Landing techniques in birds

I spent a bit of time at Clumber Park on the way to Spalding and attempted pictures of the birds in flight and landing on the lake. The various techniques used by the birds depends very much on the shape of the feet. The Canada Geese used their large webbed feet like water skies and were very elegant as they came into land. The Moorhen's long toes without webs cut into the water so they generally use the technique of running very fast across the surface.
The light was far from perfect so I intend to revisit the topic on another occasion.

The composite of the swan landing is for Phil just to show it is not just airplanes that sometimes do a double bounce landing (click on the image and it is large enough to make out the impressive belly flop).

Park Hill Estate in Sheffield

Park Hill is a council housing estate constructed between 1957 and 1961. In 1998 the estate was granted Grade II listed building status. Following a period of decline the estate is currently being renovated by the developers Urban Splash.
The Park Hill Flats were inspired by Le Corbusier's Unité d'Habitation. Construction is of an exposed concrete frame with yellow, orange and red brick curtain walling. The concept of the flats was described as streets in the sky. Broad decks had large numbers of front doors opening onto them. Each deck of the structure, except the top one, has direct access to ground level at some point on the sloping site. Cobbles from the terraced streets surround the flats and pave the pathways down the hill to Sheffield station and tramlines. The lower two pictures show the three stages with some flats still occupied, others empty and vandalised and the third stage of stripping out all but the concrete shell and refurbishing.

Visit to Sheffield

Spent a very enjoyable few hours looking round Sheffield City Centre.
The first image is looking up into the rennovated lantern of Sheffield Cathedral.
The Lantern was repaired in 1998-99 with new windows designed by Amber Hiscott. The shapes of the lantern contrast well with the tiled floor.

The other images show the mixture of architecture that comprises the centre of the city.

Carmine Sunset

As part of the Travelodge series, tonight there was an amazing colour sunset from Sheffield TL window - almost magenta but I think carmine probably describes the colour fairly accurately.

Images from Evesham

This morning was very frosty but clear with a very bright blue sky. The images here were taken a short walk from the Travelodge along the river so not quite from the window (defeated in trying to make interesting picture of the Little Chef outside my window). The river reflected the sky to give a lovely range of colours in the first image. The dead grasses produced more muted colours in the second image.The Canada Geese flew past while I was photographing a couple of hot air balloons.The predominant tree is the Alder and I thought it made an interesting backdrop for the Wood Pigeon.

Ten Minutes in the Life of a Sunrise

I have been a bit quiet on the blog lately, mainly because I took my camera away to Bath at the beginning of the week but was unable to take any pictures as my 24-105 mm lens has developed a fault in that the USM runs continuously even when on manual focus. This may be after getting frozen (literally) in Sweden last week. Shame as there were two new Travelodges

with strange views from the windows!

Anyway, here is this mornings sunrise as it unfolded in front of my window while catching up on emails. The colour comes suddenly in the sky and then recedes as quickly.

Millie and the Ice

There is still a lot of standing water in the fields in Toft. This had a thin layer of ice on this morning and Millie had great fun trying and, occasionally, managing to pick up a piece of ice, throwing it into the air and then having a big shake.

Orchid Extravaganza at Kew

Visited the Orchid display at Kew yesterday morning. The main display was in the Princess of Wales Conservatory and had every possible colour of orchid.

In the Victoria Waterlily house, I used the fisheye to get in the whole building and display.

The Exhibition is finishes on the 7th March so you probably need to put it in the diary for next year

Floods in Toft

After a day and night of heavy rain the road into Toft is flooded and closed. However, a number of motorists take no notice - ok if you have a land rover and if something doesn't come the other way

!

There is a height marker in the river and as you see the water level is almost to the top at 7 feet. In Brookside the river has broken through and flooded all the way to School Lane. All the warning signs are a bit redundant as noone can walk or drive this part.

Travelodge Series

This is another in my series of blurry pictures taken when staying in Travelodges while away lecturing. This is from the Ilford Gant's Hill TL - any guesses and, no, they are not trees this time.

Swedish Town in Blizzard

I did not take a note of the name of the town with the excellent cafe for tea and it was only when I downloaded the images from my compact that I realised that I am missing a whole batch of images that I took on my 5D in the town. The most likely is I reformatted and overwrote the files but I have done a recovery on all the cards and found no trace of them, which is unusual as a few usually survive underneath. Hey ho - definitely the images that got away as those that know me will know that these were my perfect photography conditions.

Two-barred Crossbill

This was for me the best bird of the trip as it was a new one for my list and is such an intense colour. We waited for quite a while in a blizzard for it to appear at a garden bird table. I managed to get this one while it was perching in the apple tree. Pretty noisy as it was getting late in the afternoon and therefore I had to use high ISO but I like the atmosphere of the low light and snow

Sunday's Trip to the Woods

In temperatures of minus 17 we tramped our way into the forest to look for the Siberian Jay. The snow was waist high in many places and, while we waited for the jay, we lit a fire and grilled sausages. Eventually the Siberian Jay came down.

Saturday continued

We finished the day in blizzard conditions looking for a Two-barred Crossbill in a town garden and were rewarded with excellent views of the birds together with redpolls, siskin and bullfinches (not shown). I have other views of the Crossbill but they need some work tidying up.

Saturday's Birdwatching

Saturday was another snowy and very cold day (minus 15 degrees) but, undeterred, we went off to a forest feeding site to look for Nutcrackers. A lot of other woodland species use the feeding station (Crested Tit, Willow Tit, Nuthatch, Tree Creeper illustrated) but we were rewarded with views of the Nutcrackers though they appeared more interested in courtship than food

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Three-toed Woodpecker

Today we made an excursion into some local woods to look for the three-toed woodpecker. The snow was much deeper than in normal years so I decided to stay back a bit and concentrate on the snowy forests rather holding everyone up. However, Daniel soon came back to tell me that the woodpecker had been sighted and was very close. So I made my way through the snow to meet Michael, the local expert on woodpeckers, and he kindly helped me through the waist high snow to get photos of the bird really close. I have a lot more images of this little woodpecker but, with a quick look, I chose this one as his beak is free of background distractions.

Closer Waxwing

Today we saw a flock of around 70 waxwings and some of them landed on a berry tree near us. These was taken with ISO 1600 so may need a bit of noise reduction but lovely colours.