On quiet days spent working at home, at least the ducks down by the river in town usually provide a photo opportunity. This one gave it up for the camera but definitely was after something in return, like food, mainly.
Sometimes these photos are planned. When Joe (birthday yesterday) was born the ground was strewn with crocuses (croci?) like these and my mum-in-law predicted the flowers would become a symbol of this event in our lives. She was right. I passed these growing plants in the Sackville Street gardens in Manchester yesterday (home of the Alan Turing statue) but there was no time to get a shot. Repeating the walk to work today though I spent a few minutes there to see what I could do to mark this sign of spring.
Pictured by the canal this afternoon. The one on the right is flexing his/her muscles, or giving its wings a stretch. I don’t know if these are males or females — unlike with mallards it seems rather difficult to tell.
As captured in Leeds’ Meanwood Valley Urban Farm, which is why I could get close enough to this beast, for long enough, to be able to get the shot. But semi-tame animals can still look good, if I had eyelashes like that I’d pull big style.
Night out in Leeds to celebrate the birthday of our friend Caroline, will she let me tell you which number birthday it was? Ends in a zero, anyway. This tree sits outside her house, snapped it late on. I like the windows of the houses at the bottom which give it some added interest.
Two days in a row of pictures taken by the side of the canal. This dog barked in a kind of elderly fashion at me as I walked past this morning. Honour was satisfied, without troubling either side, but it still woke up the owner.
A little snow this morning, enough to provide the sort of wintry scene I was hoping for yesterday, but not enough to last through the day. Took myself up into the wood before work to see what I could capture, and took this one before the posse of ducks drifted in front of the fallen branches and spoiled the reflections.
As a contrast to the fighting poultry of a few days ago, here, a much more serene couple. Little to see today, a second day in a row spent mostly working at home with grey light — declining daylight and a longish zoom account for this shot’s lack of focus.
The muscovy ducks on the marina were getting aggressive this afternoon. Two began fighting, I assume over the third, all-white one (a female?) visible in the background of this shot, looking on while the battle she has provoked rages in her honour. Couldn’t alter the camera settings quickly enough to have a chance of capturing the shot with any sharpness, considering how fast they were moving in the low light. But what gets me about it is their placid-looking smiley faces, which here persist even when a rival is pecking on one’s back.
And so, the last post of 2014. The last three New Year’s Eves I have posted from some party or other and I did go to one tonight, but this is a nicer shot than I managed there. Appropriate too — it’s the 7th day of Christmas, my true love gave to me seven swans-a-swimming I believe… Happy New Year.
