Play of light,shade and ferns

Some intriguing images from the Well House at Ashridge House. Many thanks to Terry for showing me round the house and especially this wonderful window in the basement of the house. It was lit from a grating at ground level and the play of light and shade as the sun went in and out was awe inspiring. In the first picture the sun is behind clouds so the contrast is low enough to make out all the features of the window frame and the grating outside. As the sun comes out, shapes appear on the window pane

Thethird image shows the maidenhair ferns that are growing under the grating. In the fourth image, the camera has focussed on the dirty glass in the window with soft outlines of the ferns behind.

The last two images show progressively closer images of the light playing on the dusty and cobwebby glass.

A Sculptor's Garden

A couple of images from John McGill's (Sculptor) garden in Toft.

Infrared Images from Cambridge

Definitely weather for Ducks on Friday. Many of the tourists taking punt trips were provided with umbrellas

Very pleased with the Water lily images - looks like an Xray in that you can see through the overlapping leaves.

It is very unpredictable as to what colours are generated by the infrared making the processing stage very interesting.

In the Blink of a Frog's Eye

Just for fun - how a frog keeps his eyes clean

Sign of the Times

Some pictures from a closed-down petrol station in Eversden - great subject for infrared

The Best of the Bunch

I have only just had time to sort through the Red Kite pictures and find the best of the many hundreds I took on the afternoon that we spent at Llandeusant. Mostly I have kept just the sharp images but there are some where the attitude of the bird is unusal and these have stayed (at the moment!)

More images from ICBP

A couple of images of a very acrobatic Lanner Falcon. Most of the birds that the Centre flew were young birds still in training but this Lanner Falcon was an experienced flyer and performed the most amazing acrobatics.

International Centre for Birds of Prey

We called at the International Centre for Birds of Prey on the way back from Wales. It is situated near Newent and has a very extensive collection of raptors. They have a very good record for breeding from their captive birds including a Golden Eagle.

Visit their website (www.icbp.org) to learn more about the Centre.

These two peregrine pictures were taken during one of their flying displays - I love the graphic nature of the images - remind me of the paintings in the Thorburn bird books that I have treasured since I first became interested in bird watching.
The Yellow-billed kite image isn't unfortunately very sharp but I was so amazed by the Concorde impersonation that I have shared it on my blog

Blaenavon

I was expecting the Welsh Valleys to be littered with remnants of the coal and steel industry. In fact, almost all traces of the former industries have been completely erased - the buildings demolished and the slag heaps landscaped into country parks for mountain biking and such like.

In December 2000 UNESCO named the Blaenavon Industrial Landscape as a World Heritage Site for the following reason:

"The area around Blaenavon bears eloquent and exceptional testimony to the pre-eminence of South Wales as the world's major producer of iron and coal in the 19th century. All the necessary elements can be seen, including coal and ore mines, quarries, a primitive railway system, furnaces, the homes of workers, and the social infrastructure of their community."

We visited both the Iron works and the Big Pit coal mine.

Unexpected birds

While visiting Treorchy to photograph the buildings and cemetery, we were amazed to see both a heron and a dipper in the stream alongside the busy main street. The heron took off almost immediately but the dipper continues to move along the bank dipping into the water at regular intervals. It then rested for a time on one leg giving us a chance to photograph it.

Kite in the Sunshine!!

After Monday's rain and poor light, yesterday was perfect for photographing the kites. They also obviously enjoyed the weather as, at one point, there were 20 of them circling overhead in the thermals. This one did an obliging quick fly past just at a distance to be correct in the frame (small crop behind the bird to decentralise it)

Red Kites

Unfortunately the light was very poor for our attempts at photographing the red kites up in the Brecon Beacons and it was raining!

These two were taken at ISO1000 and therefore have a fair amount of colour noise but they do show the wonderful colours and shapes of the birds.

Old and New

This huge oil refinery at Rhoscrowther has been built close to a small village - you can see the very tall church tower (marked with red arrow) completely dominated by the refinery chimneys.

We visited the churchyard - a very peaceful place in spite of the hum of the refinery close by.

Pembroke Dock

We spent Saturday walking around Pembroke Dock - a town waiting to be discovered by the tourists. They are hoping to get a Harry Potter museum set up there as parts of the films were shot in the area. This will certainly bring in the masses but I doubt they will appreciate the stylish Georgian architecture and Naval History from Nelson's time to the Sunderland Flying Boat station in the last war.

Upper picture is Shipwright Inn and Gun Tower Museum.


Lower picture one of the fine Georgian terraces in the Naval Dockyard

Ramsey Island

We visited Ramsey Island yesterday on a perfect sunny day. The island is off St David's Head, Pembrokeshire. It is owned by the RSPB and takes only 40 visitors a day, so we were pleased to be able to get on a landing trip.

We saw several of their 'special' birds including peregrines and choughs.

National Botanic Gardens of Wales

Today we visited the National Botanic Gardens of Wales built in 2000 with the main greenhouse designed by Norman Foster. It is the world's largest single-span glasshouse measuring 110 m long by 60 m wide.

We then went to Pendine Sands, a 7 mile beach of firm sands used to set four world land speed records, including two by Malcolm Campbell.

Kittiwakes at Mumbles

Swansea Waterfront Museum

Three images from Swansea's museum which we visited in the rain yesterday

From wet Wales

Summer ended again yesterday evening and Monday was back to cool wet conditions. We visited Penarth which has a splendid pier and Barry Island which was a bit bleak in the strong winds.

On Sunday, we visited the Newport Transporter Bridge only to find it has been closed for two years and isn't due to repopen till October 2010. It is one of only two such bridges in the UK - the other being in Middlesborough. You can just see the transporter platform going across - the workmen use it to get their supplies to the workshop on the other bank






We then went into Cardiff and walked round Cardiff Bay area - I greatly enjoyed the Senedd building - wonderful architecture and interesting heat and water conservation features in the design.