Bird Watching Trip to Sweden

I am on a birdwatching tour to Central Sweden run by Nature Trek. We flew out of Heathrow at 7.15 am, which meant a very early start today. We were met at the airport by our guide Daniel Green (see his blog listed opposite). Our first stop was at an area good for Hawk Owls and certainly one was spotted a long way in the distance. The rest of the group decided to cross the very snowy fields to try to get a little closer but I took a walk along the road and was rewarded with a very good view of a White-tailed eagle as it passed over my head.

















We then drove to our accommodation for two nights at Svartadalen and on the way stopped to view a small flock of Waxwings.

More blurry trees

I think you may wonder what I am 'on' at the moment as this is a car park in Welwyn on a very wet dreary day yesterday.

Trees from the Travelodge

Looking out of the Stevenage Travelodge window at the snow falling when I arrived this afternoon, I liked the various colours of twigs in the garden. Used slow shutterspeed and zoom and was very surprised at the results. You can even see the snow flakes!

Corsac Foxes at Hamerton

The Corsac Foxes looked quite at home in the snow on Wednesday. They are very active but stop long enough for a shot while looking around before grabbing the food that had been put out.

Maned Wolves at Hamerton

The Maned Wolves from South America have a very strange build and gait. I decided to do some slow panning to get rid of the fences and posts in the background and was quite pleased with the effects.

Cheetahs in the Snow

We visited Hamerton Zoo near Huntingdon yesterday and had intermittent snow storms. The Cheetahs clearly did not like the snow and went inside fairly quickly.

In the third picture, the camera chose to focus on a snowflake rather than the cheetah but I like

the effect.

The Pram

Sorting through photos for a new photographic talk, came across this one taken in Brighton in 2002. The West Pier is still there (just visible behind the Palace Pier); ther was a serious fire there a few years ago and now only a skeleton remains.

Very surreal image as no signs of the baby or the pram pusher!

A Couple of Lion Pictures from Woburn

Woburn Safari Park did not open the drive through part till around lunchtime as it was too foggy for the Rangers to see the gates and any animals that might be attempting a breakout with the cars.

When we did get in the mist made for very attractive backgrounds though the low light levels meant using high ISO settings. Need a bit of 'gardening' to remove stray twigs in top image.

Long-tailed Tit

Flock of five Long-tailed tits visited the bird feeder this morning - a nice addition to the Blackbirds and Robins that dominate at the moment

Strolling along

Another grey day so not a lot of images to add to the bank but liked this view - need to take out the mast that is showing above the bank

Images from Clacton

A couple of images from a very wet windy Clacton. Managed not to get completely drenched walking along the Promenade. Even the snake looked a bit apprehensive - reminds me of a certain dog at home that doesn't like slippery floors.

Almost monochrome

Not a new image today but sorting through images at weekend, I found this image from Wimpole and thought it would fit well into my Monochrome and a Bit of Colour lecture as it is an image that doesn't work in monochrome; the small amount of colour seems essential

Visit to London

There had been a brief snowstorm overnight and this was enough to coat the roads and cause several accidents on the M11, which had not been gritted. Consequently our coach was more than an hour late arriving in London but the light was still great. Several of the 'More London' Buildings are now finished and make an impressive skyline around City Hall or when looked upwards with the wide-angle lens.

The sunset was not as interesting as we hoped but gave nice colouring to the sky as we returned to Tower Hill

Looking Forward to Tomorrow's Trip

I spent a bit of time looking at 2009's visit to London at this time of year - we had some wonderful dark skies and sunny intervals. Fingers crossed for some interesting light tomorrow.

Black-Headed Gulls Crash Landing and Taking Off

Some pictures taken at ISO 1000 1/640 sec using a borrowed Canon 7D to investigate how much noise there is at higher ISOs.
The images were fairly noisy but Neat image has done a pretty good job removing the noise.

Cambridge 800th Anniversary

As promised here are some of the projections onto the Senate House, King's Chapel and the Gibbs Building.

End of Cambridge University 800th Anniversary Year

To celebrate the end of Cambridge University's 800th Anniversary Year, they put on a spectacular light display, projecting onto the buildings (images to follow) and also using lasers along the river and in King's Court.

Still on Trees

I have been sorting through more of my infrared pictures of trees. These were taken with the 15mm fish eye in Epping Forest. They are 1/125 sec

so I don't think it is movement on the right of the first frame. I must check out whether images are in focus with this lens to the edge of the frames. I like the effect almost of a pinhole camera.

The second photo was of an amazing clump of trees where they had all anastamosed together to create these curious shapes.

That sunset at Wimpole

Here is another view taken at Wimpole when there was a heavy snowstorm just as the sun was setting.

Epping Trees

Still looking at some IR images - this one converted to monochrome gives a feel very reminiscent of IR film

Further IR Experiments

This is one of the overexposed Infrared pictures that I took at Wimpole, corrected white balance with camera profile and the exposure as far as possible in Lightroom. Then, in Photoshop, I changed the Hue and Saturation and was amazed at the result. Below is a colour image taken at the same time on the 5D

Infrared at Wimpole

I took some images at Wimpole in the snow last week and have just started looking at them and experimenting with different workflows for converting to Monochrome.

The first pair show the original RAW image and its equivalent conversion to monochrome, adjusting the colour mix in Lightroom to produce the best contrast image.

The second pair use a profile made for the Infrared camera and then converting to monochrome in Lightroom (http://khromagery.com.au/ir_raw.html). I prefer the second conversion with the DNG profile

Snowstorm at Wimpole

Just as we were leaving after a walk round the grounds at Wimpole Hall a heavy snowstorm started. The sun was still out giving an amazing golden light.

Unfortunately there wasn't time to get the uncluttered view of this clump of trees that I had taken earlier.

Welney

I visited Welney Wildfowl Trust on Tuesday - the water level is very high and much of the water is frozen. Because of the deep water, there were very few swans feeding on the reserve but plenty of ducks - mallard, pochard,widgeon,gadwall,tufted and pintail were all present.
The Mute swan posed beautifully in front of the notice that reads Winter Wonderland.



One of the Mute Swans spent a lot of time showing off his exquisite feathers. I thought the pair with ice worked well as a monochrome. It almost looks as if the swan has broken off from the ice shelf as the wing sculpturing matches the edge of the ice.
.
The Mallards looked puzzled by the ice while the Whooper swans just felt at home as it must be very like their breeding grounds in Spring in Iceland