Stanage Edge (Peak District)

Last night, despite the bad weather, I decided to take me to Stanage Edge again to try to shoot the ring ouzel. The weather forecast showed that it could be sunny in the evening. Took the bus today, and then went the last 5 km walking to the site, it took an hour in the pouring rain and fog: ( But when a was at Stanage edge so it stopped raining, but the fog remained.
Could see a slight improvement in the sky but it was short-lived. Took out the camera from the bag, today I had the D90 and 200-400mm f4 lens. Took that  kompinationen because it givs 300-600mm f4, and this is not entirely wrong when you're shooting animals and birds. But unfortunately, so is the D90 completely useless when u haft to have high Iso. I took the pictures today at ISO 1000 which is not so much for today's cameras, but with the D90 then the images are noisy.
Found ring ouzel directly but they were not quite where I expected, so now I was doing some climbing after steep slopes to access the birds, which was not so fun. Because the rain made ​​everything slippery. 
But some pictures I managed to get anyway even if they're not super. The image I was after, was that the bird would be in a place with low grass which was wet by the rain and because of that the foreground and background should get very nice water droplets Bokeh and then some last glimts of sun to that. That would be a dream picture. ;) maybe next time then.

Click on the pictures to enlarge them.

Ring ouzel/ringtrast

Ring ouzel

Ring Ouzel

Ring ouzel

Foggy Stanage Edge

Low clouds

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One day in York

Yesterday my wife and I decided to do some sightseeing in a small-town an hour's journey by train from Sheffield, the town  known as York. The city was full of tourists, which is not surprising with the history it has. Founded by the Romans in 71 after christ and in 600's it was christened by king Edwin of northumbria. In 866 it was attacked by a large Viking fleet and they remained there until 954, as that year the city was taken back by the Anglo-Saxons. As u can read there is a lot  of history, but i will not go in to more details. The city's most touristy place is the great church (York Minster) it date from the 1230's. And it is quite impressive, especially inside. Like most old churches it has its cool features, columns and nicely patterned glass windows. We spent 2 hours in there, and while we're in there there was also a wedding. Though the section was closed then, but you could see everything if you wanted to and heard all through the speakers. After that we took a walk in the old part of town, where we stopped at the leaning houses (Scrambles) which are also photographed extensively. As a last thing we walked around the city wall that runs almost around the entire city.
I can recommend this small town if you want one-day-sightseeing.
The pictures are taken with D90 and 10-24 wide-angle lens.

Click on the pictures to enlarge them.

Funny looking goose :)

Flooding

York Minster

Inside York Minster

Chapter House a part of York Minster

Chapter house roof

York Minster

York Minster

York Minster the highest point of the roof

Leaning Houses

Flooding

The Ring Ouzel

Yesterday I took the bus to Logde moor, and from there I went to a place called Stanage Edge. From Logde moor It`s about 6km walk, and on the way I passed Redmires Reservoirs.
Of course, I stopped there for a moment to check if there were any unusual birds on site. But it did not so I took some photos of common sandpiper and took the opportunity to hide under a tree while the rain poured down, there came another big rain when I was up on the moorland and there is no protection, good thing I had rainwear.
Met a guy who did not had it, and he was quite wet and looked generally glum;) Arriving at Stanage Edge, so I first admired the landscape, but then I saw two Kestrel hunting at the edge and there was a bird who was annoyed at those two. And the small bird that chased the two suddenly landed a ten meters from me and I could not believe it but it was a Ring Ouzel, I've looked after this bird all spring but now it stood there.
So it was just to take some pictures of it, but then it flew away, I sat there thinking that it might come back and it did, but now even closer. ;) After a while I went for a walk on the edge to check if I could find the Falcons, but I gave up after an hour when they just flew around high in the air. then went back to the ring ouzel and tried to take me even closer to it, was a little surprised that it was not so very timid, good for me because it mostly came back at the same point.
I think I tried to shoot it for about 3h and the closest I was about 6-7m. i think under 3h I saw it 5-6 times. Now, many think, but it's a thrush, the more certain it is a thrush, but a  unusual one, it lives in the mountains and in rocky parts. And there are not very many of them. And  commonly so they are shy and not so easily seen. And it was a new check in the bird book

Ring Ouzel/Ringtrast (female i think)

Stanage Edge it is like this in 5km

After the rain (white peak) 

Sandpiper in rain

Just after the rain

tree pipit

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Rivelin Valley in the evening

Last night, I just had to go out, it has been raining now for 4 days. So it was getting boring being home especially when you have good rain gear.
But yesterday I braved the rain and took the bike down to the Rivelin Valley around 18:30, going to try me on the long-term exposures. Down there, it was of course even darker because of the dense foliage, but it did nothing that was what I wanted.
Walked around for a while to find interesting subjects, wanted to find some sort of backwater, so that I could photograph it. It can get quite interesting motif of this stuff, did not really find any nice backwater but I got some pictures. After a while it started to rain even more, and now began the moisture really get into the clothes, it does not help that you walk on steep trails and similar ;)
Photographed a few interesting sections of the streams before I gave up at 21:30.
All photos are taken with tripod and a shutter time,  between 15-30 seconds and manual mode. On the way home I saw a fox, my first here in england. So now I know that there is one there that I might have an opportunity to shoot sometime. ;)
Today it is raining again and it will continue raining 4-5 days yet, but I'll take me to Redmires anyway.

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Golden Plower in Redmires

As I wrote in the previous blog post I hoped the weather would clear up at night and it did. So, at: 18.00, I took and biked up to Redmires, forecast had promised Cloudy with rain, but when I checked out from the apartment, it was clear skies and warm in the air but still it was windy, which I felt when I approached Redmires for up there it is pretty open.
You could say that Redmires is low mountain area. My goal was to shoot Golden plower for now they had taken the prohibition to enter open access land, so now it was free to go wherever I wanted, among heather bushes.
For it is there most of the Golden plower is hiding, but it is easy to locate them by whistling on their special way so they usually respond directly :) found a couple that I immediately tried to sneak me in, it was just  lie down in the wet heather and creeping, crawling up to them. As the closest I was about 20m away wanted to of course get even closer but they were right suspicious.
 I would also be if a big lump trying to creep up to me :) after that I visited  the little creek that runs there, and found my little favorite voles namely water vole. Found a small one that I took some pictures, but now the clock was already 21:00 so it was pretty dark down in the creek, So it was just to raise iso in the camera to 1000 turn on the vr function and lie down on the ground, so I got some sharp image.
But now it was time to start getting back home did not go home directly, but biking around the area in search of owls before it was pitch black outside. But unfortunately, the owls won again: (: (

Here is some pics from there.


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Pied Wagtail

Golden Plower/Ljung pipare

The little quite water vole

Linnet/Hämpling

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Lapwing and the moon in background

One evening on the bike

Last evening I biked down to the Rivelin Valley in search of owls, primarily Little Owl. The owl is only 21-23 cm long, so even if it's there, you have to see it, which I unfortunately did not. I have some bad luck with my owls searching because I manage to not find them anywhere. : (But the weather could hardly have been better sunshine and 23 degrees, I can not complain. Did a little detour into the woods thinking I could maybe see a badger at least or a fox, but of course I did not see it either. What I was thinking about was the lack of mosquitoes, which was really nice because when I was in northern Sweden, it was different, as soon as you stopped when you were out walking they came in rather large swarms not so fun to take pictures then ;) But I managed to see a new bird species and it was a Whitethroat not a good picture of it though. Saw also sparrow hawk, Kestrel and a buzzard that I got some pictures of, the other two were too far away. Between 20:00 to 22:00 I biked on small village roads where they've seen owls, the roads go through the animal farms and there tends to be owls because there are usually also the rodents. After 22:00, it is no great idea to be left on, then it's already so dark that it nearly impossible to take pictures.
And today it is thunder and raining so I do not really feel like going out, but will see in the evening if it clears up, then maybe I cycle up to Redmires.

Beatiful butterfly

Blackcap/Svarthätta

Buzzard/Ormvråk

Buzzard

Whitethroat (female)

Swallow

Carrion crows gathers for evening

Whitethroat (male) no good picture ;)