Summer, we await you!

I’m fed up with the cold stuff for now.

——–Stephen——-

Purple

——Stephen——

Scabious

Well I think it is some sort of cultivated Scabious – I’m happy to be corrected, though. 😉

Growing in the garden, I used a reflector as a background to isolate from an unhelpful fence panel.

——Stephen—–

Bellpush and Also Ran

Bellpush

Organ Music

Flowers

Harvest Festival

Organ Pipes

Maintenance Corner

A few more pictures.

——-Stephen——-

 

Ivycide

Almost like an extinction event for this Ivy – not only a relatively recent butchering of the main stem, but evidence of a much older event of similar nature, in that the ghost of old stems still show on the wall.

——Stephen——-

Foxglove

Simple.

——Stephen——–

Vivid

——Stephen——-

Tulip 1

——–Stephen——–

Grass

Went for a walk by the river this afternoon with a long lens, in the hope of being able to photograph some bird life.  It was pretty windy and the river was obviously in flood – going through like a train because of all the rain we’ve had lately. It’s running off the hills further upstream.

Nothing doing apart from a young Chaffinch.  Tried to photograph grass and flowers, but it’s not easy with a 300mm lens fitted with 1.4 convertor.  Close focussing gives a depth of field that is so narrow it’s untrue.  But I quite liked this one so thought I’d post it.

——–Stephen———-

Skipwith Common, (Part 2)

Well, our group went out to Skipwith Common as arranged.  Wellies, thick trousers and shirt, US duck hunters cap, Barbour and some 50% DEET on exposed parts.  Bins round my kneck, camera on the tripod.   Off we set.

To be honest we didn’t go that far, the lighting was atrocious – dull overcast under trees is not the best to work with, lack of contrast and all that.  In fact, I only took 15 pictures and some of those were repeats.

Mirror Pond
Found a small pond where the water was so still it was like a mirror.  I really liked the confusion between real and reflected image.

Iris

This is a wild Yellow Iris (Iris pseudacorus) – I looked it up.

Big Ol’ Brown Slug

They tell me these are good for Chub fishing but I’ve never used one, don’t fancy picking one up myself!

Moss and Silver Birch

Don’t know why I took this one particularly, something in my head said ‘take this picture’ – so I did.

Secret Miller

Now while I suspect somebody deliberately placed this Miller bottle in the hollow of the tree, regular flooding has filled the space around it with dead leaves and twigs.

Well, I was getting fed up, desperate to take something ‘different’ so I started to wander back to the car.  As I walked down the narrow road, fringed by shrubby trees, I saw a couple of ponies coming toward me. It suddenly dawned on me that no one was leading them, strange.  Click, then I remembered that Skipwith has a population of Dartmoor Ponies – great stuff.

Unfortnuately, I couldn’t get close enough to them before they turned round and sauntered off in the opposite direction.  It was clear that they must have been ‘family’ -they didn’t get more than a metre from each other as I watched them.

Dartmoor Ponies

They made my evening for me anyway!

I’m particularly pleased with how sharp the second shot is as I was down to 1/3 second.

——Stephen—–