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.
Excellent Ed. Great detail and as said supeb lighting ... . Not too mention the blue sky ...
Looks like you have been putting plenty of hard graft in there Angus. It will be worth it when you've done. I know what you mean about decking getting slippy. Fortunately I haven't got any as my back garden is part paved into a patio ...
We had another drop of 2 tons of soil, this afternoon. Sprog and I will be busy tomorrow shifting the soil to ditch. Plus, we'll dismantling some of the decking joists (using a crowbar and heavy rubber mallet), which I am repurposing (along with some of the sounder decking boards) into frames which sit on the soakaway crates bring the lot up to final soil level.
I'll teach sprog how to use my new scary toy - an electric mitre saw I bought from Screwfix last week. Power saws scare the willies out of me. I've made do with a Makita jigsaw for 50 years, but it just ain't up to sawing loads of 4"x2" timber boards. For one thing, the blades break distressingly quickly.
I thought I'd sneak this simple photo in before tomorrow's pain commences. Taken with my R7 and trusty Sigma 150-600mm C, when I had a rare moment to actually sit in our back garden. Too knacked from Saturday's efforts, though I think we all went down with some lurgy - probably that new variant Covid doing the rounds.
Beautiful Picture Angus.
Are you trying to suffer from total exhaustion Angus? You need more than a couple of days off methinks Great pic, I have that Dahlia too but not managed to catch a bumblebee on it yet!
2013 photos & vids here
eff37 on Flickr
The dahlia? Bishop of Llandaff?