I’ve always had a fascination with great crested grebes; they are good looking, they have some amazing behaviours and their chicks are, in my mind, the cutest things on the planet. I have never really spent a significant period of time with this species. I recently travelled to Holland to set this straight.

Great crested grebes are common throughout both Britain and Holland, so there are plenty of images of them. I wanted my images to be different. I decided that if I was going to have any chance at achieving this aim, I had to get both very low and very close.

I had to travel to Holland to photograph them as in order to get close and low, I had to get in the water. Obtaining permission to do this in the UK is difficult whereas, in Holland I had a location where it was acceptable. At first the grebes were tentative but soon became habituated to my presence. Each day I edged closer and this was the result... Click to scroll