ABC – Autumn Bedfordshire Colours!

Why do free time slots occur when the sun is hiding? I had earlier seen some splendid autumn colours along the A421 in late afternoon sunshine, but when free to get out and try to capture the panoply of autumn hues, the sun was behind clouds. But to fail to record them at all seemed a poor option, so I headed out to see whether with a long lens I might be able to see some of that regardless, but the geography made that impossible, so I sought out areas that were more accessible from the countryside nearer me. And initially much closer – within the reach of the 90mm Tamron Macro!

Leaves, acorns, brambles, late roses, and puzzling holes in the verges – I am left wondering which small animals were responsible for these thinly disguised entrances, marked from the dying grasses. I found red leaves on roadside trees, and in a field, rows of cultivated bushes. Later, I even found some late roses and holly with berries; definitely greeting card fodder.

Strangely, also a small area of hedgerow literally teeming with energetic wasps of seemingly different ages to judge from the span of sizes, and they were intent on a very specific seed structure; that of ivy, which resemble a tiny World War II mine at normal viewing distance, but when close, resemble small green flowers on extending stems, obviously supplying an inviting taste to wasps. I had never seen such a number, other than when seeing a cluster of rotting windfall apples.

Altogether a fruitful time for the dying colours of Autumn. The American term: Fall, only describes the results of the action of the wind on the dying leaves from the trees, the English term: Autumn, describes so much more; the range of colours, the russets against the fading green, and the pale yellows with blotchy specks of black, the last warm winds that signal the end of summer and the rains that will herald the cold of the coming Winter.

I hope the gallery of pictures has captured something of an English Autumn, not simply the carpet of fallen leaves.

Briefest Early Woburn Park Visit

Waking early and fairly wide awake, I decided to take a chance to pay a visit to the deer at Woburn Park; just a few miles beyond the M1; it seemed it had rained earlier, so I thought it might stay dry for a while. Arriving at the car park, I was greeted by a red sky, but as I assembled my camera, it disappeared and was replaced by the familiar English shades of grey murk, before I had even reached the path through the woods!

I arrived at the small pond by the visitors’ gate and set up the tripod and before the deer were spooked by my presence took a few shots of them at rest largely in silhouette, and despite my moving slowly and carefully they began leaving towards the open space of the field beyond the pond, some had been in the water and they began jumping out which definitely added to the atmosphere of fear amongst the rest. I moved slowly towards the kiosk in a few stages, shooting when at rest. It was during this exodus that I spotted three stags that were lame, and mentioned it to a passing Ranger. It was very low light and therefore I was using  3200 ISO and occasionally 4000! So the quality is none too high.

A few early athletes came by and jogged along the lower path and we exchanged greetings as they passed; the most unusual passerby was taking a pony for a stroll, so he and his pony now feature alongside the deer. After watching some of the activities amongst the deer and choosing key moments, hopefully shown something of the story of what was happening – one stag for example was moving to protect his doe.

Soon after that I felt the onset of rain, my subjects were also disappearing into the distance and discretion was definitely the better part of valour, because I value my kit and it is a long trek back to the car! So I closed the tripod legs and headed back. Arriving back at base, a car drew up at the house and outstepped my accountant Penny, so my timing was spot on, but by pure chance!

Work Begins on Marston Moretaine Bridge

I have secured permission to don my PPE (Personal Protection Equipment) and enter the site from the Contractors, T&W Civil Engineering Ltd, to take photographs of the works as they progress, so over the next few weeks it will be possible to see how things are moving by coming back to this blog from time to time.

It is a shame there is nowhere secure to mount a camera from a high viewpoint to take a time lapse of the work as it proceeds. Also I feel sorry for cyclists who would have liked to have some means of still using the route, but because of local roads layout any diversion has to go around the ex-quarry lake of Brogborough, or take to the pathways across the fields.

I arrived on site at around eight-thirty and started work taking shots of the brook itself as well as the start of the new temporary diversionary route that allows the men to demolish the bridge and later to put in the large concrete pipes that will take the brook beneath the road. The most notable observation was just how many services there are that will have to be carefully by-passed as they excavate before working out which have to be replaced by the appropriate service providers: Gas, Electricity, Street Lighting, Telephones, Water, and Sewage. What I learned was the sheer profusion was not foreseen, and presents further work, and potential delays.

It will be interesting to see how this resolves down the line.

Road Closure, Marston Moretaine

Station Road, Marston Moretaine is due eight weeks of lower through traffic with the closure of road, just short of the Marston Forest Nature Reserve. This is due to the removal and replacement of the existing bridge over the brook. T&W Civil Engineering Ltd will be carrying out the work. It will be interesting to see whether road users will find useful alternative routes that might lower Station Road's through traffic, or whether it will be a short respite before it increases exponentially. It does look as if there is another entrance to new houses being built on land to the left of the Forest Centre entrance which may compound traffic congestion along Station Road within Marston Moretaine.

Perhaps wisdom may have prevailed and this might be just an exit left, away from the village, though I will not hold my breath, as Bedfordshire is not renowned for outstanding planning decisions where roads are concerned.

I have noticed that numerous car drivers are either overly optimistic and that there is a way to reach the Nature Reserve and beyond from Marston Moretaine's Station Road, or they feel that with the road going nowhere it is an ideal spot to practice three-point turns!

Since it is but a short walk for me to visit, I may well take progress shots to give an indication of the road to completion (I know – pardon the pun!)

On my visit this morning I smelt a strong whiff of gas emanating from just before the bridge at the small brick building where the High Pressure Gas Pipeline is located, and reported it, because this could be an issue whilst this road and bridge work was being carried out.

An Early Start for Marsworth Reservoir

Checking the weather forecast suggested a bright day, but either I did not see a mention of heavy mist, or there was not one, for I set off in a very thick mist that in parts was better described as fog, making winding country roads without white edge lines particularly hazardous in the early hours, and having had to scrape my windscreen of frost, my dashboard reminded me unnecessarily the potential for ice!

My route had many junctions and I almost missed one as its landmark pub was obscured in the mist. I arrived at Tringford with darkness still prevailing, I parked up and put together my Giottos tripod and  Lensmaster gimbal head, and had already put the Canon 100-400mm lens with 1.4 converter, and slung my 5D MkIII with 35mm f/1.4 around my neck and set off along the path that lay between Startops End lake and Marsworth lake. The Canada Geese or Graylags were hooting and Gulls swooped in and out of the mist over the waters of Marsworth, as I headed along the Grand Union Canal towards the reed beds.

 I made my way carefully and quietly down the bank to avoid creating a disturbance and began setting up the tripod, I had nearly completed when a quiet voice behind me said he had waited for me to finish before alerting me to his presence in case in fright I was pitched into the water! I don't think he realised how true was his statement, for had he spoken at normal volume, I would have jumped clean out of my skin! He introduced himself as Andy, and much later as Andy Brown, and I learned we shared a mutual friend in Mervyn.

My eyes have started to degrade more rapidly of late and this has resulted in my having two very different prescriptions for distance and close work, and today for the first time since my latest glasses, I found that the pair I had chosen which allowed me to view the review screen well were very far from being useful in spotting kingfishers on the far bank, and on this occasion I was indebted to Andy who was clearly able to spot them. I think I am going to have to bring both pairs with me in future, which was not the case before.

As the light slowly improved we both began shooting at high ISO and fairly wide apertures, and it soon became apparent that my decision to check out using a converter on the 100-400mm lens was far less effective than using my 150-600mm lens on its own, so that experiment was a failure! The main reason being that in this low light auto focus was both very slow, and sometimes simply not happening. The advancing light certainly improved the quality of images I was able to get – I was bitterly disappointed with the vast majority of the early shots, and only rising to barely acceptable towards late morning. Another experiment was using the onboard flash of the 7D MkII, again way under-powered to work efficiently, but it did seem to have a beneficial side effect, in that it seemed to make the kingfisher show interest in us!

After Andy had headed off to work for a Conference call, a pair of wood pigeons began courting, and since I had built up an interesting sequence, I have put these in a separate gallery. (click the underlined text above to link to the gallery).

I stayed for an hour or so longer, because it became apparent that the kingfishers had had their fill for our neck of the woods, so I set off back to the car, but along the way I did stop occasionally to record a few landscape shots and also got involved in a few conversations with others walking the footpath.

Brief Visit to Tring Reservoirs

I had not travelled to Tring Reservoirs for some time, so on a whim I phoned the Water Bailliff to find out if I was able to get my car parked nearby, but he was in a meeting and could not speak, so would speak to me in the afternoon; the answer suggested I might still be lucky, so I travelled down later on the offchance and was lucky, and since I found the gate unlocked, I phoned him, and learned he was down at the lake himself, so asked was it OK;  he told me fine, and I went along to meet him. We chatted about his wife who has been unlucky with her health. He broke off suddenly when he spotted a cormorant.

They are having a lot of trouble with cormorants that are very damaging to the lake’s fish, and Bob is constantly using a cap gun to scare them off, but it seems it is a battle that the cormorants are winning as they are increasingly taking no notice of his efforts to drive them away. Unlike herons that eat smaller fish, the cormorants go for the trout and often just wound them, resulting in many of them dying from their wounds, which leaves the anglers very angry, especially since restocking is so expensive. I left him to his task and set off with my camera and monopod, to Marsworth.

The water level was very low and the few birds that were there were gathered en masse on the shore close by the stream that fills Startops lake, there were several cygnet families, Canada geese, black-headed gulls, greylags and coots all together in the shallow water or the exposed foreshore. I spotted a Mallard drake making a beeline for two others, and it seemed he was exhorting them to join him and bring the duck along too, which I found intriguing as at first I had thought he was being aggressive. Awhile later I spotted first a small dusty-shaded butterfly I took to be a Speckled Wood, and also a Red Admiral, which surprised me so late in the season. In my walk along the canal towpath I met several couples out with their dogs and in the course of conversation learned of a pair of herons between the locks, but at this time I did not see them.

Later still whilst I was down at the water’s edge looking ahead expectantly waiting for sight of a kingfisher, I glanced to my right and there was a silhouette that looked very like a kingfisher in the dark dead branches completely still – putting the camera to my eye I realised my good fortune and slowly I focussed on him, and opened up two stops and increased the ISO and just hoped as I watched that it might be enough to allow me to brighten it later in Lightroom. I took several shots as he swung his head around every so often sometimes with his eye showing, and when I ‘chimped’ I thought they were going to severely lack colour as he was in such deep shade. Much later on the computer in Lightroom I was really amazed at how much detail I had succeeded in getting from the gloom in which they were shot.

Having been rewarded by the kingfisher shots I walked further along the canal, but on the outward journey failed to spot the youngster on the far side, however on my return, there it was perched on one leg absolutely motionless. I got some shots in profile by waiting for him to be distracted by some of the strollers, I thanked them and we chatted as I headed back to the car. We parted company at the junction of the towpath and the two lakes, and I met up once again with Bob and another angler and was treated to a snack of pork pie and a cup of tea, before heading back to Marston Moretaine.