Another of Nightjar’s beautiful winter flowers from Portugal.
Gorgeous. Thanks, Nightjar.
From Lofty,
A series of the small patch of forest that was selectively burned, one year on.
What a difference a year can make. The area doesn’t look fire ravaged at all. Maybe it’s because of the regrowth on the tall trees,. That’s not something I’ve seen before and it’s fascinating. Thanks for sharing. Lofty.
Jack and I went down to the river today looking for beavers, but we didn’t have any luck. It was just too difficult to get off the path because the area is quite boggy right now. I fell 3 times (I’m dirty, but OK) before I finally decided to try again another day. We did see evidence of beavers, though, including this tree that some eager beaver started to gnaw and then abandoned. Maybe he’s coming back with a few friends to help. That looks like a mighty big tree for a single beaver to fell, even if it is an eager beaver.
I could have sworn i had scheduled these for last Monday, but they did not appear. There isn’t even a draft, which is something WordPress saves about every 30 seconds. the only explanation i have is that yes, actually dreamed it.
Yet the pics already have tags and alt text, so I’m going to blame it on WordPress eating the post.
A magical double rainbow from Jazzlet.
“This is the view from my bedroom window, lovely isn’t it? It’s a bit deceptive, you can’t see that beyond the end of the garden there is a steep slope down to a field, which is where we most often walk the dogs, beyond that is the Peak Forest Canal, then a local railway line – you can see that if you know where to look. The real deception though is the way it appears that we live in the country, when we live in a suburb, but like many northern cities there are fingers of countryside that reach into the urban area, and we are lucky enough to live on the edge of one of those fingers. When I’m on my laptop typing comments I’m in the room below our bedroom, the view isn’t quite as good as it’s blocked by our extension and by our neighbour’s enormous hedge on the left, and by the other neighbour’s conservatory on the right, but it’s still pretty amazing. The valley runs north/south and we can often see the weather blowing up it, maybe sheets of rain, sometimes the valley fills with mist and looks as if it’s boiling up before spilling over into the garden, occasionally the cloud drops right down and we can’t see to the end of the garden, let alone Top O’ The Hill. Yes that wee hill is known as Top O’ The Hill.”
Breathtaking. Thanks for sharing Jazzlet.
A few final images of the Winter Wonderland. It is long gone now, being more of a brown yucky marshland now (I love our woods, but right now the smell of the stale water is often not too nice).
The last one is an interesting one. I did not get the bird I was trying to shoot, but I ended up with a damn interesting picture.
We have many wonderful reader contributions which I’ll post the next week (no, I haven’t forgotten those). For now it’s the rest of the birds that I met walking through a Winter Wonderland.
On the first day I walked past a shrubbery that is always full of birds, but as we were approaching they all flew away, but all in a certain direction. Some landed in that shrubbery and then took off as well. we soon spotted the reason for this:
It’s a common buzzard, but they are not frequent in this particular area as it offers little space for soaring.
Walking further we then saw our usual small friends.
I cannot quite decide between sparrow and lady chaffinch with the back and tail being hidden.
Crows are always slightly out of focus, I’m afraid.
Or hiding.
Or leaving.
But you can always count on the tits.
Something special from Nightjar,
These photos are my new year gift to you and also to everyone at Affinity currently dealing with a dull winter. The mild Portuguese winter is, as you can see, full of life and colour, and even if I can’t share the sun and temperatures with you I can at least share the sights. I hope they bring you some happiness.
Thank you, Nightjar. My winter remains dull and your flowers are a welcome gift.
We had sunshine today! It didn’t last long and by the time Jack and I got outside it had gone behind the clouds again, but I saw it. And it was a grand, blinking beacon of hope in the long tunnel of winter. This photo was taken at Pittock Lake. It’s part of a water management system and the water level in the lake is lowered every year over the winter. During the rest of the year the water line is up near the trees. Normally what little water remains in January is frozen over, but so far not much has been normal about this winter. You can just see the dam on the horizon line at the right.
It’s another gray day with skies so dull it’s looked like early evening all day long. We did find a few pockets of snow to reflect some light, but even that seemed thin and wan. Nonetheless, we had a pleasant walk together in companionable quiet on the trail of our favourite forest path.
Kinglets, or more specifically goldcrests, are the prettier cousins of our common wrens. They aren’t exactly shy birds, although they don’t like too many people in the woods, but they move fast in an area with lots of bushes and twigs. I know a spot where I have good chances of spotting them. Taking their picture? The work of Sysiphus… The big lens needs a lot of light and the autofocus needs time. Given the terrain, chances are good that the bird is long gone once it has found that particular twig*.
So here are my results of several hunts.
The best shot, though I don’t recommend “click for full size”. It is grainy, since the ISO went through the roof, but shooting birds at less than 1/125 is impossible anyway.
*I could still bite my own ass for not having waited a few months longer until I had enough money to buy the “sports” version…
And now for a whole row of “I should have put superglue on the branches”…
