't empty. It was full of anticipation.

This is the Golden Hour photographers worship, though no technical term catches what it feels like to stand there and watch the washes wake up in colour.

As I raised my camera the screen lit up with the scene, but I knew it was lying to me. A voice in my head, born from a graveyard of past failures, started chanting: the foreground will be black, trust the histogram, not the screen.

It's a boring-looking graph, but it's the only honest broker when you're trying to hold the shadowed reeds and the bright sky in one frame without losing either.

The only sound was the crunch of frost under my boots, a rhythm that settled my mind and made the frozen fingers worth it.

The Hunters

Short-eared Owls were the main draw. I'm a raptor fanatic, and I never dared hope it would be this easy. Minutes after we arrived, a hunter appeared: a pale, moth-like shape quartering low over the reeds, its flight buoyant and almost weightless.

My reaction was pure fumble. Heart thumping, numb fingers like clumsy sausages on the small buttons.

As the owl circled back, the calmer voice took over: breathe, anticipate the flight path, and for heaven's sake check your shutter speed.

I cranked the dial to 1/1600s. That has to be fast enough to freeze the wings. Now keep it in the frame.

The viewing bank sat a long way from the action, and a wave of relief washed over me. Thank goodness I'd brought the teleconverter, the little tube of glass that gives my lens extra reach.

Later, a different hunter put on a show: a female Kestrel windhovering, hanging motionless on the wind. I could feel my continuous autofocus working overtime. Stay with the eye, stay with the eye, I kept thinking, begging the little green square not to jump to the more contrasty wingtip.

Then a feisty Black-headed Gull launched itself at her, a frantic tangle of wings. It's in these unscripted moments that your trust in your autofocus is really tested.

The last raptor was a Marsh Harrier, soaring low over distant reeds. A reminder that sometimes the best tool isn't a camera but a pair of binoculars and the decision to enjoy the moment for what it is.

The Winter Visitors

While the hunters worked the skies, a calmer scene played out on the water.

A family of Whooper Swans drifted past, their white feathers luminous against the dark water, elegant travellers from the north. Overhead, the sky was a conveyor belt of ducks: Wigeon, Teal, Shoveler, and my first-ever Pintails.

Fast-flying ducks are a lovely challenge. If juggling all three settings at once feels like a circus act, you're not alone.

My starting point is almost always Shutter Priority. I set it to at least 1/1600s and tell the camera: you handle the light, I'll handle the speed. It's a partnership. I used to dread the high ISO it would choose, and the grain that came with it. Now I read that grain as character. A gritty photo from the half-light feels more honest than a perfectly clean one.

The air also filled with the chattering of Fieldfares, a real sound of the season. I love their grey heads and speckled chests, a splash of Scandinavian colour against the bare winter fields.

Photographing a whole flock is a different game. The autofocus that works so hard on a single bird gets overwhelmed. In those moments I stop chasing a perfect portrait and think: the story here is the chaos. Narrow the aperture to f/11 and catch the pattern.

A Poignant Acrobat

Among the chaos, a flash of iridescent green gave away a flock of Lapwings.

Seeing them always brings a lump to my throat. Forty years ago these Green Plovers were everywhere in the fields around my home. Now their numbers are in steep decline, and each sighting feels like a gift, a fleeting dance from a world that's quietly slipping away.

A Fleeting Encounter

As things began to settle, movement on the bank caught my eye: a Roe Deer buck and two does bounding across the frosty ground.

Their russet coats were perfect camouflage, and my autofocus started hunting, confused. This is where muscle memory takes over. With a sigh I switched to manual focus, my thumb finding the button on its own. Pre-focus on that patch of reeds they're heading for, I thought, winding the shutter speed up to freeze their leaps. A frantic, split-second mix of technical adjustment and hopeful guesswork, and it paid off.

By mid-morning we were thoroughly chilled but buzzing. A quiet morning of ghostly owls and fleeting deer, and a reminder that the best rewards sometimes wait on the far side of a ridiculous alarm.

The Crane Chapter Comes Next

The Nene Washes has louder chapters, too. The reserve is now home to a true giant, the bugling Common Crane. Seeing them here for the first time was a different scale of adventure altogether.

Visiting RSPB Nene Washes

Other wetland walks in the county

I've spent over 30 years walking and photographing UK wildlife, with work featured in Canon EOS Magazine and a Wildlife Trusts calendar. I still learn something new on most outings.

This site is my field notebook full of photo tips, help on identifying what you see, and how to decide where to walk.