Russell F Spencer's photostream  

I'm off to the Wildlife Photographer of the Year awards this year - as a guest, I did not win...This is one of the images I entered this year in the urban birds category.
It was taken at twilight in London Zoo, the starlings were looking for every last crumb with a real sense of urgency as the light faded. The polished metal tables made for amazing lighting as the sun faded...
Hardly anyone noticed these amazing birds with all of the Zoo fauna and people stopped to ask me what I was taking pictures of...The answer is the smartest visitors to the Zoo...because these visitors don't pay admission or for the food.

Staying with Ethiopia (I have so many images to upload!) here is another amazing endemic species. This and others will feature in a BBC Wildlife magazine article by David Lindo on our amazing journey to this area earlier this year.

We saw first hand how difficult things are in this region at the moment and yet everywhere we went people were so friendly always welcoming and doing everything possible to cope. We left lots of our kit behind, shared what we could and I must say I now find it much easier to donate to charities working in this region and others, having seen only a fraction of the challenges they face.

This is a truly amazing area of the world, with so much amazing life, appearing to exist on a knife edge.

This image is dedicated to everyone involved in the organisation of Birdfair 2011 and everyone who attended this fantastic event. I would not have had the opportunity to visit Ethiopia, an amazing country and record many amazing and touching sites if it had not been for Birdfair, Birdlife and the RSPB. I hope everyone enjoyed Birdfair and learnt as much as I did, it was great to meet so many old friends and to make some new ones.
As well as being great fun, this event and the people connected to it are making and enormous difference to global conservation and many people, some famous, some not so give up a huge amount of time and effort - a wonderful event all round - I hope to see you all again next year.

A few more images from the recent trip to Serbia...It was great to see Whiskered terns up close, every stretch of inland water seemed to have them on patrol, flying low and methodically over the water, allowing on the wing opportunities.

This individual stood in the heat of the midday sun staring intently at it's reflection for at least 20 minutes, the intense heat, bright light and still, shallow water created a fantastic mirror effect allowing me to catch him in the act.