Sunday 18th May 2014, 3.05pm (day 997)
“…what the **** are you looking at?”
Another beautiful day. Three days to go until a major milestone.
Being 42
Life, one day at a time
Category Archives: Flora/Fauna
Rhododendron flowers
Saturday 17th May 2014, 2.05pm (day 996)
An absolutely glorious day today, a perfect summer’s day. These flowers were pictured up in Midgehole, near the entrance to Hardcastle Crags, where we were gathering wild garlic to cook and eat with dinner. I love this time of year.
Just oozin’ around
Thursday 8th May 2014, 9.00am (day 987)
It’s been a good few days for wildlife shots. Believe it or not, this photo was taken at Hebden Bridge railway station — the moss here being located at the top of the wall near the place where I always stand at platform 1. No crawling around required. I love the languid way it has draped itself over the sprig of moss.
Goldfinch
Tuesday 6th May 2014, 4.25pm (day 985)
This is the shot I meant to take, but it was still luck — I didn’t even think I’d focused it properly and a microsecond after I pushed the shutter the bird was gone. Was torn between posting this one and one of a butterfly I also got today (also something of a fluke) — had I posted last night you’d have got the butterfly but this one wins this morning, so it’s in. Yes, I’d rather the sticks weren’t there — but so be it.
Blackbird and blossom
Friday 2nd May 2014, 4.45pm (day 981)
More avifauna. And a pic that shows we are at least a couple of weeks ahead with various signs of the seasons this year, to compare with last (see 29/5/13).
Wildfowl wanderings
Thursday 1st May 2014, 10.45pm (day 980)
Why did the ducks and Canada goose cross the road? To get to the other side, of course.
London squirrel
Monday 28th April 2014, 10.15am (day 977)
Day trip to London today, for a meeting — left home at 6am and was coming into King’s Cross at 10. This chap was foraging in St George’s Gardens, a small public park set up by the Victorians on the site of an old cemetery, in what is now Bloomsbury (so we move from St George’s Square yesterday to St George’s Gardens). It was not as fearless as some of the squirrels in the more touristy parks, so needed a longish zoom to capture, but then again it did not seem particularly bothered by my presence either, which is one reason why these creatures do so well in London I guess.
Bumblebee in big trouble
Wednesday 23rd April 2014, 9.35am (day 972)
I know this is an essentially crap photo, with the focus all wrong, but it was a dramatic moment, at least at the micro-scale. I was trying to get a photo of this bumblebee as it buzzed around the plants by our front door, when suddenly it blundered into this web down by our old coal cellar, where the cave spiders live. Now I don’t know about you but if something one and a half times my size — and bumblebees, in insect terms, are not small — came leaping out at me with the intention of making me lunch, I think my life would flash before my eyes even if it was just an insect life. Three seconds later the bumblebee escaped, but I bet those were the longest three seconds it had ever known. I managed to get this one shot of the drama.
Frog spawn
Sunday 16th March 2014, 2.10pm (day 934)
The mill pond upstream from us, from where the flash flood claim on July 9th 2012, has now mostly silted up, but there is still life in it.
Waiting for the Manchester train
Monday 10th March 2014, 8.55am (day 928)
When awaiting the 8:56 morning service to Manchester, stand by the first station sign board beyond the edge of the canopy. That’s where the front coach stops and there are plenty of seats. Because it was a gloriously sunny morning, my spot was occupied by these guys today, but their cute dog caught great rim-light so I let them off.
Being 42 