Taking photographs of birds can be a real challenge – it’s easy to get shots of birds that help you identify what you’ve seen (a record shot), but much harder to get something that shows the bird off well. Assuming that you can’t dash off to warmer climes where birds are tame, the easiest starting point is to use feeding stations in your back garden. Garden birds have the advantage of being easy to attract close to your lens, but the disadvantage of being small and flighty. Here, I provide some basic advice on how to photograph birds in your garden.

In this article I describe my approach to insect macrophotography, a subject that lends itself to back garden nature photography, and provides a fascinating window onto the natural world.

Whiteknights Park, the main campus of the University of Reading, is a large area of parkland, with a range of interesting habitats, including a lake, mature woodland, hay meadows and a botanic garden. Here I describe the types of species found, a few helpful techniques, and the best locations.