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.
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.
Day trip down South for my annual appearance at the Rose Bruford College exam board. A year ago tomorrow I snapped one of Lamorbey Park’s colony of parakeets, here is another resident of that green space. I did have a carefully composed urban scene taken outside King’s Cross as well, but I’ve done a few of those lately, so let’s go with the cute foraging rodent.
Pictured on the Hebden Water this afternoon. A sunny day but a damn cold one, certainly the coldest so far in 2014.
In recent months the Muscovy duck which has featured several times on this blog has been joined by four more, all said to have escaped (or been deliberately released) from a duck farm nearby — which is probably where the ‘original’ one came from as well, as this species is not native to Europe. However, if there are both boys and girls in the flock now, who knows, perhaps we could start a whole new Yorkshire colony. This is one of the newer ones, taking a drink on a Saturday afternoon.
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 said yesterday I was off travelling somewhere, and here I am, on my second visit to Nairobi. It is for work (lucky me), but today was a morning off, so with my colleagues, we visited the David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust just outside the city, where there is an orphanage for young and baby elephants. There are around 20 being cared for there, ranging from three months to a few years old. Some of them have lost their mothers to natural causes, but the majority are there because of human depredations. It’s a tourist attraction of course, but a very worthy one. No one needs ivory, for any reason at all.
I like this picture because of the apparently happy smile on the faces of both these youngsters. I was trying to get pictures without the crowd of people in the background (which I was, of course, part of) but here the just-visible heads give it a sense of scale, I think. May these children get the chance to grow to their maturity and live a full and happy life. What more can one ask of any living being.
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.
I make it there are 20 mallards in this picture, and unless I’m mistaken, every one of them is asleep. Proof of one thing anyway — ducks are sensible creatures, who keep leisurely working hours.
Apologies to the arachnophobes amongst you but I think these are beautiful and impressive creatures. I have no idea whether this is the same one I’ve captured before; there is definitely more than one living in our sheds, possibly three big ones or more. As long as their webs are not disturbed they make quite willing models.
Being 42 