A Frosty Morning at Barnes Park and Backhouse Park

This morning I was greeted to a frost-covered car before I headed over to Barnes Park do discover which creatures and attractions were there. I got slightly lost on the way there, by being in the wrong lane on a roundabout, but I found my way back pretty quickly. The park was coated in a thick layer of frost with some icy puddles that people were trying to avoid so they didn’t fall. As I have been here before I knew what I wanted to capture and where I could go to get these shots. I knew there were a lot of squirrels here and where their main spots to were to rest.

Location of Barnes Park and Backhouse Park

I started off by photographing the landscape shots of the park first as I wanted to spend more time looking for and attracting squirrels so I could photograph them. I used my 24-105mm lens to capture the bandstand and the pond as I wanted to get quite a lot in the frame so the eye could move around the photograph, seeing everything the park has to offer. The sun was shining brightly, which caused the trees to cast long shadows across the landscape and highlights parts of the ground quite magically with vibrant colours.

I then went onto locating the squirrels, where I left some seeds for them on a log, but they never showed up there. Then out of the corner of my eye, I spotted a squirrel nearby on a field of grass, where I carefully and quietly made my way over to. Using my 70-300mm lens, I zoomed right in, so I didn’t get to close to the squirrel, so I didn’t scare it away. I followed it up and over a tree, back down, and then throughout the park until it ran away into the bushes. I managed to capture quite a few closeup images of the squirrel successfully, where sometimes it looked directly into the lens of my camera as if it were posing for me.

I also noticed some blue tits there were in the tree next to where the squirrel was, so I tried to entice them with seeds to bring them closer to the camera. It was pretty difficult pointing my camera upwards with one hand, as it was so heavy, but also making sure I had the correct zoom length if the birds came closer. As one point I thought they had seen the seeds in my left hand that I was holding out as they started to fly much quicker around the tree and edging closer each time. I think I was moving too much for them to land on my hand, so I eventually gave up and moved onto my next task.

As Backhouse Park is about a 3-4 minute drive away from Barnes Park, I decided I would also visit here as it is quite small, and it wouldn’t take me long to get around. It was very quiet here, with only a few other families visiting the park at the same time as me. As there aren’t any man made structures at Backhouse Park, my goal was to find robins or other wildlife as that is something I enjoy doing. I am fascinated by robins as they are often quite rare to find and their colours are beautiful to look at.

After some walking and waiting around I finally spotted a robin where he then flew into a bare tree where I was able to take the shot of him. I only had a few seconds to capture the perfect shot of the robin as they move from one place to another in a split second, making it quite difficult to capture them in one place. Later on, he reappeared in the distant bushes, where I carefully and quietly made my way over to photograph him from a different angle and composition. He ended up coming quite close to me as I held out seeds to lure him towards me, where I ended up photographing him up close to the camera.

Both parks have their perks of visiting, Barnes Park is very big with many squirrels to see, whereas Backhouse Park is smaller and more peaceful due to the small number of people that visit. Depending on what you would prefer to see will alter which park is best for you. As Backhouse Park is significantly quieter, this park is best for social distancing from other families as less space is occupied by people and Barnes Park is geared more towards children which tends to make this park a lot busier, even in the winter.