Welcome to Richard Stonier Photography
Welcome to the website of bird photographer, Richard Stonier.
The website showcases Richard’s growing portfolio of pictures of common, scarce and rare species from all corners of the UK. Richard is a keen birder and since 2003 has been a keen photographer.
Based at Strumble Head in Pembrokeshire I am a keen birdwatcher and bird photographer. I am a Chartered Accountant with bird-watching and bird photography taking up most of my spare time.
I am a keen twitcher and have visited all corners of the UK in the pursuit of rare and scarce species. I am a regular on the Scillies every October and can be found throughout August and September sea-watching at Strumble Head in Pembrokeshire (my favourite place in the UK!)
I manage my own nature reserve back in Staffordshire. This is a 6 acre nature reserve – a range of habitats from wet grassland, reedbeds, ponds and ditches to a wildflower meadow, small wood and scrub patches. I have recorded over 120 bird species to the reserve, many of which breed – not bad for Staffordshire! Many of the photographs on this site have come from the many hours spent on this nature reserve. I can now boast one of the largest flocks (summer and winter) of Tree Sparrows in Staffordshire.
My photography passion started with “Digi-scoping” using a Nikon 4500 attached to my Leica 77mm APO scope. I managed to get lots of “good” images with this combo but was always slightly envious of the quality of photos that other photographers were getting with film/digital cameras with dedicated lenses. I was also getting frustrated at the limitations of this technique – such as the difficulty in getting good flight shots etc.
So it was in 2004 that I made the leap to digital photography and invested in a Canon 20D with Canon 300mm IS F4 lens and Canon 1.4x converter. This combination has proved to be superb – this is an excellent camera and superb lens. I started to get the images I had been craving for! Many of the images on this website have been taken with this set-up. Read More
