Le Tour De France

Been back in UK for a while now, but it has not been any photographing. Not here and not in Croatia either. It has been mostly work on the summer house so photography will have to wait untill I go back next time.
However, during the weekend Tour De France has been here in South Yorkshire. During the Saturday they cycled from York to Leeds, Sunday was our turn here in Sheffield and today they are cycling from Cambridge to London.
This might be the only time having this kind of event on my door step, and what's the best way of enjoying it? Disposable BBQ, middle of nowhere and some nice company.

Being there rather early gave us the opportunity to choose a good spot, and just enjoy the weather until they would pass us. 

The wait was rather long, although the caravan with all sorts of fun and entertainment started to pass by an hour two before. Which was a bit refreshing.
Eventually when the conductor peloton with leading cyclists swished past it all was over

in seconds, the average speed is around 40-45km/h which is pretty quick ;)



Obviously there were more cyclists further back swishing by in cluster but it felt like it was over when the leading group passed, so we packed up (had already been standing there for almost 5 hours) went home.
The race ended in Don Valley, further into Sheffield, unfortunately its not possible to be in two places at once.
                                                                          

It was impossible to miss that tour de france was in town 

Sheffield center first days race

More signs

People wrote messages on the road and was hoping that the helicopter was going to film it

Crowded

From the caravan

More caravan

Caravan

caravan

More crowds

Soon they are here

And there is one

more

                                                                           

Early morning and Cuckoo

On Friday, I took the bike up to Redmires reservoirs early in the morning to give it a go on finding the cuckoo and to get some pictures. The weather wasn't to bad either which helped :)
I arrived around 5:30 and the cuckoo was nowhere to find. Usually if its active you hear it straight away. Gladly, just half hour later I could hear it calling, which just means now I had to find where it is. It flies around lots, but by mimicking its calling you can get it to at least check out what you are. Lucky No other people were there :)) And the mimicking worked! I managed to get it curious so it flew past me many times during the morning.
The cuckoo is a bit special, as you might already know. It doesn't build its own nests at all, it lays an egg in a nest that already have eggs and preferably of small birds. It can adapt the color of its egg to the hosts! Then the female cuckoo takes away most of the hosts eggs from the nest, and leave its own egg to its fate. The female looking then for next nest and does this about 9 times. Amazing..... 
The birds that end up with a cuckoo's egg take care of it as its own, incubate it and feeds it when it hatch. I wonder what they think when the cuckoo chick grows into a much bigger chicks than they thought their would be :)
Now I'm off to Croatia for 2 weeks, to do some refurbishment on our summer house. Obviously the camera will be going with me!

See you in couple of weeks, Enjoy the summer!
                                                                       

 

 

Curlew

 

Cuckoo

 

Cuckoo

 

Cuckoo

 

Goldfinch

Some pics from Rivelin valley

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Menade du: Jag har under 3 dagar försökt igen att fotografera kungsfiskare

 

Earlier this week, for 3 days I had been trying to photograph the kingfisher but unfortunately without any good results. It also seems that it is about to leave the place for good, as it today did even show itself once. I couldn't either find it on any of the other ponds.
Anyhow, some good news, the dipper has come back to Rivelin! It is building the nest, and it has lots to do as it last year got flushed away. I'm look forward to taking pictures of them later in the spring and summer.
Since I have not been able to photograph the kingfisher I have tried to take pictures of other things while walking around. No remarkable images but fun to try to find some other stuff too sometimes. Spring has truly arrived quickly this year and every day the temperatures have been around +10C. Flowers like crocus, snowdrops and daffodils are already flowering everywhere and it feels incredibly good to see some green again.
By the time you read this, I'm already in Kalix in Sweden visiting my brother and his family. We're going up to the mountains and snowmobiling which will be awesome. I will try to blog from Kalix too, but no promises :)

 

                                                                      

Dipper watching their nest

It was nice weather on Saturday..

which leads to us taking a long walk. Actually not a long long one, as it was just over the hills from Lodge Moor to Hathersage, a walk of about 9km.
From the flat to Lodge Moor its a 10min bus ride towards peak district. Which was our starting point, and before you reach Hathersage you both pass Redmires reservoir and Stanage Edge.
As usual I was looking and listening for the wildlife, but during this time of year it is rather 'dead' and so it was that day too.
At the Stanage Edge it was rather windy, but with +10C in air it didn't matter that much, and along the edge its self, there was a lot of hikers and climbers.
Due to the wind and the exposure of the location it was here you could clearly see the victims that the latest storms had claimed.
From the Stanage Edge its just straight downwards to Hathersage which was our final stop. As the weather was really nice, we enjoyed tea in the sunshine and the pleasant warmth of spring.

The pics is taken with Nikon 3Ds and Nikon 50mm 1.8D lens.
                                                                        

Kingfisher

At last, the storms and rainfall seems to have died out, and I have ventured out on photo adventure again :)
As you probably have seen on the news, it has been Very windy and rainy here for the past few months. To be honest, some of the days it has been ok weather for few hours, but I have since not had the energy and inspiration to take photographs.
So yesterday and today I have been down to a valley where I 've seen the kingfisher the whole winter and it was still there. Yesterday I didn't manage to get any good pictures of it at all, so I tried again this morning and it went much better. I positioned myself so that I could photograph it while it was sitting on one of his favorite branches that are quite high up above the water. You can clearly see that it is one of its favourites because of all the marks from its claws. Obviously I had the camouflage on otherwise it's impossible to get closer than 5 - 6m.
During the three hours I was there, it only sat on the branch 3 times! I would have liked to be there longer, but my back was beginning to hurt as I was standing the whole time. The camera was on the tripod rather high up so I could get on the same level as the kingfisher.
I will try next time, perhaps already tomorrow but it depends on the weather, to try and get some pictures while it is hunting and diving into the water.
                                                                         

The Kingfisher sitting on one of its favorite branches



The colorful Kingfisher

As mentioned in the previous post, I have been trying to get a good close-up of a kingfisher down in the Rivelin Valley. They are a bit easier to see during the winter months, not sure why, so I have for the past few years focused on them during this period of year. Like this time, I have stalked that poor bird to take a photo for the past two weeks but it didn't really want to land close to me. Its only 15cm, so you need it close, even when I use the 550mm! 
So couple of days ago I went down to the valley rather early one morning and was hiding in front of one of its favourite landing twigs just 5m away which should make it more that just a dot on a pic. The tripod was up, as the camouflage and the wait began.
After an hour my feet and butt got numb, even though I was sitting on a rather comfortable pad. After another half an hours the kingfisher chose to show itself, but only by fishing on the completely opposite side to where I was.
Just for a moment it landed on a twig close to me, of course on one which I didn't have the focus on, and I thought that was the chance I had that day. It got scared off by me moving around underneath the camouflage.
As any dedicated (read insane) photographer I waited for another four hours while loosing all the feeling in my legs, and then It was suddenly back and sat on the perfect spot that I had focus on!
Yes it takes a lot of patience to take good pictures of wildlife, and I'm not sure everybody is actually aware of that, but it is definitely worth it.

I was out today to the same place, wanting to take a picture of it fishing. Unfortunately it came by the pond only to show itself, stayed for around a minute before leaving to never came back.
No, I didn't stay and wait for it for four hours :))

Until next time, have a great week!
                                                                  

 

More heather from the Peak district NP

After we came home from Wales  I had time to take the rental car to the Peak district NP one evening and I went to a place called Hathersage moor.
I checked for places in Google that are worth visiting in the Peak District when the heather is in bloom and this place was good to visit.
There would be quite a lot of heather and it was, so now it was just to wait for the sunset but unfortunately the thin nice clouds that i wanted disappeared so the pictures where not quite as I wanted, but this was the only chance to shoot heather at sunset this year.
Several evenings before, it looked promising but a few hours before sunset the clouds came and thats not what I wanted.  I mean I wanted clouds but not so much that the sun disappears :)
Why do I mention the clouds so much, because the right amount of clouds in the sky offers nicer images, because the sun can shine on them and gives a little extra color and depth. Without clouds the sky just gets boring blue which is nice sometimes.
Now it's only 5 days left until we fly to U.S and I'm really looking forward to the trip.