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.
My knowledge of ornithology is not that fine-tuned, so I can’t identify which of the 40 or so species this is, but it’s definitely a cormorant. I’m travelling again — this is taken in Norway, but not on the sea: instead, this fine specimen was resting on Stavanger’s city centre lake, Breivatnet, which has featured on the blog before.
I like the way this bird (which apparently is a jackdaw, not a rook as I originally identified it) looks aspirational, as if it’s seen something up there and (unlike poor grounded humanity) knows that within a couple of seconds it can reach it. I also like the focus and the lines of the slates below it. All not bad going for 6.45am, the first time I’ve done a shot remotely at this time since November.
Oh, more waterfowl. Don’t care though — I’m very proud of this shot. The leg looks amazing. And if I had a neck that flexible I am sure that lots of opportunities would become available.
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.
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).
Christmas at the in-laws’ in Morecambe ends with this nice little scene, photographed from the front room (hence through glass, explaining the blotches of yellow light below the sparrow on the right — they are reflections).
Sometimes one just has to return to a theme. Taken from near my sister’s place in Sabden, Lancashire, where we went today for a pre-Christmas gathering.
This blog has featured three photos taken in this park, each on one of my biannual trips to Rose Bruford College in Sidcup, one of the University of Manchester’s collaborative partners — the park and the college grounds are all basically the same place. I like Lamorbey Park, one of those ‘nice spots’ that the world still retains. Among its interesting and attractive birdlife are a colony of parakeets, clearly escaped pets, and unconcerned by the imminent winter despite their tropical origins. I know this is another out-of-focus shot, but the light was so dull and grey today, and in the end I was happy enough with the exotic fauna to live with the picture’s technical defects.
This Muscovy duck now lives permanently by the canal in the centre of town, opposite the Railway pub. (The wood beneath it on this photo is the gate of the dry dock.) It has been here for nearly two years now, and this is its third appearance on the blog, making it the first animal to definitively appear on here three times (as many times as my mother-in-law, I note…). According to Avian Web, the species is native to South America but is spreading through North America. It is certainly not native to the UK, or even Europe. Either it got blown a long way from home or — more likely — it is an escaped pet. It seems to have found for itself an amenable spot to retire to, either way.
Being 42 