Rye Harbour National Nature Reserve

Spring is on the way and there are a few signs now of fresh plant life.  The sea kale has started sprouting and the grass is looking a little greener. But we still have a way to go. The ground for the new discovery centre is being prepared with boarding going up around old Lime Kiln Cottage. A small digger has been deposited there. I’m sat in Denny Hide overlooking Quarry with Flat Beach and Wader Pool in the distance. I stopped at the hide overlooking the wader pool on my way round here but there was nothing in it. So I am settled in the Denny listening to the noisy black headed gulls resplendent in their breeding plumage and watching them posture and court. It’s much noisier than of recent months. Some of the avocets are in spending time in the mud pools to the left of Denny and there has been reports of terns here but I haven’t seen any. I have seen gadwall, teal, little grebe, cormorant (or shag!), teal, lesser and greater black backed gull, oyster catcher and redshank.  There has been light rain a few times but only once heavy enough to make a sound on the roof of the hide. I think I can hear meadowpipits or skylarks in the grassy areas beyond the hide. 

RPS residential nature weekend, Flatford Mill, Dedham

Arrived last night to a stunning location on thrived Stour. The evening spent arriving and sorting kit and room then off to evening meal at 7. Good tea of Spanish pork and rice with an equally home made black currant bake well tart which was lovely. There then was the usual meeting with health and safety, a presentation of some of the nature to be found around the field centre although it took an hour to link the computer to the projector.  This went to 10 pm then off to bed for a 6am start.
25*c in my room so didn't sleep well even with the fan I brought on and the window open. The water that fed the waterwheel is quite clearly heard and that was lovely.
Today we had possibly the worst breakfast I had ever had. The usual cereal , prunes and grapefruit was served followed by whatever was ticked on the list last night. The only things on the list to tick were veg sausage, sausage, hash brown and tomato. Bacon was served which was not in the list and mushroom was not served which was on the list! There were no eggs or beans. There was half a rasher of bacon left by the time the dish got to me. Stopped eating bread a while ago and only sandwiches available for packed lunch sit hats a non starter, got 3 pieces of fruit and a yogurt instead.
So may be going to the Stour estuary today or a Heath depending on wind.

Sony nfc review

26 5 2016 (English, May) I have a Sony 7s and Sony experia compact 1. I have tried a multitude of times to send images from my camera to my phone to post on social media.  It works 5% of the time failing more times than a little. It's garbage. Spend your money on something that works.

Water meadow, Nottingham

Saw heron, teals, two greylag geese and a couple of rats-i think, swimming,  yesterday. Also, a fleeting glimpse of the elusive kingfisher.  Ubiquitous moorhen also present and a couple of brown coloured butterflies.

Thursday 28th May, 2015, Peasholm Park, Scarborough and the sea front. In Peasholm park we found this little bird, I am not sure what it is. It would be known, in the birding world as a LBJ-a little brown jobby! I am thinking chifchaf or garden warbler. It was lovely to be there. The trees up the ravine are enormous with a fantastic canopy and are cathedral like. In addition to this we spotted a greater spotted woodpecker chick.

Week commencing 25/5/15 we had a fantastic birding week. On Tuesday 26th May we went to Washington WWT and had a great time! There were a number of rarer birds there as part of their conservation effort but there was also the common garden birds as shown here. These birds were baited at a bird table filled with various foods. It even included a squirrel proof cage which wasn't squirrel proof at all! I've never seen so many bullfinches in my life, certainly not as many in one place. There were at least 4 who came to feed including one female. 

 These pictures are taken with a 500mm mirror lens and even though they were quite close, these are still cropped, but they are well focussed with a lot of detail in the feather even at ISO 5000 in most cases. The highlight was the jay-a very cautious bird, not seen at close quarters at all, and the greater spotted woodpecker that managed to find the fat and peanuts stuffed in the tree bark. You can tell its a mirror lens because the bokeh (the out of focus circular blurry bit behind the birds) is caused by the mirror lens.

 I also like the picture of the magpie that had found a food stash in the tree. You can clearly see the blue iridescence on its wings beneath its white feathers. Its a stunning bird close up.

Avocets are always a joy to see. Such a smart and delicate bird but one with a temper! They often see off birds feeding close to where they are.

Iceland off the holiday list

Iceland-off the holiday list

I have wanted to go to Iceland for 30 years, I believe the country to be spectacular for photography, then I saw this film. Puffins being killed by locals for food, eggs taken from birds nests on a sheer cliff face to give an alternative to battery eggs (and sold to local supermarkets)-when a simple solution to that would maybe be to create a farm which provides eggs from chickens that aren't battery farmed (!). Then rounding up wild horses taking them straight to market, new foals, and the stress of coming into contact with humans, awful. One man in the film said that being one with nature and the horses was being in tune with nature and having respect for it, I think he was confusing respect for domination. I wont spend my money there, I'll make the best of what

NG5 wildlife sightings

One of my favourite places is a small reserve close to where I live. In recent months this year, the following have been spotted:
3 herons, numerous teal, red crested pochard, coots, moorhen, mallards, blackcap, wren, and jack snipe.

Sightings yesterday were mallard, greylag geese, a small heron, wren and I think a blackcap heard. Also seen were a flock of long-tail tits and goldfinch were heard. Red crested pochard were still there.

Lea Meadow and Bunny Old Wood, Leicestershire, East Midlands 18/04/15

 

We had a great day out yesterday! First we went to Lea Meadow then Bunny Old Wood in Leicestershire in the East Midlands in the UK. They were small reserves so it didn't take long to walk about, the weather was fabulous with barely a cloud in the sky. Lea meadow is, a large field basically, owned by the Wildlife Trusts. It has a small stream running through it with an oasis of trees in the middle and surrounded by trees on the outskirts of the field. It will be good to go back in summer when the field has become a meadow of wild flowers with all the life that that supports. I am looking forward to seeing the butterflies and caterpillars feeding on these and hoping to get some really good macro shots. I have decided to go for the FRPS of the Royal Photographic Society with macro images of butterflies so am hoping to hone my skills  to do this. This picture is of some of the trees surrounding the field.

This was one of the trees in the field, on the outskirts of it. Its a tree in blossom with the sun catching the blossom on the periphery of the tree. It looked stunning. I cant wait to go back to this meadow in summer when the trees are in their full regalia!

This image is of a path through the woods of Bunny Old Wood. The nascent leaves of overwintering perennials emerging during which time the spring flowers of celandine are already in full bloom.

Another images of Bunny Old Wood pathways. There are rafts of bluebells here although the picture doesn't give them credit. The path will be barely visible when the plants are fully developed and the leaves are on the trees.

I don't know what this is. I've looked in my RSPB book of 'Butterflies and Moths' and am unable to find anything resembling it, the nearest being some form of skipper. The colours don't match what is in in the book or the rings at the bottom of the wings. It is by no means my best picture but a record shot of what I was able to take before it flew away. I also saw an orange tip at Lea Meadow and recently elsewhere in the past few weeks.

I have been to the Butterfly Conservation Society website (http://butterfly-conservation.org/) and identified it as a Speckled Wood.

I have identified this as a Comma. I've never seen one before so this was quite exciting (it doesn't take much!). I found it in Bunny Old Wood on the ground.

This was taken at the small stream that separates one half of Lea Meadow field with the other. It's shallow, very pleasant and pretty but I anticipate it getting prettier when the bare tree stems are filled with leaves and the plants beside the stream are taller.

Rutland bird reserve

A brilliant days birding. Watching ospreys with the highlight of a flyby by a barn owl, twice!

Its been a while since I was on here. That's been down to completing the Masters photography course and taking up a new  lecturing post in Leicester, so things have been busy. Currently in Hastings listening tp the wind. It's been like this for a few days now, .ot fit to take the camera out. May write up more of RPS nature group from last year soon. It was a brilliant weekend.

RPS Nature Group Residential Weekend, Shropshire, August 2013

Friday 9 th August- arrival at Preston Montford FSC Field Centre near Shrewsbury.  A lovely spot in brilliant nature grounds.  There is a walk to the river, an Exploratorium, lecture rooms and lab with microscopes for other types of field trips. Outside my window is a magnificent cherry tree covered in cherries and in front of the lab and lecture room is a freshwater  pond with bullrushes and other smaller  aquatic plans. A safety briefing was undertaken by the center staff then a beer before dinner and our own briefing.  We had images of the insect life we were likely to see and a run down of where we would be going. The organiser had worked to find sites thriving with such wildlife.

4/4/2013-Selectively Flowering Heather!

Went out today to look for some daytime images in line with today's photocalendar. Today's subject was images taken outside the golden hours in the morning and evening in whatever weather. I agree with John Gravett when he talks about your camera being useless outside of these hours when that philosophy is adopted. I think many images are just as good between sunrise and sunset although I don't think my effort here reflects that! 
I actually wanted to go onto the moors to get images of heather in flower. I noted the heather was in flower in town and in gardens, but alas, not so on the moors. The heather there is still black with no signs of growth yet.

Chilled Out Doggy

30/03/2013
Went to the pub last night to see a band (and check out some real ale!). Took the dogs, this one shows a chilled out, stretched out doggy. Good band, good ale.

"Expressive Photography", Review-The Shutter Sisters, Focal Press, Elsevier, Oxford, UK. ISBN:978-0-240-81347-9

I have just finished reading this book by the Shutter Sisters . It gets 10/10. Absolutely brilliant. My Masters Photography project is tapping into gender issues along with conversations I am having with women photographers and this fits in there nicely. I am rapidly coming to the view that society is patriarchal as are is it's systems and attitudes. Even the way women photographers take pictures is done in a male way. This book is different. The images, explanations, motivations for taking the images are very tender, nurturing, thought provoking, very female. The attitude and approach is completely different from the way things are written that I have read. It's beautiful, a work of art. I would highly recommend it to women and to male photographers especially as a way to add depth to images taken in their accompanying narrative. It also provokes thought as to why your images are as they are, and, generally speaking, offers ideas as to how to approach and record subjects in the future.

Happy New Year and New Year resolutions.

Happy New Year to you all.
My New Year resolution for photography is to take myself out of, my comfort zone even more. To continue to improve my confidence by asking more people to take their pictures. To have more goes at studio and portrait images. To spend more time on worthwhile images and to develop a faster eye to eliminate poor and not to bother with images. If I find other resolutions, I will add them.

Photoshop colour management workshop

On Monday this week I attended a full day of tutorials on colour management in Photoshop. I have done this before and sent off for profiles, fitting them into Photoshop and Lightroom and using them. But it explained a lot of things I use but didn't understand. It was really valuable.

Michael Grecco-"Lighting and the Dramatic Portrait" review

I have just finished reading this book and its good. There are plenty of hints and tips. He had an idea, a vision in mind on how he wants to light a subject and lights it as per his vision. He is not a "45°-lighting-to-the-side-and-above-the-model" kind of guy. He lights as he wants and it looks good. Evidently an artist. But I don't know what it is, and this is purely personal, I can't get on with it. I have learned that lighting doesn't have to be a cult kitsch kind if thing with standard lighting arrangements, but I don't know what it is. Maybe its the way he writes. I don't know.

An enlarging experience

Yesterday (Tuesday 4th December) I had a brilliant time in a colour darkroom at Uni! I have done black and white work before but this was my first colour. I really enjoyed it. It took me a long time to produce my first print with recalling the workflow, but once I had that sussed it took seconds to expose the image then into the machine with the print. I can see how creating a first class print is an art in itself. You could tinker with the colour for hours if you wanted to. Expensive, but you could do it. Dialling in the filtration is easier than using Lightroom. Its something I really want to do again with negatives from images taken next time though......I need some time in the studio!