Salford Quays

 After a long journey in pouring rain, the sun finally broke through late in the afternoon giving fantastic light and clarity.

Macro at Butterfly World

 Visited butterfly world near St Albans for the first time yesterday with Meredith who obviously has the Entomology gene. The indoor areas are small but the wildflower meadows and gardens very extensive.  It was not the best time of year or weather for a visit as the delight of the place is its very large array of themed gardens, all full of butterfly and insect habitats. Promised myself a return later in the year.
(All except image 2 (100mm macro) were taken with 300mm f4 with 12.5mm extension ring and small fill-in flash.)

Iceland Book

Today I completed my book of photographs from the trip in February to Iceland where we were fortunate to witness the best Northern Lights display for 20 years. Click image to show preview of the entire book

Blurb as usual have a 30% discount at the moment which makes it just under £40 for 156 A4 pages including delivery. I compiled this one through the Book module in Lightroom.It has quite a few layout disadvantages over Blurb's own booksmart software (no altering the position of the image and text boxes and no borders to the photos for instance). However, the ability to alter the digital processiong of any image in the book from the Deleop module overides this for a large photo book. With Booksmart, you would need to delete a photo, go back to the processing software to do the alteration, save the jpeg and reload into the book.

Orchids in the local Clunch Quarry

Not as many Man Orchids as some years but still a reasonable display along with very abundant Twayblades and a sprinkling of Common Spotted Orchids. I used my 70-200mm lens with a 25mm Extension tube to bring the focus point nearer. It gives a nice diffuse background provided the subject is a far enough away from the other plants.

London Salon Opening and Showing

The London Salon opens in Fairfield Hall, Park Lane, Croydon, CR9 1DG on Saturday May 24th at 2 pm and continues until Thursday June 5th. These are my two images on display - taken with an infrared camera and Tilt and Shift lens at Abney Cemetery, London. Only postprocessing was white balance adjustment using a custom made profile - described in download on my website. 
East Croydon is approximately 20 minutes by train from Victoria and London Bridge stations. Fairfield Halls is a 3 minute walk away. 

Abseil for Addenbrookes Charity Trust

Various intrepid folk abseiled down the tower at Ely college to raise funds for the Addenbrookes Charity Trust (ACT)  on Sunday. The tower is 60 feet high and is due for demolition. Rest of images that I took in the morning are on FlikR

Rapunzel Comes to Toft

Sadie had her 4th birthday party today.As you might guess - it was a Rapunzel party complete with a wonderful cake that Carol made and run  by her baller teacher (Stardust Children's Parties) who dressed the part! Sadie was very happy with the party especially the cake and the fact that they danced (and Sadie sang at the top of her voice!) the theme song from Frozen, her present favourite disney creation. Meredith enjoyed that party especially the glue and the balloons.

Lakenheath Evening

Birds were a bit thin on the ground at Lakenheath yesterday afternoon/evening but this Hobby put on a good flying display. Phil managed to get one catching a Mayfly. There were certainly a lot of dragonflies/damselflies and mayflies around. Here Red-eyed Damselfly, Four-Spot chaser, Female Hairy Dragonfly and Ephemera danica. 

Morris Men in Cambridge

Last Saturday Cambridge was very noisy and colourful with an invasion of Morris Dancers all over the town and some very 'red' coatumes on the Cam.

Spring at Rye Meads

Lots of signs of Spring last Friday. The female Kestrel on the left comes off sitting on the eggs when the male calls her, accepts half a rat and flies away to eat it while the male does a short incubation stint. Lots of pairs of Gadwall and the Coots are as aggressive in defending territory as usual, here chasing off a Tufted duck. The Robin and Coot already have young families, very vocal in demanding food.

Kingfisher Preening

 We were lucky today at Rye Meads as the male Kingfisher after taking a large fish into the nest came to the closer branch to have a good wash and brush-up. The picture of him emerging from the water shows the problem of autofocus (picks up splashes rather than bird) and why people spend a lot of money to photograph kingfishers coming to plunge pools where the point of entry and exit can be reliably predicted. Like the way he manicures his feet first and works up with a final scratch of the ear.