Yellow Fields and Blue Sky

The predominant colours of our views on our local walks have slowly changed over the 3 weeks of lockdown from green to yellow as the rape has come into flower together with masses of dandelions.

Progress (?) on Capturing Insects in Flight

I am still perservering with capturing the many hovering insects in the garden at the moment. The Bee flies are the easiest to photograph as they are inquisitive and will come progressively closer. These are taken at 1/1000th second for the first three images 1/4000th for the next four with the last one at 1/250th; all with flash (separate flash gun on camera). The shutterspeed is not making that difference - more the angle at which the wings are caught as they are relatively slower as they rotate past the midpoint and at the extreme points of the figure of eight.

Bluebell Time in Hardwick Wood

I am so lucky that my local walking area includes a large woodland area, at this time, a carpet of bluebells. There are a few Early Spotted Orchids in flower among the bluebells.

Progress Report on Wildlife in Garden

I am very pleased that I chose 2020 to make changes to the garden to further encourage wildlife. Ten days before Covid-19 Lockdown started in the UK, I gave a lecture to a U3A group on Gardening for Wildlife  where I outlined my plans which included turning the front lawn to a wildlife meadow, opening up the pond to give more areas of open water, having an area of perennial wildflowers and a larger seed bed area for annual wildflowers. Two days ago the first Large Red Damselfly emerged from the pond, the cowslips are coming into full flower on the 'meadow, Red campion is starting in the perennial area. In March Sadie and I built a bee hotel at the bottom of the garden and it is being investigated by various insects

 

Last Night's Storm in Cambridgeshire

Yesterday was very warm (22 degrees) and humid and concluded with a spectacular lightning display though we failed to get the much needed rainfall.

Toft Through an Infrared Camera

This time of year and sunny days are great for Infrared photography with the fresh green foliage and deep shadows. These are colour images that have been converted from the Raw using a camera profile made with the profile editor. On cloudier days when there is less infrared absorption they would have stronger colour hues.

 

 

Dawn in Toft

I chose to live in Toft more than 50 years ago because of the walks straight out of the front door and have never regretted it especially now that we are not permitted to travel for our exercise. Beautiful soft dawn this morning - the bird song was deafening in the Wood and a Barn Owl flew across the fields as I waited for the sun to come up (too distant for my lens).