Golden Plower And More

Yesterday I went up  4:00 and then cycle to Redmires reservoir, had no great expectations went mostly there just to see what's up. It was a nice sunrise, but after half an hour so it was quite overcast, which was a bit sad for according to weather forecast, it would at least be partly cloudy. On site, I looked after a bird that they had seen there the day before, and it was a sacred ibis is a true rarity. But no trace of it unfortunately, so I went to the place where I usually see the cuckoo up close. But it did not get to where I sat, but the cuckoo was in the area that could be heard all the time. Could not sit there in the cold and the wind so I started walking in the area, I get to a place where there are usually not so many people. because there i have better chance to see birds which is not disturbed. But now  it was so early, anyway.  On the way there came two oystercatcher flying in fairly close, so I took some pictures of them. Then went a bit further and saw a snipe flying in with their special sounds, and after a while so I come to a party with a bunch of heather fields and this is where I found the golden plower. It was a group of 10 pc but unfortunately  it's difficult to get close to these birds, partly because the national park rangers has turned off the areas where the birds nest which is good but Also because they simply are shy. Then I went around the area for a while but found nothing special so I went home again; I was at home at 10.

Golden Plower/Ljungpipare

Nice morning

Oystercatcher/Strandskata

Canada goose chicks

Curlew calling

Flowers with the 50mm F1,8 Lens

Today I went and my wife to the botanical garden, just to stroll around and look at the nice flowers available. The weather was overcast, which is good I think when you're shooting flowers, it becomes a more even light without too harsh contrasts that it can be in the sun. Many of the spring flowers are gone but it had come up fresh flowers, so it was no problem finding motifs. And today, I wanted a little challenge myself by taking photos with a fixed 50mm f1, 8 which is very bright, sharp and provides a stunning bokeh. Bokeh is called as the picture is not in focus. When using a shallow depth of field that you get with an aperture of 1.8 it will be behind and in front of more blurred. Hope you understand otherwise you might see it in the pictures. :) The lens is widely used for portraits as well, just for the short depth of field and bokeh's sake. U can for example take a facial image and only the eyes are sharp, which gives a nice effect to the image. Because it is a fixed lens, you get to move to find great photo angles there by then it is a challenge. If you have a zoom so you can always just zoom in on the object. It may look like you have shot with a macro, but with a macro, it will be much, much closer which is nice too. But it might be fun to vary a bit, and if you could capture with macro in the same way as with the 50mm lens. The macro lens maximum aperture usually 2.8 which of course does not give as much bokeh.

Click on the the pictures to enlarge them!

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The Mandarin Duck

Rain rain rain, well what can you do when you live in England, summer seems to rain away. But that's what everyone says, that summer in England is rainy. hopefully the autumn is warm and dry. Well now it has been raining for about a week  not constant but it feels like it, so now it was time to go out and shoot birds that have a wet look. Put on my rain clothes and went out, but once I arrive at the location that today was Endcliff park well, then its stops raining : (  not wanted that now, I wanted to shoot wet birds. As I stood there by the pond, I saw herons and Greylag Goose which was not completely wrong, I had come to take pictures anyway. But when I was about to put together camera equipment,  there was  a Mandarin landing about ten feet from me. Hooray! I think finally, I photograph this beautiful duck, it was fortunate that it was not so shy, so I could get it pretty close. Well at least 5-6m away from it. I took pictures of it for a few hours and in different varieties, and it was well about 400 pictures, now stripped to 40 pcs. Unfortunately, the wall of the pond was in the way of getting pictures from a really low level that is really nice. But I am very pleased with these anyway, I thought it was a lovely light out even it was overcast. It helped that the images had a nice light, I think, anyway. :)

Wonderful colours

Feather cleaning

Taking a walk

nice reflection

stretching the wings

Greylag goose and heron

Greylag goose

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Bambi!!

On Monday, I was up to Redmires again and of course it was the owl that I wanted to get the picture.
Cycled there in the evening, for it is most often the owls come out to hunt. But not this evening, not what I saw in all cases, the area's large so it's probably hard to find them. But the evening gave good weather, partly cloudy with Sunbeams and warm. What I also noticed was that the small gnats had come, and they were everywhere and very hungry. Luckily I had the camonet that I could hide under.
And today I have been to a new place which is just 4 km away from me, has always wanted to go there to explore a bit so today I was there. It's a pretty big birch forest with steep rock walls, did not really know what I was hoping to run into. But once I got there I heard the cuckoo  which is always nice, so I was looking for it for a while. Cuckoo brought me into the forest full of fern-like plants, and they were quite high from 50-100cm. felt a bit like walking in a rainforest or something.
After a while I came up to the cliff edge and followed it for a couple of miles, while I was up here so I ran into hares, kestrel, cuckoo, pheasant, squirrel, woodpecker and some other few birds. After three hours I started getting hungry so I started walking towards the bike. But while I was walking through the dense ferns I saw something, that was a few meters away behind a small stone. It was a little Bambi :);) which pleased me since I have never been so close to a small roe deer kid, I wanted to of course do not scare it, but now I stood there, so I might as well take some photos of it. And it did not seem so afraid it was nice there and was also there when I left it. And something else that was nice in the woods was that there were rhododendron bushes in the forest that gave a nice splash of color there, a little unexpected to see that sort of thing.

Bambi :) Roe deer/rådjur

Cuckoo/Gök

Can u see me, oh yes i can ;)

Nice sunbeam

Sunbeam

Rhododendron in the forest

Fern

Nice colours

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Mixed pictures from the week

This time it will be some mixed pictures from the week that soon will be over. Have, been to redmires in the evening to try and take pictures of owl, but no owls were found. But it was nice to watch the sunset in the heat. Since I have been two trips down to the Rivelin Valley, which now is very dark because of the dense leaf forest. But it is quite nice, when the sun tries to break down to the valley, nicely with the dark and light. Down in the Rivelin has the Mayflies started to hatch, but unfortunately it was only a few days. Did not get the pictures I wanted, I thought a picture of a hatching Mayfly would be nice. But it may well be next year: ( Otherwise, I have taken some macro photos of insects, flowers and stuff. Today Sunday as the rain pours down, so it is well to sit at home and wait for better weather. Hopefully, I'm off tomorrow and then maybe Redmires at evening and hunt for owl continues. See U

Redmire

Rivelin Valley

Caddis

Mayfly, the biggest one (body 20-40mm)

Heavy rain

Reflections

Nice little flower

Hmm whats this hairy thing

Long-tailed tit

Nice golden colours

Mayfly