Argumentative Redpolls

We have had up to a dozen Redpolls together visiting our feeders and squabbling over the perches. These are joined by Goldfinches and Starlings.

All Saints Croydon-cum-Clopton

Croydon-cum-Clopton were originally two communities joined together in 1561 due to a decline in population. Today Clopton is a lost village and most of Croydon medieval village lies under farmland. The Church of All Saints dates mostly from the 14th century, with a 12th century font. Due to the lack of substantial foundations and movement of the land around it, the church is under restoration with cracked walls, haphazard leanings and uneven floor. The Downing family (who owned and built Downing Street in London and founded Downing College in Cambridge) had extensive interests in Croydon and they totally rebuilt the chancel in the 1685. Beneath the Chancel is a crypt for the Downing family.

Paxton Birds

A few other bird images taken at Paxton last week - Magpie and Heron in flight, Dunnock and Wood Pigeon, small warbler - probably overwintering Chiff Chaff, and an active Moorhen. The water level in the Pits is higher than I have seen it.

Arrington Church in Infrared

A set of images of  St. Nicholas church in Arrington taken with my very old Canon 1DmkII which I had converted to infrared. It produces beautifully sharp images with shallow depth of field  (all at f2.5 with 50mm lens) with an interesting colour combination when the white point is adjusted to neutral on some area of the frame. I even found a couple of carved angels in the churchyard - a favourite subject of mine for infrared.

 

Creative Cityscapes with Household Objects

Our Camera club project for this month is Creating landscapes etc using household objects. Here is the contents of our 'odds and ends' box (set up shown at end). These are unmanipulated images - the daytime ones use a printed cloud background.  The city is on a black tile on our black kitchen table which is covered by a thin film of cooking oil to give a wavy reflection.

Cormorants Nest building

The Cormorants are very busy building their nests at the moment and bring back all kinds of materials such as a feather in the first picture, twigs and even a whole reed. This proved to be quite a challenge getting it up to the nest high in the trees so after two failed circuits round the lake trying to gain enough altitude, it landed on the water to rest and then took off with the reed even heavier from the added water but successfully made it to the nest. Then time to fly off and take time to rest and dry off in the sun. I only saw one non-breeding bird (last image) - the rest were resplendent in their breeding plumage.