Birds

Lovely weather this weekend.  Blue skies mixed with showers produced lovely rainbows!

A sunny afternoon provided the opportunity to go out and look for signs of spring.

This is the fourth weekend that I've gon looking for boxing hares. Still no joy.  I'm getting quite good at not finding them!

Went out today hoping to find some boxing hares.  I found a few hares, but they weren't very active, and didn't appear to be socialising at all.  I wonder if the cold weather dampens their ardour?<

What a lovely day.  Sunshine... not too cold... and still daylight at 5 o'clock.

A  local farmer recently convinced me that AI was the way forward - so I've been giving it a go!  Here are some of the first results.  This image was generated from the phrase "Telecomms cabinet" a

I took the in-laws to one of my favourite spots today so that they could have a walk with some nice views.  Conditions were pretty awful - dull and very grey.  However, I stayed at the car and was

Some shots from September.  Anybody remember that wonderful Indian Summer?

Jet Skiier near Altea.

A large tree in the early morning Sun.

Spotted some sheep who appeared quite content on a pile of chalk in the early morning sunshine.

This little chap was scurrying around the garden opening the chestnuts and carefully burying them.

It was nice to see the water levels rising again.  The local "lakes" and the Basingstoke Canal all seem to have about 6" more water than a couple of weeks ago.

A fly on the newspaper.

I spent an hour at a local "lake" this evening hoping to photograph some birds.  Unfortunalely, they were all spending the evening elsewhere,  apart from the coot and her chicks.  I didn't really l

These little chap looks so sweet and innocent!

A family of geese appear to have adopted me.  I can sit on the ground and they swarm all around me.  Yesterday, one of the parents lunged violently, but she passed inches away and chased another go

Spring is here and everything has sprung into life.

This little wagtail didn't notice me sitting at the lakeside enjoying the warm spring afternoon.  He landed about 40 feet away and found an insect, which he promptly devoured.  A few minutes later,

As I sat in the garden, enjoying a welcome taste of the summer, I noticed that it was time to start weeding again.  I'll probably start next week.

The lovely weather this weekend meant that a visit to Swan Lake was due.  I hadn't been there since last October.

First up were my favourite birds, the Great Crested Grebe.

A beautiful weekend saw the arrival of Spring.  I spotted a Red Admiral in the garden on Saturday morning.  In the afternoon I went to Virginia Water to try out the Camera's electronic ND filter. 

First trip to Mytchett Lake since last October.  Weather was lovely, if a bit cold. Spring is definitely on the way   The reflections in this shot are entirely natural.

Mucking about with long exposures and smoke.

Just for giggles...

Some sunshine meant that it was possible to take shots with reasonable ISO and shutter settings.   I'm very pleased with the results.  Unfortunately, there wasn't any touching of claws today. 

I spent a couple of hours trying to get some shots of "Courting Kites", but they didn't seem too amourous today.  However, the light was good, so the trip wasn't wasted.

Second attempt at a video.

This is my first attempt at making a video.  I'm still learning to use the EM1 camera, so I didn't realise that there was no autofocus available when shooting "slo-mo" at 120 fps.  However,  I love

I went out underovercast skies to see how the camera would perform under low light conditions.  There were many images of very poor quality, but there were also a few gems.  This is, without doubt

This was an accidental shot.  I was testing the camera's performance in poor light.  While trying to photograph red kites I heard a familiar chirping.  I looked around just as the robin landed and

This should do well in the search engines.

Saw this stonechat while I was spotting kites.

I found this swing in a small patch of woodland.  It caught my eye because the nearest house was  700 yards away.  This was a very secret spot.

I've no idea what this is!

The version was opened in Affinity Photo instead of the usual Olympus Workspace:

First attempt at landscape photography.  A telegraph pole and wires have been "shopped"  out.  Otherwise this is as it came out of the camera.

Gosh, it's getting dark early!

This is my first attempt at time lapse  It has come out much better than I expeced.  The camera was set on a tabletop tripod and set to take 70 shots at 30 second intervals.  The bright "star" is i