Beautiful Nearby Garden

               The countryside of Bedfordshire has been giving way to ever more homes in areas that were dug for its clay, with much of that excavated land giving way to lakes. Marston Moretaine, in the short time that I have lived here has had numerous housing estates spring up. The lakes formed by removing that clay have become popular for water sports; for craft such as sailing dinghies, powerboats and windsurfers, and other leisure areas devoted to fishing, walking, or birdwatching.

               Many of these activities provide subjects for my photography. From time to time I simply take a walk to capture flowers, shrubs, and insects in the gardens that front the roads of the village, and yesterday whilst capturing flowers in these gardens, I was offered the chance to cross the boundary from the pavement to take photographs within both the front garden and the enclosed garden behind the house.
               It was a treat indeed, for the owner has obviously spent many hours bringing an abundance of beautiful plants, and flowers that provide colour and varied textures to her garden, and the bees were making the most of the bonanza! It was a privilege to be offered the chance to photograph the results of her hard work. I hope the two pages of pictures I was able to capture will give her some of the pleasure it gave me in their taking, and subsequently those who visit this blog. I also hope that my photographs do justice to the hard work that has gone into creating the result I was witnessing; I feel privileged to have been given the opportunity to capture the beauty her efforts have achieved. I feel sure that those who visit my blog will share the joy I had in recording the pictures I captured.

Bedford Park Visit

This time I wanted to visit this park, going in a different direction, so having parked in a nearby car park, I walked along the front of some commercial units till I reached the short road that led to the river, and took the path to the left, which entered the woods. Although I did test my trigger finger on some Canada Geese and some views to give location, I soon spotted a lady on the far side of the field toting a long lens, so I went over to enquire whether she might know of some kingfisher locations. We chatted a bit from which I learned she sold some of her work via Social Media. She was shooting subjects both in the bordering bushes as well as out in the newly mown hay.

I then concentrated on some dragonflies, damselflies and other insects that called these borders home. This season I have seen fewer butterflies, and saw a Speckled Wood relaxing in the sun. I enjoy the challenge of finding some tiny flying insects, since with this camera focussing can be an issue. Swans can represent exposure problems, but repay the effort, because of their grace, and how well they keep themselves.

In walking around the shore, I spotted a heron that was leisurely seeking fish by the island shoreline, and it seemed to be close by its nest, from what I could see, but I could be mistaken.

Before leaving, I decided to put this LUMIX camera's panoramic feature to the test, and the second of the two shots I felt captured the view well for a handheld in-camera stitch.

                        The reason this gallery is late is because I did another trip out before processing these shots, so they will follow in a day or so. Also, earlier visitors may well have noticed, I inadvertently posted an earlier text as the narrative; I am correcting this now.

Bright Sunny Day — Garden Visit

 

 

The clear blue sky was far too tempting — and I succumbed! I checked over my camera kit, and in addition to the EOS R with the Sigma Sports 60-600mm lens, I decided I would give the LUMIX FZ 20001 an outing. I packed the car having checked my tripod and head were already in the boot, and headed north from Marston Moretaine.

The drive to my planned destination was uneventful, and the blue sky was even clearer than I could have hoped. My arrival had not been announced, so I was pleasantly surprised to see familiar faces after parking my car, and starting to mount my camera and long lens on to my heavy tripod. Once that was completed I entered my friend’s garden and set down the tripod on her patio, and by that time the dogs had presumably barked themselves hoarse, because they now fell silent! By this time I had met other family members and been offered a cup of tea, which was accepted gratefully.

One of the dogs was now happily settled across the open door leading to the kitchen, so using the handheld LUMIX I captured that quiet moment, little did I realise at that point, that the camera on the tripod with its long lens attached was going to spend the rest of my afternoon visit exactly where I placed it upon arrival! I spent the greater part of my time relaxing and chatting, only picking up the camera towards the end of the afternoon as the sun was lowering, and taking a leisurely walk taking pictures of some of the flowers blooming in the beds surrounding the lawn. Unlike a previous visit when the birds were flying in and out of the garden to the trees beyond the drive, it seemed as if my presence with a camera on this occasion was not as welcome as it had been on my earlier visit.

I did take a single picture of one of the avian visitors, but it was not worthy of inclusion to the gallery, and my picture-taking was confined to the family dog and flowers and leaves. The heavy tripod and camera was simply disassembled and repacked into my car without ever coming into service! I had a very relaxing and welcoming visit with more conversation than picture-taking, but the small LUMIX camera once again proved itself very capable and worthy of being with me whenever I venture out in my car.

I am really grateful for the opportunity to take pictures in this garden.

Woking in The Garden

 

No, it was not a spelling mistake! As will be apparent by your visit to the gallery of images.

It was good to be asked once again to help another Digital Photographer do some Computer housekeeping other than my own, and especially beneficial to travel away from my own locale, to visit someone whose photography is very different from my own. David has photographed the seasons in several European countries as well as Britain; from the Air, in Microlight aircraft, and the wider range of his work can be seen by visiting his site at <http://afbs.co.uk> I tend to think of his work from the Air, but by visiting his site it is self-evident that pigeon-holing him in that genre alone is to do him a disservice, and I heartily recommend visiting his site to verify this for yourself.

My earlier visits were additionally recompensed by a trip with David over London in a Twin Squirrel helicopter, one of the few aircraft permitted to fly over the metropolis rather than be restricted to flying just above the Thames, hence my tending to consider this aspect of his work primarily.

This gallery is my way of ensuring I do not get stale and also a means of allowing me to add some words that help to repay being asked to help him, by alerting others through the medium of my blog to the work he has done shooting from above. It is a very different perspective, offering as it does patterns not apparent from terra firma.

Unexpected Gallery of Garden Interest

 had a need to show the effect of a narrow Depth of Field to illustrate how to throw an image of a flower away from its background and suppress detail beyond with a pleasant soft blurring, popularised by the term ‘Bokeh’.

According to the Law of Unexpected Consequences, which I might have  expected given the season and the warm weather after some rain, I became distracted by the hum of bumble bees pollinating some of the flowers, and the very typical flight pattern of the humble hoverfly – a particular favourite of mine. Instead of two minutes outside  before returning to process the aforementioned couple of shots, I spent my lunch half hour following the hoverflies and a couple of large green flies, possibly green bottle flies, two of these spent a short while just looking at each other, before flying off.

 The Buddliea is just coming out which should mean a splash of colour from visiting butterflies, but for now, I just spotted three; a Cabbage White, Comma and Red Admiral. None stayed long, obviously there are more developed Buddliea elsewhere! Last week whilst I was mowing the lawn which was covered in clover flowers, the bees were making the most of it before I finished clearing it to reveal the grass, and it was interesting to note the density of bees increasing as their food source was diminishing, and I was careful not to injure them, which meant I was forever stopping and starting to give them the best chance to survive.

I hope that last night’s rain and today’s warm sun puts some green back into the khaki  lawn that has been prevalent for the last month or so. I cannot complain about the opportunity to get another gallery of images to the blog, so the time taken was not wasted.

My daughter’s Westcott garden

England’s summer arrives on St. George’s Day. Friday is not a normal day to spend in a garden unless on holiday, but it proved to be ideal – mildly warm and sunny. It was a day when Spring was not yet over and the birds were in abundance with joyous song and much flirting and flitting about. I saw a robin, sparrows, blue tits and even a goldfinch with overhead, gulls, crows and pigeons. A lone self-set tulip stood proud to be away from the crowd, with a silver birch beyond.