"Odds & Sods" (old version) - please add to the new thread 2020 instead !

Thanks Mike

By the time they were properly "engaged" they were facing away, so the photos didn't show much other than wings and tails!

A few more from a recent visit to RSPB Conwy, starting with a reed bunting

Jackdaw

Grey Heron fishing

Successfully fishing if you look closely at the beak

Herring Gull keeping eggs warm

Pond Skater

Stickleback

Looks like a good trip and some good, varied sightings/photos.

Some photos from the garden this week.

Apologies for the poor quality, they were taken through the kitchen window...

A newly observed visitor, a jackdaw

The wood pigeon was quite put out, because the jackdaw managed to feed from the nut feeder, when it can't!

Ladybird larvae.

A woodie stuffing itself in the coconut shell...

Come on woodie, wipe your mouth, pleeease…..

One fed and relaxed woodie

Until a local cat came a wandering through the garden....

Agile Jay on the fat ball feeder.

I knew this fox was about. I had seen its tracks in the mud as I took my regular weekly stomp around Manor farm. On this particular morning I spied this handsome fox just by a part of the nascent reserve I call the pump station. The sun was just rising above the horizon/tree line. For the longest time it didn't know I was so close to it.  Only when my noisy DSLR shutter release sounded was it alerted to me.

I normally take two cameras with me on my nature rambles. A DSLR and a bridge camera.  My bridge camera is a Panasonic  DMC-FZ72, which I use as a backup and identification aid. It takes OK photographs, quite good in sunny conditions, but rubbish otherwise. It redeeming feature is its zoom. It goes from 20mm to 1200mm equivalent.

If I am desperate to get even closer to my subject, I can go into digital zoom, giving a whooping 2400mm equivalent zoom. However detail is so soft, I only use it to help me identify the creature when I get home and have access to books and t'internet.

The other redeeming feature of my bridge camera is that it can take far more photographs on one charge than can my DSLR. I switch to it when all my DSLR batteries run flat. It's also very, very light.

However, when light is good and when you don't have to zoom too far, say about 400mm, then it is capable of taking some quite good shots which I could not really hope for with my previous camera; an ancient second hand Canon EOS 350 I bought a couple of years ago.

The following sequence was taken back in January of this year from what I call the north embankment. A 30m or so embankment on the north side of Manor farm. The Canada geese were in a small lake (I call it Cormorant lake north), and they took off, flew over a long, low gravel spit, before landing in the lake I call Cormorant lake south.

Here they are, having just taken off, with me struggling to get my camera up, turn it on, seek the birds and focus in on them.

Here they are flying over the spit.

Before touching down

Angus

A few sunrise shots of the nascent Manor farm reserve taken in January/February of this year. Normal routine, muffled to the hilt with warm clothing, fingers freezing off your hands in the frosty temperatures, dead early start (6:45am), but worth it. Everything is so quiet and peaceful, with no one else around.

I profess to no particular skill in the taking of these photos. I simply set my 350 to Aperture priority or P setting as I call it, I might stray into being adventurous and fiddle with the EV value, but mainly I just point my camera and push the button. I know, photographic philistine.   Enjoy.

This the area I call the copse. It is the only original bit of woodland and hedgerow left on the Manor farm part of the Cemex quarry. It contains a small fragment of the Colebrook, which was diverted to drain the area to make it safe for quarrying.  As part of the restoration efforts, the Colebrook will be reinstated. To be honest, the resulting habitat will be far richer and more diverse than the low grade farming land it was previously.

Most all the lake (Finch pond) in this next photo will disappear to make way for reed beds.  Half of it is already filled in. Not to worry, the nascent reserves and existing Moor Green Lakes part have substantial lakes. The copse area is to the middle right of the photo.

This is one of the lakes (I call it Cormorant lake) that will not be filled in. It is just to the east of Finch pond. However, the small body of water, in the immediate foreground of this shot, will be filled in with the embankment I am standing on.

In this dark shot (simply achieved by pointing the camera in the direction of the sun), we have Cormorant lake again, but you might notice a small sliver of glinting water in the middle of the photo. That is Manor lake south. This lake will be retained. Manor lake north has some nicely established reed beds in which are birds like Snipe and Reed Buntings; or was it Reed Warblers. There are also some Skylarks that nest in the grasslands to the north of Manor lake.

Here you go, another fairly standard sunrise photo. Again of Finch pond. Sometimes it is hard to believe this is an industrial landscape.

Cemex would scrape the top soil off the land to get at the gravel beds. They pile the soil into tall (over 30' or 10m) embankments running along the northern boundary of the quarry. I am standing on the tallest of them. The plan is to bulldoze them back into the reserve - the body of water immediately in front of me to start with.

There are many deer, foxes and the occasional badger wandering these embankments. Many a morning, I startle the former two, as I clamber up to and along the embankment.

The next two photos give a hint of the industrial nature of this landscape. Most all the machinery (e.g. conveyors, rock crushers, screeners) have been removed, but some are still yet to be cleared. The usual suspects of Canada geese and Egyptian geese are in the shots.

It was very calm, one morning. This is Manor lake north. The reed beds, which have loads of Lapwing on them in winter, are at the top of the photo.

Angus

Unknown said:

A few sunrise shots of the nascent Manor farm reserve taken in January/February of this year. Normal routine, muffled to the hilt with warm clothing, fingers freezing off your hands in the frosty temperatures, dead early start (6:45am), but worth it. Everything is so quiet and peaceful, with no one else around.

I profess to no particular skill in the taking of these photos. I simply set my 350 to Aperture priority or P setting as I call it, I might stray into being adventurous and fiddle with the EV value, but mainly I just point my camera and push the button. I know, photographic philistine.   Enjoy..

Angus

Brilliant photos Angus, keep snapping away.

To help you understand the settings on your camera, the P setting on your Canon is Program

Aperture priority is AV (Aperture Value)

Time priority is TV (Time Value)

To help your hands in the cold, I use RAB Powerstretch Grip Gloves, which ?I find ideal for operating my DSLR or Compact, and they keep my hands and fingers nice and warm.

RAB Power Stretch Pro Grip Glove

https://rab.equipment/uk/power-stretch-grip-glove

Or, if you want something more substantial on colder windier days; RAB Phantom Grip Glove

https://rab.equipment/uk/phantom-grip-glove

As a former mountaineer, hill and moorland walker in all weathers, (that includes using ice axe and crampons, but heavier gloves are used in those conditions), I’ve found those gloves to be pretty damned good in normal icy winter conditions, and also to operate me DSLR and compact cameras.

However, they will not work on a mobile device touch screen. To do that you will need to use something like "The North Face" e-Tip gloves, which do work well on touch screens, though you might find those which have wind chill added to their list of features more beneficial on the colder windier days.

The North Face E-Tip

https://www.thenorthface.co.uk/shop/en-gb/tnf-gb/etip-gloves-a7ln

The North Fce Pamir E-Tip

https://www.thenorthface.com/shop/pamir-windstopper-etip-gloves-nf0a2t83#hero=0

Many thanks, Mike, both for the advice on the gloves and kind words about all my photos.

I find it takes roughly 20 to 25 minutes for my fingers to warm up to the point where taking a photograph isn't painful. I guess you know all about that. Strangely, after this point I am happy to wander around holding my camera with bare hands for ten or twenty minutes at a time.

Before that point there is frantic removal of gloves for that all important shot; ignoring the pain. Then putting gloves back on and shoving them into any pocket that offers a modicum of warmth. I got very good at pocket billiards.  :-)

I will probably only need the RAB Power gloves. The coldest temperatures I've wandered around the reserves in this winter is minus 5 or 6, with no wind.  No where near the conditions you've experienced.  Typically it has been a balmy minus one to six degrees this winter.

It's just that initial 20 to 25 minutes that is so uncomfortable. No idea why; always been that way.

I do find it quite a serene experience, wandering around the 'reserves' just before sun up. I can go for hours without seeing a soul, and it is so peaceful and quiet. After all, I am the only fool out there, that early in the morning and in those weather conditions.