Here’s another bird picture, by way of an apology for my lack of posting. I seem to have been super busy lately, and I’ll have loads of new plans to tell you about very soon.
In the meantime, my baby blackbird is growing up!
Here he is, fresh from the bird bath.
I’ve been trying to catch a snapshot of a pair of goldfinches for ages, but they never seem to sit still for long enough. This afternoon I established my position as bird paparazzo extraordinaire when I saw this little fellow on the fence, grabbed the camera, spun around and caught him just seconds before he flew away!
Now I feel less bad about failing to chop down the enormous great weed that’s been growing vigorously in one of our abandoned flower beds. The goldfinches obviously have a very important use for all the fluff that it’s producing.
Being based out in the garden, I’ve noticed that first thing in the morning is a really great time for birdwatching. The weather’s much cooler, especially at the moment, it’s nice and quiet, and there aren’t too many people around.
This young fellow was sitting on my fence for ages, happily singing away.
I’ve labelled him on Flickr as a young song thrush, because of his spots, but looking back through my pictures I’m thinking that it might actually be the fledgling blackbird.
What do you think? Are these guys both the same bird?
At the risk of sounding like a miserable old so-and-so, I am really not enjoying this heatwave! My Shed is like a sauna, and switching on the fan only serves to move the too-hot air around a bit.
I went outside to stand in a shady spot in the garden, and caught sight of these magpies on top of my neighbour’s conservatory. I couldn’t quite work out what they were doing, so I pulled out the zoom lens and had a look. It turned out that they were drinking the drips of water from a leaky overflow pipe. Clearly they’re not enjoying the heatwave very much either.
My plan for the rest of the afternoon? Refill the bird bath, and see whether anybody else needs a bit of a drink.
When we got up yesterday morning, Paul said “let’s go to the zoo”. So, we bundled the cameras into the car and headed off to Marwell.
It was a scorchingly hot day, so most of the animals were doing the sensible thing and hanging out quietly in the shade. Unfortunately for us, this meant that we had to take most of our pictures through glass or mesh, but I have a few that I’m quite pleased with.
I particularly enjoyed the part where you can get up close and personal with the Kookaburras – there’s a section you can walk through where they’re flying free. The two that we saw certainly weren’t shy! They were quite happy to sit still and pose for the cameras, from a distance of only a couple of feet away.
The bat house was pretty amazing too, although we didn’t take any photos in there on account of it being dark.
I managed to come away without smuggling any of the animals out in my handbag, which is always best. Although I’m sure the Gentle Lemur would have lived in my Shed quite happily.
I don’t do very well in the summer. I suffer from heatstroke, I burn easily, and I find it very difficult to function once the weather starts to heat up.
I spent most of today hiding in my Shed, sorting out another pile of patterns and fabrics to go on Ebay. (I’ll be listing them on Monday.)
By about seven thirty it was finally cool enough to go outside and take the camera for a little walk. The first thing I spotted was this shrub, which was absolutely covered in Painted Lady butterflies.
Paul’s been out for a helicopter ride today, taking photos over London.
I’m very happy with this little piece of beauty a little closer to home.
Paul and I spent the morning wandering round Whiteknights Lake. I haven’t been there for a long time – probably not since I stopped working at the Library, and certainly not since I moved house about five years ago.
It’s a perfect time of year – we saw lots of goslings, lots of baby coots and moorhens, and took lots of photos.
This fuzzy little fellow is a baby Egyptian Goose. They had a grand total of eight goslings this year – I don’t think I’ve ever seen them with so many!
I had been planning to work on a new dress today, but a slight difficulty with an incredible shrinking lining swiftly followed by an unexpected power cut sadly put paid to those plans!
While the power was out, I did something which I’ve been putting off for ages, and tackled the garden. I spent a couple of hours mostly chopping down the plants which had sneaked into our garden over next door’s fence.
My reward for all this hard work?
A new friend.
(I still want need a bigger zoom lens though!)
Yesterday I had a sudden flurry of excitement when I realised that it was still light at 5:30, so I went for a wander around the lake with the camera. I took Paul’s new zoom lens (75-300mm), and had a play.
Mostly the pictures are of Things Up Trees, including a tiny treehouse and two wood pigeons snogging.
Most of the pictures of pigeons were out of focus, although I’ve uploaded some of them anyway. After I’d taken them I worked out how to turn off the annoying autofocus on the lens, and later Paul showed me how to take multiple shots with one press of the button, so that should help when I try again.
What I’d really like though, is an even longer lens. Given that the cheapest one I’ve found so far is £500, I don’t think that’s going to happen any time soon!
