Milton Ernest - Autumn Colours Abound

               This Autumn day was warm and bright and found me in a garden close by the River Great Ouse in Milton Ernest, and although the gallery of images only spans a single page, I was rewarded with a fair variety of leaves, berries and flowers. I was also visited by a few birds from time time, though none came close for long enough, or in a suitable spot to warrant my capturing them. However, I was far from disappointed with the images I was able to record, what disappointed me, and was an irritation was the long forced delay in my posting the gallery on the blog! The cause of the delay was my computer suffered a crash that took till today to resolve. I received some generous help from Adobe, and was extremely grateful for the technician’s willing support in resolving the situation, as he patiently waited whilst the computer responded to his careful restoration of several hundreds of images, that had been lost (fortunately — only temporarily) — due to the mishap that had occurred a few days back — To say I was relieved would be a gross misrepresentation of my feelings of Gratitude and Relief! His Patience was exemplary, and I sincerely hope he was aware of my gratitude — I had feared it may have been terminal, as after the mishap, the total within the catalog had been reduced by two or thee orders of magnitude, so to see the extra digits certainly gave me a Very Warm Fuzzy!
               It was a dull day today — outside, but now that I can publish this small gallery, the day in my upstairs room now is way brighter than the lights can ever reach!
               To those souls who visit my blog page, I apologise for the delay, but I am exceedingly grateful that despite this lack of activity from my end, somehow the visitor numbers have held up extremely well indeed, which adds to my relief; so I thank you all very sincerely for your support, and I hope this single page gives visitors as much pleasure as it gave me in their capture.

Yet Another Garden Visit

            Good Day to whoever is visiting at present, I apologise for the hiatus in publishing anything to the blog; it is that I have been down to Goodwood for a splendid day with my elder daughter, courtesy of Lord March for whom, many moons ago, had sought help from his retouchers, The Colour Company, with whom I shared space in Clerkenwell and doubled as their salesman, and provider of their Delivery and Collection service!
            Charles March had asked the partners, Tony and John, for Photoshop and Mac Help, to which they owned that that would be the ‘Blind leading the Blind’, and suggested he contact me, whom he had often noted being in and out of their premises on his visits. The rest is as they say: History! — as Charles kindly asked whether I would mind coming down to Goodwood House to stay the night, and be ready after Breakfast to then sit down and lead him through the intricacies of the program. The response was prompt and positive on my part, and not only did I leave with a cheque that evening, upon learning of my keen interest in Motor Racing, (as at that time I was the Deputy Chief Pit Marshal for BRSCC at Brands Hatch) — I have been the recipient of invitations each year, since then!
            However, the reason this gallery is so late in arriving on my blog is that Life supervened, in that it’s preparation gave way for my visit to Goodwood, for which the gallery has yet to be even started! I shall begin in a couple of days, in the meantime, please enjoy the colour and life that abounds when looking close up within a garden.

Nature Calls — so I head for the Country!

          Yes, I need relief, but from enclosing walls, where outside, the sun is beckoning. I gather my camera and lenses and a small amount of sustenance and a flask of weak orange juice to guard against dehydration. I head north and the River Great Ouse, to keep body and soul together, and ensure my reflexes and brain get exercise.
          Damselflies, flowers, and fresh air ensures that no cobwebs are woven into the fabric of what I loosely call a brain. Currently my ongoing concern is for a failing memory, something which in earlier times I held with great pride that recall was speedy and accurate, nowadays I often struggle to remember simple descriptive words, the names of friends and places, and worst of all, why I went up or downstairs or for what item! When that happened in earlier times I would laugh at myself, and the block would melt like ice on a hot plate, and the word, thought or name would appear in a trice. Then it was funny, now it is unnerving. However, I do try to avoid getting too stressed over it, but it is tough!
          Already the grass I cut barely a week hence beckons for the mower, but I have more pressing reasons to be out, so it will have to grow some more, as I need my fix, not photographic fixer, but photographic scenes, and challenges, and the exercise of limbs and brain, and on this day blue sky almost edge to edge was the clarion call that urged me to gather my camera, which was already encased with fully charged batteries, spare cards, and a separate case with an alternative lens and spare caps. However, knowing my memory is absolutely fallible, I open the case and double check! When I reach the car, I check not only my tripods, but my monopod with ball head, which is now my main support, the tripod is there for the off chance that clouds appear. I was never a Boy Scout, but the Cubs motto was similar!
          My destination was Milton Ernest, as I can park close by the river and at this time of year birds, flowers and insects abound, so with the trusty support of the monopod and ball head, the Sigma 60-600mm on the EOS R6 is entirely manageable and really flexible, as I keep reiterating. To be visited by the woodpecker, albeit somewhat shielded by the feeder was a delight! 

          I hope that others can enjoy the shots as much as I enjoyed taking them.

Milton Ernest Flowers

Every so often, I feel blessed that not only is the sun out, but I am somewhere that really benefits my choice of venue to take photos, and this afternoon at a spot by the River Great Ouse, Spring flowers greet me. My lens of choice for such a situation is the extremely versatile 24-70mm lens with its handy macro facility. The gallery of images displayed on this occasion are taken close to the river at Milton Ernest.

The size of the flowers I captured range from the smallest, a few millimetres in diameter to clusters of full-size variegated tulips, which shows how versatile this one lens can be when used exclusively on the EOS R6, as I was that afternoon. After my long telephoto zooms this is one of my favourite lenses because of this very versatility.

What pleased me amongst these images were the interesting curves that the leaf blades formed alongside the flowers themselves. I rounded off the set of images with shots of the river bank and, as I walked back up the lane, the clouds looked ominous over my parked car, so I captured that as a fitting end to my afternoon.

Two Riverside visits — Oakley and Milton Ernest

I drove to the village of Oakley, which has several areas with easy access to the banks of the river Great Ouse, at this time of year, this is an area with a wealth of different indications of different stages of fresh young growth. This was especially noticeable on the trees alongside the road heading towards the church at Oakley, close by a small park and the river Great Ouse. I had parked up in a small area opposite to the gate to the river bank park that has a gate leading to a path across a green field and also an entrance to the riverside path on the other side of the road bridge across the river.

I was fortunate to have some sunshine in the early stages of this trip, but it was not destined to last. One very noticeable observation I made was just how many large tree branches were caught in the various barrages at the bridges and weirs. From my walks in the nearby woodland paths, I was pleased that it was far less muddy than it had been a few weeks earlier, and that some of the clearings had small stacks of collected fallen branches. The barrages on the river were well-filled and the buttresses of the bridge were holding back some very large tree trunks. Also in the small park that stretches from the bridge to the church there were several cut down trees.

I spent much of my time capturing the different stages of growth of leaves and seeds as I walked along the margins, and also noted that one of the walls at the end of the road bridge had very bad cracks, yet also reasonably recent new pointing. My stay at this stretch of the river concluded by my capture of the fresh new season’s various growth stages, before driving to Milton Ernest where I captured a pair of swans on this stretch of the same river, and more young flowers.

I try to make a point of photographing the information panels as it comes in handy when choosing locations at future times.

River Gt Ouse — Afternoon Walk

The sun graced my visit to the River Great Ouse at Milton Ernest, and it was extremely sticky as the humidity was very high, but it was sometime since I had been to Milton Ernest and was hoping to catch sight of a kingfisher along this stretch of the river, as I had it on good authority there was one seen along here. But to save raising any  hopes, no kingfishers were seen or heard during this trip!
When I am not on the look out for animal or birds as subjects for my trigger finger, architecture can catch my eye and interest, and on this walk I was not disappointed, as one of the bridges became a subject for my LUMIX FZ10002. In this instance, it was the shine on the underside roof that caught my eye.
There were small islands in the path of the river which also caught my eye, as did some swans with their cygnets, but they managed to ensure I had no clear sight of them, and although I walked fast to try to intercept them, they succeeded in eluding me totally, despite my best efforts to try to find a spot on the bank to catch a further sight of them.
Later, I found flowers to feed my camera's hunger for beauty, so the afternoon's images certainly represent variety, where the only connection was the camera, my eyes and an insatiable hunger for capturing interesting images. I hope that I have succeeded despite not having realised one specific personal hope in my ongoing search for locations where I have a realistic chance of finding kingfishers.

River Gt. Ouse – Walk

           This gallery has a few additional, unrelated images from my front hedge and elsewhere, so that I could fill the available slots. I spent a relaxing and enjoyable time in a village a few miles north of my home, Milton Ernest. I took a walk alongside the River Great Ouse with the Lumix FZ10002 and one Closeup lens in case the opportunity arose where I needed to get close.

           In the distance at one stage, I spotted a church looking as if it was on a wooded island surrounded by fields. It should be apparent that my taste in images is somewhat Catholic, as it is not simply the life that exists in bushes and hedgerows, but the vista of landscapes themselves, and the architecture of structures to be found when walking, such as beneath the railway as it is elevated above low-lying fields. The rushing waters of the River Great Ouse I found fascinating as it caused the reeds to constantly wave to the currents and create ever-moving patterns that I found very restful. As I followed the course of the river, sometimes close, other times at a greater remove, the sun would cast shadows that moved across the landscape as if to similar rhythms; occasionally only lighting a thin moving wedge across the fields. Occasionally a tree standing alone caught my eye, or one dead tree reminded me of an Octopus as if halted whilst traversing the field.

           There were numerous butterflies, the occasional damselflies, a Swan with a single Cygnet slowly navigating the reeds close by the bank, a tiny snail beneath a leaf. All presented me with the challenge of how to capture the variety, whether up close or at a distance. I enjoyed the variety of the flowers, the winding road rising a hill, and the shapes to be found in the trunk of a tree. All these images were captured with the one camera, despite being close or distant, and in the case of the tiny snail by flipping up the flash to light the underside of the leaf to which it hung. On the next trip out I even used its ability to stitch a panorama as I carefully panned it from left to right; I cannot praise this LUMIX camera enough for sheer versatility!