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 !

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Violet Dropwing