Finally some nice weather and I had chance to pick up the camera again whilst sat in the garden, only a short time but managed to get two photos I am very happy with;

I’ve been lucky enough to see this guy a few times, always a fleeting flutter of feathers and trills and as the others tried to evade, successfully i might add. This time though one was not quick enough but i was with a lot of luck and accidental timing, because i was filling the kettle when the bush infront of the window moved and out flew this fellow;

He sat there for a whilst just seemingly comtemplating his next move before lanching back into the bush which came alive once more with noise and movement before silence …

Everyday a family of starlings raucously visit the garden, searching for the meal worms i leave and taking baths. They often take upto five baths a day!! Fortunately one of the young ones decided to take a break and pose rather handsomely for a wee photo shoot.

I’ve known for a while now that in the local area we have a flock of parakeets flying free, I’d seen them last year when walking the dog and again this year but this is the first time they’ve spent anytime actually around where i live. There is approximately 10 to 12 birds and you definitely know when they are around! Communicative squawky little fellows they are too.

This week they’ve been in the trees at the back of my garden and i was finally home and near the camera when one turned up today.

Still trying to learn the new lense and manual focus (nearly always used autofocus) so with a turn in the weather it was nice to sit outside and watch/listen. Thats when i noticed the resident mouse decide to sit on his doorstep and watch me.

I’m quite pleased with these two photos, handheld at full zoom and manual focus.

OK hands up .. these were taken whilst sat inside nice and warm through the window! so not brilliant plus a little poor editing still not bad though

So a little splurge and finally got a lense that means i dont have to be within 3m of the thing i’m trying to catch an image of! Still lots to learn but first handheld efforts dont seem to bad.

A hot day for the UK - my home monitoring system reports 38.91 in the garage …. so i decided to come back in doors for a short whilst and catch up on some work i’ve neglected.

This is from a walk down the local canal sometime ago, its quite heavily stylised but i like it;

from the same walk just much earlier in the day, a chance photo of canoeists paddling through the mist;

Since moving house we have more birds visiting the garden and even a family of squirrels that bound playfully through the trees at the bottom of the garden on the down side there are a few mice and rats which get attracted by the bird food but thats a small price to pay to be able watch all this from the comfort of the house.

After watching them from a distance i decided to set up a little squirrel feed station for when its really icy/cold and it did not take them long at all to figure out there was food available.

There was a time i was quite heavily in to photography, i had my own dark room working mainly in B&W. Preferred landscapes but occasionally did some model work but then i went digital and carried on for a short whilst but i think the magic disappeared.

There was something uniquely magical about watching a print form in the solution how the image gradually faded into view and now everything is instant and before i would think about the image, plan its capture and now boom “oh that looks nice” snap click & discard once its been seen on the computer.