Bedford — River Gt. Ouse - walk with Camera

        Combining a trip to the Supermarket for food, and an afternoon along the river seemed like an excellent way to mix essential travel with exercise and time spent with a camera covering some of Bedford’s wildlife.
        Although I had experienced a few drops of rain on the outward journey, and there were still some dark clouds, the weather held for the entire time I was out, and very few people were in the park — notably, young mothers with pre-school children and retired people singly and in pairs, taking exercise, sometimes with their dogs. Once again, I had only my monopod to support my camera, which gave me freedom in terms of weight without limiting my ability to have a stable platform. Only occasionally was the light low enough to limit my exposure. I did learn that on occasion I had failed to take this into account, so will take greater care in future to keep a check on exposure settings.
         I did observe both butterflies and dragonflies, but none settled long enough for me to take any photos despite several vain attempts, the sunshine presumably kept their energy fully replenished, as I barely had time to frame them before they flit elsewhere, but I made the attempt on several occasions, and overall their numbers were low. Whilst on the subject of observations, once again, I spotted discarded face masks, so I feel perhaps, I will arm myself with a thin rubber glove and a small polythene bag, but this thoughtless behaviour is so selfish, since these open spaces make no charges, and will be lost to us all if this continues.
         I gather we are due more sunshine, so I hope to be able to travel further afield for my exercise and mental therapy. 

Biddenham - A Long Riverbank Walk

I set off to Biddenham and the River Great Ouse to stroll along the banks to capture some of the native life to be found close by. I took a shot of the Information board, to make it easy for me to reference on the blog. I have been here before, but on this occasion I was here to explore the numerous paths leading off the main one, to reach close to the water’s edge where the subjects of my photography are to be found in fair numbers.

Fortunately, right at the beginning of the walk, there were good views of the bridge from the bank close by the Park entrance, with the river flowing fast over the shallows on the left. I took to the path that runs close to the bank, and investigated what shots could be taken along the bank side path, before finding the real images I sought; which were of the wildlife, such as butterflies, damselflies, and dragonflies and, views of the enclosing landscape of the park.

It was during the time down by the river bank, that I spotted interesting patterns in the water, so naturally they appear in the subsequent gallery of images in my blog. The River Great Ouse meanders in numerous loops in Bedfordshire, and in this area the river is often shrouded by woodland, which offers me good chances to photograph the birds, animals, insects, associated trees, vegetation, and flowers.

On this outing, there were numerous butterflies and damselflies; and the list of those, that I later managed to get shots of were Red Admiral, Brown Hawker, Ruddy Darter, Comma, and Meadow Brown butterflies, and Damselflies. One such, I had never seen before, the Emerald Damselfly. Altogether, I had a very enjoyable and productive afternoon.Later, after working through the editing I found myself with one image over a round number to fill four pages in the gallery to be uploaded to the server, so one more look through the images to decide which one is for the chop! Lastly, which image or images will head up the Blog entry, when it is ready to go online.