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We may have had some brief spells of unexpectedly nice weather earlier in the year, but I would have rather put up with rubbish weather back then and had summer to look forward to. Is this it? Daily downpours and freak flooding? I've had enough. I want the blue skies back and the sun out to put a beautiful glow on everything so I feel like taking pictures again. I want to see hoverflies dammit!
Incidentally this picture sucks - you would have to have a tripod and preferrably not just a handheld compact camera at 11pm in your friend's car whilst putting the world to rights... It has potential though.
Not the best photo ever of a Red Squirrel but it is mine and aren't Red Squirrels adorable!? We visited Loch of the Lowes today to see the Ospreys. The female has laid 3 eggs, so fingers crossed for healthy chicks, but in the meantime it is nice to see the adults getting up to Osprey stuff (yes, that is an official ornithological phrase). And the male was doing quite a bit of flying about which was lovely to watch. There were also quite a few pairs of Great Crested Grebes about, doing head shaking at each other. Someone told me that they thought their nests had been washed away in all the heavy rain and that was why they were back to courting - which is very sad, but I am glad that they have gone back to courting instead of just giving up. Oh and there were Roe Deer
on the other side of the loch which I saw through a spotting scope!
They swam across a small stream, got out and shook themselves dry on the
other side. There were about 9 of them and there were 2 young ones trailing behind,
which still had white spots on their sides and white tails.
The feeding station was all action as usual. There were so many birds you couldn't possibly hope to know what all was there, but the highlights for me were the Siskins (male pictured above). We only get Siskins visiting the garden very rarely and I can't say I have ever been aware of having seen them when just out and about having a walk, so being able to see so many of them so close up was brilliant. There was a Great Spotted Woodpecker about, but we didn't really get a good look at it this time round. There was also a little Vole of some sort hiding in amongst some twigs at the base of a tree. It was darting here there and everywhere and you couldn't really hope to get a good look at it to properly identify it, but it was definitely cute! But really, I think that the award for cutest creature of the day has to go to the Red Squirrels. There is just something so much sweeter about a Red Squirrel than a Grey, and I really think that it has a lot to do with those tufty ears! :-)
My first hoverfly picture of the year! I wonder how many there will be by the end of the summer... I have no idea quite why I like hoverflies so much, but they are very pretty, and when they sit still like this one, you get a chance to admire their delicacy and beautiful shinyness. I think it was very considerate of it to sit on this rather stunningly yellow tulip too as it has provided a very sunny backdrop, with some very lovely subtle detail in the form of the veins and edges of the petals.
I think the expression on this chameleon's face pretty much sums it up - "this is not on and you will pay for your insolence!" Although if you listened to the other people looking in this tank, it was an iguana and the cricket was eating it... How many animals would just sit there while something was eating it?! The chameleon wasn't really doing anything about it but I am pretty sure he was plotting. He kept looking back at the cricket and I think he was just biding his time before he executed the perfect revenge!
Meet my 2012 Easter egg! I had several ideas this year, but due to time constraints and lack of creativity I went with the most simple option in Totoro. For once in my life there is nothing glued on the egg apart from a couple of little cardboard ears! I think the paint job turned out not bad, and I'm not absolutely enamoured with the inking but I think it's not horrendous considering my stupid shakey hands. I waited a couple of days to photograph him because I really felt that a Totoro should be photographed outside, and I thought that the dandelions produced a nice homage to the umbrella. The only downside to waiting for a nice sunny day to do it outside was that acrylic paint is somewhat shiny... oh well!
This is only the second time anyone has ever given me flowers and I was so taken with them. Yellow lilies and beautiful red and yellow roses. I didn't manage to get a good shot of the roses but I did like this one of a lily, not least because it is so warm and sunny seeming. I also liked the angle. It always strikes me as odd how much of a difference the angle you shoot something at makes. It shouldn't because I've been at this for long enough to know even a few millimetres makes all the difference, however it is still striking to flick between two shots of the same thing and see the effect. I say this because I had two photos which, to all intents and purposes, looked the same. And yet this one was vastly better than the other.
The Falkirk Wheel is a really rather clever bit of engineering based on a very simple concept. It was built to connect two different canals where a series of something like 11 locks were required to join them previously. It is, very simply put, a boat lift. The canal is open to the gondolas at the top and the bottom, with the far end sealed off by hydraulic doors. Once the boat is in place and secured, the hydraulic doors onto the canal are closed and the wheel is free to turn using its electric motor. The gondolas are balanced, so that there is no strain on the mechanics, purely using the displacement of water. And the gondolas sit level in the turning arms of the wheel because it sits on wheels in the circular cut outs and the weight of the gondola keeps it sitting level. It is so clever, and it looks very impressive. The only way it could be improved? A bit more speed ;-)
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