Bedford–River Walk in Sunshine

On this particular day, I took a trip to Bedford and a Car Park that would give me a good spot to take a walk along the River Great Ouse. It was fairly late in the day, but there was still some warmth, but knowing the chances of rain were high, I was prepared for that eventuality, and it proved to be a well-founded perception.
 I had chosen a start I had taken before, but my intention was to follow a different route though still keep close to the river. Soon after crossing the bridge and entering the wide expanse of grass alongside one tributary of the river I spotted a lone angler, so I decided to walk along metal walkway to have a word with the man and enquire whether he knew of any nearby locations I might spot kingfishers.
He told me that he had seen some further along the stretch I was about to continue heading — I thanked him and had barely reached the spot from where I had decided to walk over to him, when I was amazed by the very species of bird I sought head from the woods towards me in a blur of blue and orange, then take a sharp left turn and fly away alongside the stretch of river I had been coming from!
Although there was naturally disappointment in not having the opportunity to get a shot of the kingfisher, I still found enormous pleasure from the sight of my favourite bird, as it had reinforced the knowledge of a potential location for the future — for that I was sufficiently pleased that I returned to the angler to recount what I had just witnessed and told him I just had to thank him for bringing me good luck!
Sad to report I was not treated to any further sighting of a kingfisher, but I did get some shots of a heron, another avian favourite of mine, and that situation came about from my talking to a canoeist who a short while later pointed out the heron to me, so on this occasion I did manage to get shots of this one!
These were the photographic highlights for me, even though I spent much longer before ending this particular sortie. Later, after deciding to consider starting my return journey to the car, I took a shot of what I first thought was a bird in the undergrowth I was embarrassed to find it was a log! It was at this point of acute embarrassment I came across a lady ahead of me, and felt I simply had to own up to this abysmal failure! We ended up walking along the same route chatting away, and it was during this walk I began noting raindrops whilst we talked. As I neared the end of my journey, the lady stopped at a point where our journeys separated, and we took our individual ways home as the rain increased.

Alternate Destination – Marston Thrift

  I had two possible subjects this afternoon, and on my trip towards the first, I encountered severe traffic congestion, it was therefore out of the question continuing the journey towards my first choice. I had solid phalanxes of barely moving vehicles in both directions, so made the decision to attempt a three-point-turn and, amazingly, a lengthy gap in the opposing traffic was just enough for me to make the attempt; and I took the opportunity, turning with one hand, and gesturing my thanks with the other, and the driver coming from the opposing direction generously allowed me sufficient time to complete the manoeuvre. I waved further thanks as I moved ahead in front of the generously helpful driver!

My first choice of venue had been to visit the River Great Ouse in Bedford, to investigate the possibility of finding a stretch with kingfishers, but now, it was to return towards home and visit Marston Thrift and the car park had only a single car, so there would likely be very few others in the park and so it proved — almost everyone I came across was out exercising their dogs. All told, during the entire afternoon, I only saw around eight people, with only a few of those out for a lone walk, and one other than myself, out with a camera.

Today's images are mainly a record on the theme of the season Autumn, with only landscapes and vegetation as subject matter, but still an enjoyable way to spend the afternoon. Only disappointment being that there was no sign of the squirrel I had hoped might make an appearance; I spent a few moments in the vain hope it might be in the tree where I have seen it in the past. On this occasion it was nowhere to be seen – Shame!

Windfilled Sails at Brogborough

  The sun and wind were the portents I appreciate, as when the two come together the chances of activity at Brogborough Lake rise, and despite this being on a weekday during Lockdown, the numbers at the Windsurfing Car Park indicate I am in luck. The gates were open, so I drive in and park to decide whether my luck is in.

Fortunately, the opportunity for the taking of photographs of the action on the water was good, as the numbers and activity both onshore and out on the water meant I was fortunately not going to have to leave disappointed. I returned to my car after taking in the scene that greeted me, and readied my camera. The camera for this day's visit was once again the small, but trusty, LUMIX 10002.

One of the first images was of one of the hydrofoil boards used by the Wingsail enthusiasts; to me the most notable feature was the large height that the hydrofoil had compared to the earlier hydrofoils I had seen on the fixed sail versions. The clouds overhead from the start really caught my eye as they were very striking, and as a result feature strongly throughout the ensuing gallery of images. For this reason many of the images show much larger expanses of sky and correspondingly minute figures within, but fortunately the quality still remains due to the high shutter speeds that I was able to employ to capture the images at high quality.

I will also apologise for the delay in putting this gallery up on the blog, as the large number of shots I took at the time due to my settings of multi exposure bursts as the fastest way to work with this camera. It has the downside of having to work through more images, and with a fast filling of my hard drive, which will soon force me to buy another to give me more space!

I am a fan of cloud structures as they offer excellent backdrops for greetings cards with ample space for messages, and certainly to me, inherently carry a happy feeling to convey greetings for birthdays and successful milestones, when used as backgrounds to the textual messages. Clouds set in blue skies always convey happiness and goodwill, never gloom.

Marston Meadow Photo Walk

  It took till the afternoon before the weather improved enough for me to contemplate a walk outside with a camera, and I knew that the further I ventured, the return trip became more compromised, but the attraction of being outside won the day. I headed for the road towards the station. On my right was the entry to the expanse of lawn due to become a garden of Remembrance and the extension of the nearby graveyard.

I spotted that on the far right, there was now the sight of flowers for lost loved ones, and presumably the first graves, and a man was making his way towards me from that area; he appeared to be a possible sexton returning from that site. We had a short chat, before I returned to the roadside path and after a further walk along this path, I took the opportunity to cross the road, and enter the park.

I took a different route than normal, by following a path that entered the woods, which I found soon entered a large expanse of enclosed grassland that I had never visited before; I made a note of this as a place to bring my grandchildren in the future. I learned it had been named as Marston Meadow. It was an opportune moment for the cloud cover to open and for the sun to come out.

When I was young I was led to believe that a profusion of berries at this season was a portent of a hard winter, but of late this has not proven to be valid for it is quite some time since we have witnessed a hard winter after such a precursor! I believe that the power of such a fierce force would be most welcome to counter the spread of Covid this Winter.

I made the most of the opportunity of the light and colour I found whilst in this area, especially as there were very few sharing this space; one exception being a lady exercising her dog by using a thrower to propel a tennis ball some distance ahead, and her charge returning it eagerly for a further chance to retrieve it! It turned out from our subsequent conversation her husband was a keen photographer. We chatted for a short spell, until I broke off because some features in the hedgerow caught my eye, and we parted, but not without my sharing my business card details in the hope her husband's shared interest in photography might mean we might meet in the future.

Two highlights for me in terms of images were the powerful cloud structures I captured, and the seriously powerful thorns on some rose branches. A while later, I felt the drops of rain arrive, and the clouds darkened noticeably, I took the opportunity to hide my camera beneath my pullover, but brought it out twice more for the capture of two 'fairy rings' and the unfortunate demise of my right boot which slowed my progress of retreating from the park!

Chance Retrospective!

                    This morning I was looking back within my own blog, to simply get an idea of seasonal activity from the past; in particular, what activity I had found on the lakes at Tringford around or before this time of year, when I spotted an entry from late August 2011 when I had the good fortune to witness a wonderful cameo of a lone Grebe parent fishing tiddlers for its young Grebeling chick it was carrying on its back. It was only once I opened that gallery and reminded myself of the occasion, I realised that perhaps others, might equally enjoy the scenes I had enjoyed and recorded back then. So here is the way to revisit that item:

On the right side of the blog is an Archive of previous entries I have made in past years –

Click on the year 2011, and a downward pointing triangle will open that year's entries.

Click August, and the anti-penultimate entry there; "Tringford Afternoon Bird Watching" will reach the shots I was able to capture that day – the particular images appear on the second page of the gallery. The first page of images was devoted to another of my favourite subjects, a Heron.

Enjoy. Hopefully entering a word in my Search Bar, you may find pictures of subjects I have captured since starting this blog way back, a dozen years ago!

PS. Ironically, for those with experience of blog use, the earlier gallery can actually be found by clicking the headline, but the procedure I have described is a way of finding other subjects of interest I may have also photographed – Try: band, butterfly, cricket, Goodwood, Clerkenwell, cricket, Ouse, digicluster, Stockwood, windsurfers – you will notice this can often lead to some rather esoteric subjects!

Brogborough Lake – Berry Quiet

  The current weather has been punctuated by showers, mostly light, with occasional sunshine, and fairly warm when the wind is only light when it occurs. Since the most recent shower had died, I decided to chance the short drive to the lake at Brogborough, knowing full well that the lake would not be attractive to windsurfing activity on this occasion.

I did think there might just be some dragonflies, but I was soon to have that hope dashed — in the more than an hour I walked along the shoreline path, I had only the briefest glimpse of just one. Also, only one small white butterfly made a brief appearance.

Fortunately, the visit was not a waste of time, the early signs of Autumn were apparent in the warm colours of leaves, and the recent shower left droplets of water on blades of grass. Small long-limbed flying insects were hoping their colour was masked by the sun-dried reeds in which it had landed, but my patience and persistence prevailed.

The camera I was using was my Lumix with its long zoom range, and my decision to keep some close-up lenses handy, meant the range of subjects I was able to capture with just the LUMIX FZ10002 was not hampered by only having the one camera — I was able to use the lens at its full focal length reach for a shot of a distant bowl on the far horizon, yet also capture close-ups of small winged insects amongst the undergrowth. I was also able to capture distant landscapes and billowing cloud formations one moment then take advantage of the cameras integral electronic flash to bring out detail in backlit shots of berries high atop some of the lakeside bushes.

The scope of subjects this small and light camera can handle is impressive, and in this short walk did not even involve the carrying of any bag or tripod, just a soft camera case that I stuffed unceremoniously into my pocket, which had the two closeup lenses in their cases within.

Win, win! I got plenty of exercise without fatigue; fresh air in abundance and a reasonably varied range of images, all to a very adequate quality.