A Walk by the Fields

          My afternoon walk on this occasion took me away from my end of the village and along the path from the main road that follows the outer bounds of the village, with the currently somewhat overgrown path of the brook. Since Spring is merging into early Summer, some of the leaves no longer have the freshness of early growth, and in some instances have signs of foreign growths on their surfaces, and clusters of larvae. I was however far more interested in young healthy growth and clusters of seeds, and signs of this season’s farmers crops. 
          I spotted a lone rabbit, and remained as still as possible to be able to get some shots before it headed once more for cover. However, there is not much to show for the length of time I spent walking, but I had specifically chosen to walk rather than drive further afield, as it was primarily a walk for exercise, so the photographs were a bonus. Provided the weather holds, my next excursion will be further afield, but the house needs my attention, as does the grass of my lawns, so my priorities must be observed! 

Another River Gt. Ouse Visit

There are times when Britain defies the idea that all we talk about is our weather, and this day, certainly in Bedfordshire, just had to be one where everywhere I turned everyone simply got on with enjoying it! There were no clouds to be seen from horizon to horizon, just clear blue. I had headed north to a place I had visited on the river that seems to wander in circles around the county, never giving a clue as to where it might be heading. Perhaps the message is: “Forget your compass, just follow me”! I did just that after taking the A421 north until I could get on the A603 and headed to Great Barford. The bridge here tells a story, it has many arches meaning it was built to defy the river and reach beyond its clutches to reach other destinations rather than be contained by its leisurely meanderings. Yes, the river provided water for growing crops, but it also gave the means to reach elsewhere to sell them and to reach higher ground to be safe from its dangers. The bridge not only has many arches, but it has history — a record of being constantly rebuilt stronger and wider over centuries — people here needed the river, and realised it had to be managed.

On this day the river gave over some of its power to the people to be enjoyed, and the sunshine brought them out cheerfully and in relaxed mood, small family groups remained in relaxed isolation, or walked with young families, or exercised with their dogs; older folk sat on some of the benches, at peace, watching others pursue their activities. People individually enjoying both the calm and the exercise in the open fields or on the paths, or on the water, paddling or tending their boats. In the air were birds flying, also with no clearly defined destination; Time appeared to have slowed down in the mild air, and even the young children appeared serene.

I spent some time at the same pace capturing what I saw, before moving elsewhere to see a pair of tractors tilling the ground and raising the dry soil in the slight breeze. I moved elsewhere to capture views of some of the houses and churches and, the ravens and pigeons on the ground or the pollarded trees, and finally I got shots of Spring blossom, fields of golden rapeseed and before leaving the area, I strolled around a lone church which remains consecrated, but like its neighbour buildings seems to be from a bygone era; in retirement.

Another Riverside Walk

  I set off from Marston Moretaine, and headed towards Bedford, and the destination on this occasion was the River Great Ouse at Willington, having parked in some shade, I put my 60-600mm Sigma into my rucksack, and mounted the Canon EOS R6 with the 24-70mm + Macro facility on the monopod, and set off past the Dovecote to the entrance to the woods and the river. I carried a spare fully charged battery, as the one in the camera was only half-charged.

  The first image I took simply appealed to my sense of humour in that the dead tree seemed to depict a Klu Klux Clansman with other bleached and petrified stumps nearby. Am I alone in  visualising faces, animals, and other features in the trees as I walk in woods? As trees age, and branches break off and the trees heal, I frequently see heads or other features form animals and birds without human intervention, and later this same day I come across examples of carving that are not simply happenstance as well as a querulous raised eyebrow that was definitely not the result of human intervention.

  I met and chatted to a few fellow walkers at healthy distanced proximity, and enjoyed a pleasant Spring walk with my camera.

MM-Walk in the Fields

Having spent the afternoon of the Monday Bank Holiday really close to home to capture the Spring Growth in the hedgerows and the elusive male Orange Spot Butterflies, making the most of the warm sunshine, the following Day was destined to be largely seated in front of my Mac, spending time cropping and adjusting the images into a gallery to be put up on the blog.
This ensures I cannot spend too much time in the great outdoors and disobey the mores of Social Distancing whilst under the Covid pandemic, whilst still ensuring I keep body and brain active, and exercised regularly. On this trip, the large part of my time was spent without even a single soul visible for at least eighty percent of this period. Out in the large open field, the Marston Moretaine Church does not display its characteristic separate bell tower and seems ordinary and unassuming, beyond the shielding trees.
On three distinct occasions when I caught sight of a white butterfly with orange wing tips, they were making the most of the energy supplying sunshine to spend most of their time in the air, with only fractions of a second stationary, so with almost no time to frame them, let alone consider focussing. This is the single most frustrating aspect of using a mirrorless camera – one needs some appreciable time to follow and focus on such a subject in order to expect to obtain a reasonable shot, and with almost constant sunshine, the butterfly has the advantage! On one spell when the insect was working along the banks of the stream, it alighted on a flower probably three times in a five-minute spell, and the aggregate time it was stationary over that period never amounted to a complete single second! The really galling aspect was on that occasion, I never had a chance to get it in frame, let alone get an image!
Likewise, the stream was both deep and with overhanging grasses, reeds and other foliage, making it difficult to capture the few shots I did manage, of a pair of Mallard ducks making their way along. Fortunately, I enjoy a challenge as I need to master the controls of this particular camera, because they are far less intuitive than my Canon cameras. (I am also reminded of the saying involving 'Old Dogs' and 'New Tricks') and I freely admit that I have many more difficult-to-reach 'Little Grey Cells' that lie tantalising buried within the Cortex I laughingly call my brain! – I put this down to 'Anno Domini' and the sad truth that my dominoes are easily knocked over in a cascade!
However, the fortuitous finding of this Lumix FZ1000 Mk2 does mean that I can have it with me all day without it ever becoming a burden, and the quality it can achieve is exceptional, despite having thus far not reached that Nirvana where I find it entirely intuitive (this is when I am reminded of the mathematical term asymptote, and as if to remind myself, I accept I will only ever come close, in that Infinity always keeps its distance!)
After the trip as I reached home, a lone starling atop my roof was singing its little heart out, presumably hoping for its sweetheart to respond. Aha! My little Leica-lensed Lumix, can capture you clearly from down here!

Southill Visit – Millennium Wood

 

Having had the good luck to capture some shots of a woodpecker, albeit at quite a distance, it reminded me that the other location where I had caught sight of one was in a small wood in Southill which though at a greater distance from me, had one distinct advantage as where I had come across it was in a clearing within a clearing atop a mound at the Millennium Wood, so that was where I was headed, and also of note was a small secluded lake nearby. However, that turned out to be a non-starter as it was within private grounds, and clearly defined as such with signs displayed at its high hedge boundary.

Due to my somewhat laggy SatNav on the phone, I also managed to add several miles to the outward journey by passing the junction on the A421, and having to travel to the next one and retrace my path to the earlier junction!

As my visit was at a weekend, I was in luck with parking meaning there was no distance to walk from the car, and anyway I was travelling light with just one camera, the EOS R, and the 24-70mm lens with its macro facility which came into use on a couple of occasions. The Wood is in the midst of adding more trees, and the established ones still had the first leaves of the season so were looking very fresh. It was however very noticeable that there were a preponderance of very insistent flies, something I associate more with hotter climes, and in the time I was there, became very annoying, and considering the small lake was not too distant with a far more suited habitat, I cannot account for why they should be so abundant.

The light was good throughout, and I only encountered three other souls during the time I was there, and the sounds of birdsong was almost constant with one particularly loud and insistent bird giving it its all, though I never caught sight of it! Needless to say on this visit I never heard nor saw a woodpecker, but was treated to the lament: “My toe Hurts Betty” from wood pigeon or pigeons almost as continuously as the unnamed bird I first encountered upon entry. Considering it was a warm Sunday afternoon I was very surprised to find so few visitors to this haven of Peace and freshness, so alive to the sounds of birdsong.

A New Lake to Visit — Weston Turville

On the last visit to my nearest lake, Marston Lake, I met a man who mentioned two others that may well be worth a visit, one at Clayton, and the one I chose to visit first, which was at Weston Turville, which looked very promising as parking close by seemed to be achievable. So on a very warm and sunny Good Friday, I set off in hope. My SatNav however, possibly due to an overload of families heading off for the Bank Holiday weekend, was definitely not being at its most helpful, and the lags meant that on several occasions, it was so slow in informing me of direction changes, I missed several vital turnings, resulting in various diversions to get back on course. It was not however a bad omen.

Initially, so that I had a good idea of the location, I took only one camera, the 7D MkII with the 24-70mm lens so that I could cover the ground speedily to get some idea of the layout, and I travelled a good distance to reach the farthest reach of the lake and to the canal beyond, which was the Wendover arm of the Grand Union Canal, at Halton.

This walk provided me with further signs of the new season, with its fresh young leaves emerging all around, after I had made various detours to reach the lakeside and get an indication of numerous possible vantage points, that might prove useful, I headed back to the car to get a tripod, the Benbo, and the longer lens, the Sigma 60-600mm Sports lens on the EOS R body. With the benefit of 20-20 hindsight, I should also have picked up the 1.4x Converter. Initially, I tried setting two the tripod’s legs in the water, hoping to remain really low, but there was no satisfactory way I could get a convenient height, so erected it on the Bank instead. For quite a while after having spotted a lone Grebe in the distance, he never came particularly close, which was a shame; had I taken along the Converter, it would have been a considerable advantage — next time!

It was good to wind down as for various reasons, the last couple of weeks have been stressful, so much of the time was spent observing and hoping, and my patience was rewarded by the Grebe coming very slightly closer, but the ‘pièce de resistence’ was the Swan making a noisy flapping from the far end of the lake and heading straight towards me! It alerted me, and I managed to twist around and fire off a few shots before he came in to land. I was so pleased, that it rounded off the afternoon, and I immediately packed everything up, and headed very happily back to the car. Once all the kit was safely packed, I headed home, very happy, and I hope what I captured makes anyone viewing the gallery equally as pleased with the end result.

Unscheduled Visit to Stockwood Discovery Centre

On Monday night a crown fell out, so Tuesday I managed to get an appointment to have it restored, this meant that the opportunity arose for me to pay a visit to the Gardens and Greenhouse at the Stockwood Discovery Centre. Since the sun was also out, it made the journey from Dunstable to Luton seem like a very good idea, so in case I was delayed and could not make it back to Marston Moretaine for a scheduled networking evening with Peter Carr as we were going to a DigiCluster event in Watford at the Town Hall in the evening, I made sure I had my ticket and camera ready for the eventuality.

I spotted the blossom on the trees which could be shot against a blue sky, I took those shots before seeking out Jan the gardener for anything new that was sprouting, as it turned out I found a number of subjects of interest before I needed to look for Jan, and in that short time, I was beginning to feel the warmth, so the greenhouse for the present was not a high priority. Most of what I found early on was close to the ground, so the groundsheet was pressed into service to allow me to kneel on the ground.

Jan quickly pointed out several flowers or shoots I should take a look at, and I set to. Later I also took a look in the greenhouse, but surprisingly there was less there than outside in the gardens, and I was there too late to consider travelling back and therefore made tracks for Harpenden and Peter Carr who was finding a 3D design of spoons was frustratingly not going to plan, but eventually it succumbed to Peter’s persistence and the stage he had hoped to reach quite a while beforehand was concluded.

I had not had a lunch and was grateful to accept his offer of toast and honey before we headed into the afternoon traffic and headed for Watford.