London Walk: King's Cross to Camden Lock. I Granary Square

On Saturday ten Members of CCC enjoyed a wonderfully warm and sunny day in the King's Cross/Camden area of London. While five Members set off on the Underground for Camden Market, our party planned to walk to the same destination. We started at Granary Square and the King's Cross Basin of the Regent's Canal. The Granary building houses the Central St Martins Art School with the main attraction over 1,000 choreographed fountains. To the left of the Square they are developing the Coal Yard - I spent a long time on the various structures and how they are preserving these. We eventually dragged ourselves away to start the walk along the Canal.

RSPB Reserve at Fowlmere

 A cloudy morning at Fowlmere produced only Greylag and Canada geese, an Egret and a hovering Kestrel. Could do better!!

Fungi at Brandon Country Park Last Week

Off to Brandon today and realised didn't post last week's visit. Splendid number and variety of fungi  from the Porcelain in the first shot to the delicate ink caps. Using Fuji with 10-24 or 50mm lenses.

Toft in Autumn

Three images from an afternoon walk around our village yesterday.

Grey Heron at Lackford

A very obliging Heron in pristine plumage entertained us at Lackford on Saturday.

Egrets at Lackford

A party of four Egrets were busy hunting Dragonflies on the water's edge at Lackford Lakes on Saturday and were amazingly successful. The light was constantly changing from sun to quite heavy cloud - hence the different tint of the whites. Last image taken with the 2X converter on the 400 - only works when aperture shut down (f14). Rest 1.4X 

 

Kingfishers and Image Corruption

I borrowed Phil's 400 DO lens yesterday and ran it off my Canon 1D mark IV at Lackford Lakes. Generally pleased with results but, unfortunately a large number of files were corrupt giving very interesting artifacts but not helpful when the best in a sequence always seemed to be the ones not useable.
Here are some Kingfisher images - he (no red on mandible) caught 3 fish - one so small not really worth the effort and hovered a couple of times in front of some reeds.

Gamlingay Fungi - Improving Technique But.......

I am still practising with the Fuji gear to perfect Macro images; a visit to Gamlingay Woods afforded some opportunities to practise. There was a lovely clump of Porcelain Fungi on a fallen branch and one group of Shaggy Parasols. These were the only fungi found except for the small fruiting bodies under the bark. Used a tripod so better on sharpness this time but omitted to notice camera set on 3200 iso after indoor shots until halfway through. Surprised how noise-free they are considering!

Colourful World of Spiders

On Sunday, as well as a good selection of fungi, we spent time photographing two very small spiders - Tetragnatha extensa (brown on the left) and Diaea dorsata (the Green Crab Spider) hiding in the leaves of an oak tree. It was quite dull light by then and they are very small so a big challenge not totally met for sharpness but I do like the colours and, particularly, the way the eyes are shown. I confirmed ID of the brown one by its eye pattern but I liked the goggle eyes of the crab spider best.