The Bittern Botaurus stellaris is a rarely seen, shy relative of the heron and is extremely well camouflaged amongst the reed beds in which it lives. When alarmed, the bittern adopts a motionless posture with head and beak thrust skywards. Its latin name is derived from ‘the bellowing of a bull’ – a loud booming call which can be heard miles away. Hunting and habitat loss led to the gradual extinction of the bittern from the UK for half a century, but in the early 1900s a gradual recolonisation from the continent took place and with continued fenland conservation and the creation of new reed beds elsewhere, the fragile population is increasing.
Danny Green is a multiple award-winning wildlife photographer, based in the UK. He has been photographing the natural world for over 25 years and has always been a dedicated Canon shooter, mainly working with film in the early years and later fully embracing digital technology. His approach to photographing nature is a long process and he can sometimes spend months, if not years, working on subjects and projects.
He has won many prizes in some of the most respected wildlife photography competitions around the world. His work is represented by some of the leading natural history picture agencies and his images are published on a regular basis around the world.
For the past seven years Danny has been working on a project to document the Arctic and Subarctic regions of northern Europe. This body of photographic work formed the backbone of his new book ‘The Long Journey North’, released in 2014.
Danny had his first National Geographic feature published – on the Atlantic puffin – in the June 2014 issue and it was a very proud moment for him. The project spanned over five years and Danny visited some of the most beautiful colonies in the UK, Iceland and Norway in search of images of the iconic bird. He recalls: "It was one of the hardest projects I have undertaken as the demands and standards are so high when shooting for National Geographic."
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