Thursday 29th May 2014, 2.25pm (day 1,008)
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.
Being 42
Life, one day at a time
Tag Archives: nature
The Muscovy duck finds a companion
Wednesday 28th May 2014, 4.10pm (day 1,007)
It is over two years since this creature set up home in Hebden Bridge marina, first appearing on the blog in February 2012. As I have observed before, it is a long way from its natural home. I saw it standing outside the entrance to the tourist information office this afternoon, and thought at first that it was after food or something, but looking at this shot I wonder whether it might not just have been finding company in its reflection. This is the Muscovy duck’s fourth appearance on the blog (the remaining unlinked one is here) — few people have been on it as often.
On the canal, Manchester city centre
Wednesday 21st May 2014, 9.35am (Day 1,000)
So here we are. It would have been nice to get a shot of something highly significant, or a brilliant capture, to mark day 1,000 of this blog, but while a family of Canada geese is maybe not something one would expect to see in Manchester city centre, like this blog’s previous 999 pictures it’s just a scene from a life.
I don’t go out of the way to get these, anything you see on this blog is just something I have passed in the course of my day. And that’s why I’m still doing it — it’s the same impulse that has kept me writing a personal diary for thirty years, it’s the recording that is the point. Thank you for making it to day 1,000 with me — as far as I can predict, I will be back tomorrow.
As it is a nice round number, I have also updated the ‘Best of the Rest‘ and Stats pages.
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).
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.
Golden Mantellas, Manchester Museum
Sunday 23rd February 2014, 11.30am (day 913)
Had to go into Manchester today. Once the errand was done, Joe and I passed some time in the Manchester Museum, which is on the university campus but which I have managed never to properly explore in the 8 years I have worked there. It’s a good natural history and anthropological museum, in fact. These frogs are native to Madagascar and critically endangered in the wild. They’re toxic, though not extremely so.
Being 42 