2021 Calendar

Front cover

Front cover		 Leucistic or ‘ghost’ Barn Owl - Cley Beach Road at dawn
& Pink-footed Geese - Burnham Overy Staithe at dusk

Back cover

Back cover		 January - Eastern Yellow Wagtail
February - Female Merlin
March - Male Firecrest
April - Woodlark
May - Male Cuckoo
June - Bearded Tits
July - Female Nightjar
August - Juvenile Peregrines
September - Turtle Dove
October - Starling
November - Isabelline Wheatear
December - Rough-legged Buzzard

It was just as well I was able to fulfil my cherished ambition to pay a return visit to Oman (which I’d last visited 20 years ago) whilst travel as we once knew it was still possible! Myself and fellow photographer Bill Baston spent 17 glorious days between late Nov and mid-Dec 19 dividing our time between the coastal wetlands or ‘Khors’, desert areas, sewage farms and rubbish tips. The latter two often provided some of our best photo opportunities in a predominantly arid terrain, and we look back with fond memories to those packed lunches amongst plagues of flies and the smell of raw sewage or rotting rubbish, all mingled with clouds of dust whenever another vehicle appeared! The upside was the sight of hundreds of massed eagles, waders and waterbirds. Though several thousand kms of driving was involved from north to south and back, fuel was cheap (40p a litre!) and our gas guzzling Toyota Land Cruiser made short work of it and transported us to a wealth of different habitats, microclimates and associated exotic species too numerous to mention. Needless to say a trip to Lithuania for forest species like owls, woodpeckers and grouse booked for early April 20 had to be cancelled because of Covid 19 (along with a summer trip to Spain to utilise some photographer friendly sandgrouse hides with specially constructed pools to attract a wealth of desert species). As it was, lockdown meant I was confined to a pretty localized area, with the North Norfolk coast being largely off-limits. In spite of these limitations, regular visits to a few local sites in spring and early summer proved surprisingly productive, and I did particularly well with Hares, Cuckoos and a good selection of warblers (including the normally skulking Lesser Whitethroat). Whilst I greatly miss live music and rarely even venture out to the pub these days my garden has never looked so tidy and my fuel bills are now a fraction of what they once were! I’ve also put in a lot of time on a summer Nightjar photography project, which has proved extremely rewarding (as you’ll see from my July image!). This has largely replaced my evening owl photography sessions which sadly had to be cancelled during lockdown, with bookings only just beginning to trickle in again. Moreover, with all craft fairs cancelled for the foreseeable future and many retail outlets experiencing severe budgetary restraints the market for my card, canvas and calendar sales has shrunk dramatically. So in short it’s been a year of swings and roundabouts and I guess that I’ll just have to come to terms with whatever the ‘new normal’ proves to be. One thing though is certain: that it will always be dominated by birds!
If you want to view an image of both the front and back covers in more detail then click on the links above the images. Better still, of course, you could purchase one (or more!) calendars from me at the prices shown below. Postage and packing rates relate purely to the UK.


 Price UK P&P Total
A4 calendar £9.95 £3.55 £13.50
A3 calendar £13.50 £5.25 £18.75


The 2020 Calendar page is available as an example of Richard's other photos.

To order please contact Richard Brooks.

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