Kicking off this year's odds and sods with Starlings in a rainbow on that extreme rarity: sunshine.
It was early morning, with the sun barely cresting the tree line. We were able to get out for our morning walk as it wasn't raining. This photo is my trusty Canon 80D and Sigma 18-300mm lens zoomed in at 300mm.
Pulling back a bit.
And finally all the way back.
Oh, 2024 got off to a good start with this.
So far my cat, perhaps two neighbouring cats visiting our garden, a local fox and Tawny owl, and this trap have accounted for at least five of the beasties. Sightings of rats in our garden are getting rarer, so I think I'm winning. Two rather timid and wary rats, that I know of, are proving more elusive to catch. I've resorted to buying a lethal trap. The trap was triggered, yesterday, but no rat, sadly. Though a mouse might have triggered it, and was small enough to be within the kill bar.
90% luck, 5% field craft, 5% camera skills.
Monks Dale is a bit of a limestone, ankle-twisting boulder-fest isn't it?
I once went down the Wye (from the Buxton end) a couple of times. First time I had to carry the kids across the stepping blocks (where the crags close in on the river course) when the river was a bit high. We 'escaped' up to Wormhill.
The second time I went further down. To discover a wheely bin 'parked' up in the elemental nature of Chee Dale Nature Reserve.
Crackin' photos Hazy ... . Well captured!. I probably just prefer the second one ... but only just ... .
Lovely photo's Hazy
Caught this little one having a sneaky 40 winks with its mate around our garden pond area.
Have they laid any eggs?
2013 photos & vids here
eff37 on Flickr
Not found any Wendy. Nor have I seen any ducklings.
super shot Hazel and very lucky it perched on a dead tree by the looks. A lovely bird and cracking photos
Great Photos Hazel.
"Monks Dale is a bit of a limestone, ankle-twisting boulder-fest isn't it?"
That will be the one. We had the added excitement of all the smooth boulders being wet. Quite lethal.
Thank you for all your replies and liking my photos.
Had a bad wake up, this morning. Got out of bed, found lights not working. Immediate thought, can't be power cut as we are running on battery, and have been since March. Second thought, oh no battery controller's at fault. I'll need to contact installer. Well, wait a couple of hours.
Came down stairs. Lighting works. Phew. Checked circuit breaker panel. Seemed OK.
Back into kitchen, put kettle on, didn't work. Not surprised, as it has been playing up recently. Brought out emergency spare. Didn't work. Weirdly, soon realised half of downstairs sockets do not work. Fridge/freezer was not on working circuit. Got extension cable out and ran it from dining room to utility room and plugged fridge/freezer into it.
Remembered circuit breaker had two circuits, each protected by a master switch. Pushed master switch up. Appliance made operating noise. Master switch immediately switched off.
Blast! That means there's a dodgy light or appliance connected to circuit. I'll have to go round unplugging every appliance or device, and unscrewing every lightbulb from affected circuits to work out the faulty one.
Suspicion shouted loudly from back of my feeble brain. Try the dodgy kettle first. Halleluiah! That was it. Not something you want to do at 4:30 in the morning.
Anyway, we made the most of yesterday's fleeting summer which we had in very sunny Finchampstead. Finally managed to get some major gardening done - far too wet till now. Almost had heatstroke. Then stopped at 15:00 to continue playing with CRAW burst mode.
Got tripod out. Settled myself at one end of back garden, under garden table umbrella, and waited. All the birds that had buzzed around during previous six hours of gardening had disappeared. Argh!
Eventually, some stalwarts made an appearance. Still learning how and when to use burst mode (more will be put in my other post), but did manage this sequence.
Do we have rolling shutter here? Or are the Robin's feather's really that long in proportion to it's body length.
There's more, but the Canon R7 wouldn't or couldn't track the Robin, and so it got fuzzier.