Many of you will have seen my garden photo thread from last year: "Post Furlough Return To Work....", and to save a thread getting too long, I thought I'd set up one for 2021. I was hoping to make it a retirement thread, but alas, that was thwarted at the last minute just before Xmas, but nature and life still continues, and so shall I....
So here it is. The light has been, well, yuk for any decent photos, but to start things off, a few snow scenes from the garden from last Friday.
A generaly view of the garden.
The chimera, complete with coconut shell full of mealworms, which often provides good viewing, but not this day....
The established erysimum
Last years erysimum and lavender
Stay safe folks, there will be wildlife photos here soon, lockdown or no lockdown....
Mike
Flickr: Peak Rambler
Lovely additions Mike...poor goose all by its lonesome!..garden is certainly growing well!...we got some lovely sun today hooray lol
(Pardon the Scottish Accent)
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Nige Flickr
Linda257 said:Lovely additions Mike...poor goose all by its lonesome!..garden is certainly growing well!...we got some lovely sun today hooray lol
Its not often you see Canada Geese solo, though there was another one solo just around the corner, poss its mate, who knows.
Glad to read you finally have some sun.
Unknown said:Lovely photos and nice to get out and play with the new lens. You'll know how careful you have to be with a polariser and a wide angle or you get an unbalanced effect across the sky. Well avoided in your shots!
Thanks Nige.
Definitely avoid the BH crushes! LOL
I've been generally lucky workwise and Easter, the places I've worked for work on Good Friday with the Tuesday off in lieu of the Friday. That misses the getaway and come home traffic, not that I often went away for Easter. Being the first BH of the year, it was always mayhem.
I'm familiar with wide angle lenses/photos and the use of filters (vignetting), along with trying not to get too much of the fisheye effect, unless, planned for.
The 24-105mm lens seems to suffer slightly with that at the 24mm end on sky shots, just nipping the corners a wee touch, so I'll crop it out. But then I often aim not to fill the frame too much to facilitate any cropping, particularly for screensaver/desktop pics, which need to be cropped from 3:2 to 1:16.9.
I've definitely settled into this retirement malarkey.
Just need covid out the way.....
NEWSFLASH!
We've had our first hedgehog sighting of 2021, that triggered the gardencam.
Spring has definitely sprung.....
A dramatic urban sunrise on 5th April, before the snow, well, snow flurries, arrived...
The snow bells looking good for flowering soon...
The bees are getting busier. I think his one may be a honeybee, but could be wrong.
The tulips close to flowering
A narcissi that hasn't flowered for a few years, has actually flowered.
I am told that narcissi (and daffodils, which are of the same family) bulbs don't flower every year, so I may need to plant some more bulbs.....
The cherry tree is starting to bloom.....
And finally, playing around with exposure settings and the Star 6 filter....
Stay safe folks
Lovely to see the blue skies and the flowers and buds starting to open. I had three pots of tulips that I planted for the first time last year, they were beautiful, all different colours. Last week one pot opened and I had the intention of taking a photo and posting it. Yesterday and today it has been bitterly cold, with the NNW winds, we have had showers of hail and snow off and on and awful gusting winds, we are used to the winds up here, but it has been very windy and noisy! Have not had my nose outside to look at the post, but my guess is the heads are well blown away!
Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.
Lynn L said:Lovely to see the blue skies and the flowers and buds starting to open. I had three pots of tulips that I planted for the first time last year, they were beautiful, all different colours. Last week one pot opened and I had the intention of taking a photo and posting it. Yesterday and today it has been bitterly cold, with the NNW winds, we have had showers of hail and snow off and on and awful gusting winds, we are used to the winds up here, but it has been very windy and noisy! Have not had my nose outside to look at the post, but my guess is the heads are well blown away!
Hopefully nature is resilient enough, and the tulip heads haven't been blown away.
The sun soon disappeared here, and yesterday became all seasons in one day!
Yesterday, 6th April, was an example of all four seasons ion one day.
Spring, with the daffs in flower
Summer, with the sun
Autumn, with the brown leaf foliage looking autumnal, (which is actually new blossom buds)
Winter, with the wind chill down to -1.5°C and 3.0 mm snow settling!
I've not been busy with the camera in the garden, its been too windy and cold, plus the fact that the birds have been chased away by the grey squirrels. Often we get anything around six or so squirrels in the garden, but all of a sudden, that has quadrupled!
A wild guess, someone may have had garden clearout, though I've not seen or heard any trees being chopped down. Some of the squirrels seem quite wide around the waistline, and could be pregnant, and food will be particularly important to them, and their unborn young.
The garden is like a mix between dodgems crashing into each other, and a boxing match out of control!
The squirrels seem to have hit a destruct button, being aggressive to each other, and visiting birds, chasing any on the feeders. The result, not many birds, and lots of squirrels. To keep things humane, and with the fact that the warmer weather is hear, birds will be busy with nests and insects will be more prolific, I've taken the decision to remove all feeders for the time being.
However, the Trailcam has been busy, and until very recently. the squirrels had left that one alone. But, they decided that was fair game, as you will see from the selection of those pics are below.
Hello, its me, your neighbourhood squirrel, come to raid your feeders....
Yes, its me again, your neighbourhood squirrel raiding your feeders.... Did you get that piccie of me earlier?
I was quite impressed with the clarity of this action shot from the Trailcam