Just Sitting in the Garden

 Yesterday afternoon the weather was nice enough to sit in the garden.  While not a national treasure, it is our garden and there are some interesting and rather beautiful pictures to be taken.  I was interested in the use of depth of field and bokeh to experiment with a couple of shots.

First was this picture of a bramble flower caught up in bindweed.  

  

I have found that if I use f/6.5 from about ten feet away and focus on the flower, the background blurs out and I need only a minimum of post-processing.  Here, I only needed to crop.  

Next, a picture of a fruiting shrub - just one branch of a larger bush.  

This was taken a bit closer, from about five feet.  Again, f/6.5 and a minimum of post-processing.  However, although the detail of he cobweb is clear, I feel the image is a bit stark and perhaps the background could have been more interesting.  Perhaps a narrower aperture setting next time!

Finally a picture from the gooseberry bush. I put this on 365project.org as a daily upload.  Again, I was about five to seven feet away and needed only minimal post-processing.

This was a dark corner of the flower bed and is a study of light and dark.  Taken at f/6.3, the shallow depth of field intending to bring out th caterpillars on the leaf - see if you can spot them!

There was quite a bit of activity in the garden and not, it seems, just wildlife!

Whitley Bay

 Entries on my blog seem to be somewhat intermittent.  Note to self:  take time to keep it going!  There's got to be more to photography than just taking pictures and storing them.

We went to Whitley Bay, Northumberland in March.  This was long awaited and was about the third attempt at a few days away since the start of the lockdown.  The weather was fine if slightly windy.  In fact the wind had serrated teeth it was so biting.  But I did get some photos.

Whitley Bay is the local dog-walkers beach.  It is recognised and well-used as such.  This view of the beach at low tide, off season was typical.  One dog is clearly enjoying the surf!

Whitley Bay has a lighthouse.  This is a distance shot but it does look cold and choppy!

And out at sea is a wind farm. Another distance shot and it became clear that the ship was servicing one of the wind turbines.

I have tried to picture the choppy seas and the "out of season" look.  At one end of the beach is the Rendezvous Café.  This was a popular venue and has featured in the TV series "Vera". 

It's a shame that there are works going on around it, but that adds to the "off season" look.

A Bird's Gotta Eat!

 I must confess I haven't paid much attention to this blog lately.  Well, I'm back!

I posted a picture on 365 blog in the Summer of a family of moorhens with a caption  "look out for hungry seagulls" little realising that soon there would only be two chicks.

                                

 A later picture was of a gull with a beak full of catch - which I thought was a water vole.  But when I really looked at the photo, it was very clearly a small black bird.  I'm sure it was one of the moorhen chicks.  I only ever saw two in the family after that, and now they've all fled the nest.  

But birdwatching (and photography!) isn't all pretty sights.  As they say, "Mother Nature, red in tooth and claw."  Because birds do have a life apart from posing for twitchers.  Another photo, taken more recently, although at a distance and not of the best quality, shows a herring gull with a fish for a meal.  The fish was alive when the gull started on it, and it caught my attention because it was putting up a show of resistance, albeit futile!

                           

There have been some little egrets wintering in the river, and I have tried to get a photo of an egret catching fish.  But nothing large unfortunately.

Some of the feeding rituals are interesting.  Redshanks will pull something from the mud and then carry it either to the shoreline or to a pool and dunk it in the water.  I guess this is to clean off any mud. The little egret held the fish for a few seconds before manoeuvring enough to swallow.  But the herring gull (above) wasn't so dainty with the fish.  It shook it around until it had stopped flapping, then slapped it onto the mud and ripped it to bits.

On a technical note, these photos were taken with a Canon SX70 HS bridge camera which has a decent telephoto lens.  Action shots like these can only really be taken with a burst setting and a lot of luck.  I don't see how they could be achieved with film and development.  This is a clear advantage of DSLR photography.  

More than just Boats and Birds

 One thing I have discovered since I've been doing my little photography walks is that, because I have to be careful where I walk (that is I'm a bit unsteady, not so much what I might tread in!) I am more aware of the world at my feet.  There are cracks in the pavement just full of wild flowers and mosses for example.  I don't mean great big grab your ankle and trip you over jungle plants, but little flowers and fungi and such like.  I call them "crack weeds" or sometimes just "weeds".  There are little corners on the pavements and verges which can be fascinating.  And sometimes, a plant turns up that I've never seen before, or even heard of.  So I even went as far as buying a wild flower identification guide.  And the other day, I came across one of these in a little corner of waste ground.  

It is next to a waste sack for context.  Now remember this is the end of November and the weather is cold.  Too cold I would have thought for flowers to thrive.  But here was this little weed to brighten the day.

It took me a while to find out what it actually is, but thanks to my new wild flower identification guide I found it.  It is a small melilot (melilotus indicus) (Latin name even!) and while not uncommon, it is declining in the British Isles.  Was apparently used as a herbal infusion for tired or sore eyes.  Well I discovered something new!

Back at the Haven

The Haven is the stretch of estuary from The Wash upto the Grand Sluice in Boston.  I guess it's the tidal part of the River Witham.  Anyway, I'm mostly interested in the small stretch from the Barrier (well it keeps me occupied!)

There has been some dredging going over the last few days, not that it's made much difference to the river bed.  But it has attracted a few more birds.  Mainly gulls and a few waders this far inland but still interesting and some variety.

This year there have been some little egrets.  Today, there were three although only two were obliging with a group photograph.

I was able to take these together, although to give the perception of flight the one in the air has come out slightly off-focus.  I get a choice - slight blurring to give the appearance of a living scene, or Superfast shutter speed and a static, mechanical image.  I know what I prefer.

But here is a very smart black headed gull, taking a rest.

I know, it hasn't got a black head!  This one is in winter plumage, with just a spot behind each eye.

Over the Woodhead Pass

The Woodhead Pass is a main road across the Pennines between Sheffield and Manchester.  Most traffic uses the Motorway M62 to the north, but the Woodhead is our favourite. We had to go across the Pennines earlier and the weather was brewing up nicely.  The forecast was fine in the East and rain to the West.  We were going West.  There were some great opportunities for photography but I just used my iPhone from the car.  Here are some snaps...

The weather was starting to close in

Traffic coming up from the West.

This is near Tintwhistle at the western end.

Basically, it rained all the time on the West, and didn't stop until we were back in the East near Ferrybridge.

The photos were all taken from the car using an iPhone 12 mini.  

I must go down to the sea again...

Ever since well into the lockdown, this has been my mantra, from the poem by John Masefield "Sea Fever".  Well yesterday we finally made it!  A trip to Cleethorpes, just for the day out.  We had a great time.  (Remember this is November so there was no paddling or sunbathing!). 

We had lunch at a Pub/Hotel, the-wellow-hotel  which was so good the wife wrote a review.  

Then it was down to the promenade where I actually got out with my camera.  First, the rain had stopped.  Next, the wind hadn't!  It was an east coast lazy wind, doesn't go round you but through you.  But I did get some pics and I did see the sea.  I took some boat pics albeit at a good distance.

These boats are being busy.  I think one is a tug and the other is being towed.

This is a breakwater that just goes on and on...

and a turnstone for luck

After the prom, we returned to the Wellow for afters and hot drink.  Then home.