Summer’s End in the Country?

Is Sunday the very last day of this Summer? It looked strongly as if this was to be, so I determined that I would take the opportunity to be out and about with the camera; more correctly with two, one, the EOS 7D with the 100 - 400mm and the other the 5D MkII  with the 24 - 105mm. I set off heading towards Dunstable and just by the Mansfield and Streetfield Schools entrance I parked up, because the tractor was in the steep hill  field where I had spotted it ploughing on the Saturday, and here was again this time ‘dressing’ I believe is the term. Having taken a few shots, I was waiting whilst the tractor was hidden from view when I heard a different sound coming from the direction of the Schools’ playing fields, as I approached, I spotted a radio-controlled helicopter between the trees, and grabbed a quick shot before entering the grounds to get a better look.

I saw the man handling the craft, with his back to me and thought I’d try to get some shots looking over his shoulder or at least with him silhouetted in the foreground, and I then did my best to get shots of the chopper in flight, I kept shooting till I saw him land it and as it did so laughter broke out from behind me – they thought I had missed out and and were also amused that the controller had never known I was behind him; I was surprised they were behind me as I had no clue there was anyone else around, though I was not in the least disappointed with the shots I had taken. I showed him a few of them on the back of the camera, then took some more shots of a smaller helicopter and a truck, before returning to grab more shots of the tractor. I was while I was doing that the man caught up with me and asked could he some of the shots and gave me his email address, I promised I would send him the URL of the blog, and he was happy. I also spotted a very happy cyclist as I left, presumably because for the last half-mile it had all been downhill, and she was coasting at a fair lick!

I then headed for Dunstable and on towards Tringford where I called in on the anglers, before moving on to Wilstone where I was lucky to capture a Migrant Hawker spotted initially by some birders.Later I was to see a juvenile heron as well as a more mature one standing at the water’s edge alongside a lapwing. I also spotted a swan aloft and another revving for takeoff. It was however sad to see just how low the water was at Wilstone due to its leak.

I felt contented by the shots I had taken in the warm October sun under a blue sky with puffy fairweather clouds, and headed back to watch what turned out to be a very exciting Korean Grand Prix. I was highly amused by Lewis Hamilton’s radio message to his team after several fruitless laps close behind the Sauber of Nico Hulkenburg trying his utmost to get past – ‘Anyone got any suggestions?’