Common but Beautiful

 

Last weekend I went over to see my son and daughter-in-law and took a number of pictures of their exotic pets. I have sorted out several to share on this page however I just haven't got round to it during the week so I will need to get more organised because there are some really interesting shots that I am sure you will love (or maybe they will give yo chills).

However today I was off work and for the first time in a while I felt really motivated to go out and get some new pictures. I got up at 5:30am and headed off to a reserve near Preston called Brockholes. Getting there early was a good idea because there was lots to see, from Brown Hares, Roe Deer, Longhorn cattle, all manner of birds and lots of wild flowers. The conditions were perfect and I had a fabulous time and got a really nice selection of shots. I would say it is the first time in a long time I have felt so positive about an outing like this and I can't wait to share some of my favourite images.

The first pictures I wanted to share were taken about 45 minutes to an hour into my visit. I had spotted this Common Kestrel hovering in the distance and I watched it settle in a tree off to my left. As I tried to get closer it kept flying off along the treeline and settled just out of range. It was so frustrating but as I very slowly made my approach it had obviously worked out that I was not a threat and it stayed settled for some time.

I was really pleased with the first image because moments before it had pooed (too much information???) so I knew I didn't have long before it took to the air again. I wasn't wrong.

What surprised and thrilled me most however was that the bird flew almost directly towards me and went into a stoop almost directly above me allowing me to get the next two images, before it realised it was just a bit too close and then flew off.

For me the second picture is my picture of the day, possible even picture of the year so far, it is almost definitely going to feature in my calendar for 2023. I love the shape of the kestrel as it hangs there in the sky, I love its piercing glare. I love the way its tail is fanned out so you can see every detail. The light on the underside of the wings is perfect and the shadow of its claws... This bird is so so beautiful. 

OK, I will stop gushing now.

I hope you enjoy these pictures as much as I do.

Little Egret

 Here are a couple of shots of a little egret taken at Burton Mere last week. It was a windy day and while this bird looks immaculate with its pristine white plumage when it tuned its head in its search of a meal the wind ruffled its feathers so badly it looked like a different bird altogether. I do have some shots of that but think it would be mean to share them.

Egrets, like their cousins the grey herons feed mainly on fish and small amphibians and snails etc however they have a much more active approach to finding their food. While the heron will stand patiently, perfectly still waiting for something to swim or move within striking distance the egret will walk slowly like a stealthy hunter in search of its prey.

Night Skies 3

 

Normally when I go out with my camera for  3 or 4 hours I will come back with hundreds of shots and several that I will want to share via this blog. However, when I went out to photograph the night sky I was left with effectively just two views one to the south with the headland illuminated by the beam from the lighthouse and a second facing west taking in the lighthouse itself and the skies above. Not a lot for the time and effort you might think, but actually I learned a lot from this trip and I am very pleased with the images I got. If you look at the posts over the last two days you will see some of the better images and today I have posted my favourite images from the night.

Firstly you have the view to the south, this was a 90 second tracked exposure (ISO 1600, 17mm F/4.0). The bright orange star slightly above the horizon and slightly to the left is Antares, the 15th brightest star in our night sky and the brightest star in the constellation of Scorpio. If you can zoom in you will see the other stars in Scorpio fanning outwards. Above that you have the constellation of Libra, and then above that slightly to the right is the bright white star Arcturus the brightest star in Bootes. 

I know it is hard to make things out and so I am aided by a neat app called Stellarium and another called Star Walk 2 which help to nicely map the sky and get my bearings on what is where. Stellarium is great because I can go back to the sky map for the exact date and time I was there and it takes out the guesswork.

In the second image, which I love, we have the lighthouse casting its beam into the Irish Sea. We are looking west and in the sky above the lighthouse we can see the constellation of Leo, the two bright stars in the centre sitting almost horizontally to each other mark the top of the constellation they are Denebola and Zosma and then towards the top of the frame almost directly above is a lovely cluster of stars, which are part of Coma Berenices, they just have numbers instead of names (eg 12 Comae Berenices).

I don't know about you but I am fascinated by the night sky, just being there in the early hours, despite the biting cold, it was a real treat to be able to look up at the vastness of space and to be able to see so many celestial bodies and to marvel at the beauty that we so rarely get to see.

Night Skies 2

 

So here are two more night sky shots from South Stack Lighthouse. They were taken about an hour apart, the first one was a 20 second exposure (ISO 1600,  17mm  F6.3) and the second was a tracked shot with a 60 second exposure (ISO 1600, 17mm F/4.0)

The camera is pointed almost due west and you can see the constellations of Cancer (centre) Hydra (left of centre) and Leo  upper left.

Depending on how large you are viewing these images it is possible to make out a blue cluster of stars (Praesepe) about 3/4 of the way up just right of centre in the first image.

In the second image you can see how the constellations have moved further to the right as the night has progressed.

The bright white light on the horizon in the second image is a Holyhead to Dublin ferry.

Night Skies 1

ISO 3200, 19mm f/4.0  30 secs 

ISO 3200,  19mm f/4.0  120secs (4x 30 sec images stacked)

ISO 2500, 17mm F/4.0  120sec

ISO 1600  17mm  F/4.0  60 sec

 Last Friday (25th March 2022), with the promise of clear skies I decided to go in search of some stars. 

I went to South Stacks on Anglesey, and although I had planned to go by myself I was pleased to have my brother with me as it is quite remote and it was pitch black. It was also good as we were both experimenting with astrophotography so we could bounce ideas off each other and share some of the excitement of seeing so many stars.

I took some shots of the sky above our head but the problem with that is I have no means of identifying exactly what I was looking at and I had set my lens at 40mm by mistake so I didn't really have a wide enough view for the shots to be of any great interest. I did however get some good shots looking across the sea, some facing south west with the lighthouse in the shot (which I will share tomorrow) and these which are facing due south and capture the headland illuminated by the passage of the beam from the lighthouse.

The first shot as you will see was a 30 second exposure and the second shot is a stack of 4 identical images with the same settings so giving a combined exposure of 2 minutes. By stacking the images (in some software called Sequator) it is possible to reduce the level of noise in the image and sharpen up the star images.

The third and fourth images are single exposures but they are tracked images in that I had mounted my camera on a star tracking mount which rotates the camera to compensate for the rotation of the earth and so keep the stars aligned so I can get sharp images of the stars (rather than smudged lines) without having to stack images. If I had stacked several of these images it would have been possible to get even sharper and less noisy images (I should have reduced the ISO for these shots too but I am still learning so I will bear that in mind for next time). With the 2 minute exposure the foreground image is too blurry for my liking and I think the 60 second exposure is probably the limit.

However I have to say I am very happy with these images. Just standing under the night sky there were so many stars visible but by using the long exposure and the tracking mount it was possible to capture so many more stars than are visible to the naked eye. As the night wore on (we were there from 1:30 to 4:30am) and dawn approached we could track the movement of stars across the horizon and you can see that in the pictures above. For example in the first image the bright orange star at the centre of the horizon is Antares but in the subsequent images it has moved up and to the left.

The bright glow to the lower left is not light pollution but is the light from distant galaxies and nebulae and this all just blows my mind at the vastness and beauty of the universe.

Please look out for some different images tomorrow and then after that I will post my favourite two images from this great night out.

From Friars Crag

 So here are the last two pictures from my recent visit to Keswick. These are views across Derwent Water from the promontory at Friars Crag, a short walk from the car park and well worth it for these views.

I shot these in black and white because as you can see the sky was very overcast and the colours had really flattened out so I thought that there would be better contrast in the images. I also used long exposures (4 secs for the first image and 3.2 secs for the second) to smooth out the choppy water and that has enhanced the light and shade from the sky as it is reflected on the surface. This has also given a bit of movement to the clouds, almost like billowing smoke. I did need to crop the first image to remove some branches that had initially framed the image quite well but in the end, given the long exposure and the strong wind they were too blurry and a horrible distraction.

I hope that you have enjoyed this series of pictures from around Keswick, I have been out and about a couple of times since then once to do some wildlife photography and once to do some astrophotography so I am looking forward to sharing some of the images I have created.