St Pancras London - Start of our Christmas Europe Capitals' Tour

A few images around St Pancras Station. We are stopping the night in London as we need to get to St Pancras early tomorrow for our Eurostar train to Brussels and then on to Berlin. As a lot of sightseeing and photography will be in the dark hours, a practise session to check on settings etc. 

Seasonal Greetings

Wishing everyone the best for the festive break and for 2016.  

Hopefully there will be some new toys in the Christmas stocking and lots of opportunity to use them in the coming year..

Rejoicing in my good fortune to be healthy, well fed, with all my family around me and  able to enjoy life in safety and comfort. 

Hoping for a more equal and peaceful world in 2016.

Taken on Lofoten Islands Feb, 2015 (foreground lit by a full moon - this year it is a full moon on Christmas Day)

December Bumblebee and Welney Visit

A record shot of a White-tailed Bumblebee taken on December 16th busy collecting pollen and a few from a visit with Meredith to Welney showing the huge flocks of Black-Tailed Godwits and a bit of fun with multiple exposure during Whooper landing.

Umbrellas in Cambridge

Some fun with umbrella during our wet walk round Cambridge on Sunday. the wet pavements help reflect up the light and add interesting reflections

Ice Skating Rink Cambridge

A few images from the Rink in Cambridge - difficult to get an attractive overall view as most of the time skaters are passing in front of the camera and it was very busy on the ice. The single shots with panning were more successful though my favourite is the penultimate completely out of focus image 

North Pole Fair Cambridge

We hoped to go to London on Sunday but the threatened engineering works made this a bit of a risk. We therefore spent the morning photographing umbrellas around Cambridge in the rain (to follow) and then went to the modest but colourful Fair on Parker's Piece to photograph the Ice Skating and the Fair. Here a few from the fair - being a dull day the sky rapidly went dark but still fun to play with different shutterspeeds and the effects of the strobe lighting on the rides.

Hen Harriers at Wicken Fen

The forecast was for a clear sky sunrise so Miles and I went to Wicken to view the dawn and see what was about - quite a lot!! We managed one Bittern (not photographed!), one Barn Owl  and a Heron before the sun came up. Then a succession of  2 or 3 female Hen Harriers plus 1 or 2 Male Hen Harriers entertained us along with Marsh Harriers and a large flock of Fieldfares. All rather distant but great to see these birds.