Captured while out on the second very good walk in three days, this time round Hebden Bridge with my and my sister’s families. Sometimes I wonder why I’m still doing this blog but once in a while it pays off. (When I first posted this I called it “Violet” but actually it is Wood Cranesbill (Geranium sylvaticum).)
More greenery! More waterfowl! It may or may not rain heavily tomorrow, but after my complaints yesterday, today was a beautiful day.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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).
Why did the ducks and Canada goose cross the road? To get to the other side, of course.
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.
Being 42 