John's Garden
John
had spent some of the summer building a hide in his garden by
adapting a garden shed with enough room for two people. I decided
to make my last session of the year, spending the photographing
from it. The hide is much more comfortable than the old canvas
one, with clamps, shelving and the luxury of being to sit upright.
I spent several hours of photograhy without many good results,
the weather was good, this time it was the birds. They seemed
to be uneasy, only landing for a short while. But that's wildife
photography, least
I was nice and warm in the new hide

Blue
Tit
Fun
in the Snow
Although
normally I photograph wildlife I could not resist the temptation
in the recent snow. Unable to get to work, I set off on foot to
Mote Park on a suuny, but chilly
afternoon. I soon arrived on one of the banks in the park to see
several families enjoying sledging. I started photographing and
after a while asked if the families minded. It was a joy to relax
and see the families enjoying themselves in the snow.The families
were very obliging as you will see from the photographs.

Mote
Park
Scotland
Recently
been to Scotland again, Trips updated more photos to come.
Andalucia
Photos
now online in Trips more to come
This
year
for our holiday in September we did a driving tour of Andalucia,
starting at Malaga airport. Arriving in the evening we spent our
first night in Torremolinos, a cheap but pleasant hotel. The next
day we headed down the coast through Marbella, stopping for lunch
at Estepona a lovely seaside town. Late afternoon we reached our
hotel Hotel Casa Convent
near Castella de la Frontera a 17th Centaury convent. The hotel
turned a wonderful find very friendly the ideal place to relax
in the middle of the countryside. In the evening the dining tables
are put out in the courtyard, just right for those romantic evenings.
We were so impressed with the hotel we stayed an extra night,
which in the long run turned out to be a god send and hopefully
will be returning to again.

Hotel
Casa Convent

View
form the garden
The
next day was spent Gibraltor visiting the Rock by cable car, the
most exciting part of the island. We had good views of Gibraltor
and the Atlas mountains in Morocco. I spend sometime photographing
the Barbary apes which were very inquisitive, and watching birds
of prey migrating through the Straits. In the afternoon we visited
Morrisons to compare with the ones in the UK my current employee.
On the way back we visited Castella de la Frontrea a charming
village on top of a huge hill. Another night in our lovely hotel.

The
Rock of Gibraltor

The
narrow streets of Castella de la Frontera
Our
next day was spent travelling through the mountains and countryside
to Chipiona, stopping on route at Cadiz. Chipiona is a bustling
seaside resort, not far from Jerez and probably never to be seen
again. Our main reason for staying was to visit the Coto de Donana
and to visit Jerez, we never got to Jerez. We were glad it was
September and the resort was quite, not a place to be in the height
of the summer. We had a couple of bad nights with the weather
with gales blowing, wishing we were back at the covent. The owner
of the Hostal Montserrat was not very friendly, and lauched our
one drink and roll at us in the morning. While staying here we
visited Coto de Donana, Arcos de la Frontera and a ranch called
Acampo Abierto.

Cadiz
Cathedral

Chipiona
- Nuestra Senora de Regla Church (Shrine of Our Lady of Regla)
After
our stay at the coast we headed towards Rhonda via the scenic
through the mountains visiting Zahara and Grazalema both very
scenic. We arrived at the Arriadh Hotel late afternoon, thirsty
we enjoyed a cool drink in the garden taking in the beautiful
surrounding scenery. To find two brilliant hotels on holiday is
pretty good, if you like peace and quiet you will love this place.
The hosts are helpful and charming also providing an evening meal
as well.

Arriadh
Hotel

Ronda
Gorge
We
spent the last few days visiting Ronda and the surronding countryside,
before returning to Malaga.
Twitching
Ramsgate
02/10/2008
- OOps I twitched again! After the excitement of the Green Heron
on Tuesday, looking at Birdguides Saturday evening. I noted Red
flanked Bluetail a rarity from Siberia at King George VI park,
Ramsgate. Having seen one near Calais in 2002, I thought I might
as well get this bird on my Kent list. On arriving I quickly located
the bird due to all the twitchers already there, and took a few
record shots. I waited around but did not get any more shots,
but had quite a sociable few hours catching up with some old friends
and meeting new ones. I have put a couple on shots on this page,
but unfortunately there was nothing good enough to go into the
main gallery. As they say a couple of record shots.

Red
flanked Bluetail - First winter male or female

As
you can see plainly a bluetail.
Mega
Rarity in Kent
28/10/2008
- Looked on Birdguides this morning and was surprised to see Green
Heron at West Hythe, Kent. That solved the problem of what to
do today, so I rang my friend John and we headed for Hythe. The
extra bonus today as well as seeing the bird was the sunshine
beating down on your back. We quickly located the bird and settled
into photography mode, spending around four hours at the site.
This is the first bird I have twitched since 2005 when I took
up photography.

Green
Heron a visitor from the USA
Camera
21/10/2008
- Hooray ! I picked up my camera from Nikon, after four weeks
and a few wrangles with Nikon repair services have at last got
my camera back. Being in Richmond, I decided to spend the afternoon
in Richmond Park getting reacquainted with my camera.

Grey
Heron in golden hour light
Sardinia
Photos
Part
2 of Sardinian photos ready for viewing. Also please bear wtih
me been having problems with computer and Dreamweaver. Hopefully
back to normal as soon as possible. Still waiting for camera to
come back from Nikon.
Wildfowl
Trust

Sir
Peter Scott - Barn Elms
Spent
some time over the summer visiting Barn Elms and Arundel trying
to obtain close ups of native waterfowl. More photos coming soon,
thank god for rainy days only joking ! , might catch up with some
editing. You will also notice on the exif data on some of my recent
photos, will say Canon EOS - 1D Mark 111. Luckily I am fortunate
to have a good friend John Devries who lent this to me the day
we went to Arundel. Also been experimenting with some low light
photography, I think the image was quite successful for first
efforts. This image was taken on the way home from Barn Elms at
Borough Green.

M20
Sunset

Eurasian
Wigeon - Arundel
Sardinia

Portoscuso
Harbour
Last
couple of months have been very busy with work, holiday's and
photography. Busy editing photo's of Sardinian holiday, hopefully
will finish soon. Disaster on first day camera slipped of car
seat, breaking the monitor screen, luckily the camera and monitor
still worked. Camera now taking a nice rest at Nikon waiting to
be repaired. We also managed to get a 36 euro parking fine, and
my wife managed to back the hire car into a wall. Just one of
those holdays !
]
Violet
Dropwing
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