curiouswombat (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
curiouswombat) wrote2010-03-07 03:39 pm
curiouswombat) wrote2010-03-07 03:39 pm
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It's Sunday - have Pictures!
I said last week that although I'd finished my 365 project I had got in the habit of carrying the camera and would carry on taking pics and posting them on most Sundays.
The advantage of the more open format is that I can have more than one picture from the same day - so under the cut are more pics than usual - but half of them are from a short walk in the Arboretum - mainly of birds.
The first picture is taken from beside the building where one of my patient's lives - I always envy her the view -
The weather has been really bright most of the week - as you can see from that picture.
This is just a nice lump of stone used for edging in a garden - common enough but worth stopping to look at now and again, I thought -
I drove up over the mountain road mid-week when going North, as it was open again, and it was quite, quite, beautiful - but there was nowhere to stop and take a picture, because there was only a strip of clean road with great banks of snow on either side - all the usual parking places were blocked with piled snow. Despite the snow lingering up there it is really beginning to feel like spring.
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melegyrn is also doing the 365 project and sometimes posts some wonderful bird pictures. Hers are better than mine, and I think she has some more interesting birds, but even so... these were taken when I spent a short break in the Arboretum in St John's. The trees are still only slowly waking from their long winter sleep - there is not a lot of new foliage yet, but the birds are more alert. Or maybe not...
Ducks and a moorhen drowsing there. There is a sense that the winter has bleached the colours out of so many of the plants, and the bright spring sunshine somehow makes things look rather faded.
Here, on one of the ponds, are a few gulls -
Mostly last year's fledglings by the amount of dappling still visible in their plumage.
And a black swan -
And here is a muscovy duck who looks a little down at heel, somehow -
There are certain pleasures in life that don't change - there are pictures of D-d at this age doing exactly this -
And a couple of the smaller birds - a robin, and what I think is a sparrow - I have friends who are much more learned than I when it comes to bird identification and so if it is something more exciting I'm sure someone will point it out!
Finally - one plant was in bud - but I have no idea what it is, as I am even worse at plant identification than I am at birds!
The last few pictures were taken yesterday, another bright day. I went about 2 or 3 miles from home, up Abbeylands, where I took these.
You can see that this is really in full colour by the green of the gorse and the blue of the markings on the sheep - but again it looks as if I might have Photoshopped it down it is so lacking in colour! Not a new leaf on a tree yet -
And here is the place where a small stream runs - it sounded so loud in the quiet up there and yet, beneath the branches and the dead grey grass, it is more or less invisible -
I just liked the pattern that the trees, bushes and grass made.
And, finally, a flash of colour - at the entrance to Strenaby farm there are open crocuses and daffodils that are beginning to show yellow - although they are not exactly tall and swaying in the breeze!
Yesterday, when I took those last three pictures, the temperature actually struggled into double figures - the car thermometer reached 10C for a few brief minutes and people in town were walking around coatless. I spent the morning helping at a Fairtrade coffee morning but then went to Abbeylands and Tesco's without my coat too - just a knitted jacket. Last autumn when the afternoon temperature was down to 10C we were all going around huddled up - it's amazing how hardy we all get over the winter, really!
The advantage of the more open format is that I can have more than one picture from the same day - so under the cut are more pics than usual - but half of them are from a short walk in the Arboretum - mainly of birds.
The first picture is taken from beside the building where one of my patient's lives - I always envy her the view -
The weather has been really bright most of the week - as you can see from that picture.
This is just a nice lump of stone used for edging in a garden - common enough but worth stopping to look at now and again, I thought -
I drove up over the mountain road mid-week when going North, as it was open again, and it was quite, quite, beautiful - but there was nowhere to stop and take a picture, because there was only a strip of clean road with great banks of snow on either side - all the usual parking places were blocked with piled snow. Despite the snow lingering up there it is really beginning to feel like spring.
melegyrn is also doing the 365 project and sometimes posts some wonderful bird pictures. Hers are better than mine, and I think she has some more interesting birds, but even so... these were taken when I spent a short break in the Arboretum in St John's. The trees are still only slowly waking from their long winter sleep - there is not a lot of new foliage yet, but the birds are more alert. Or maybe not...Ducks and a moorhen drowsing there. There is a sense that the winter has bleached the colours out of so many of the plants, and the bright spring sunshine somehow makes things look rather faded.
Here, on one of the ponds, are a few gulls -
Mostly last year's fledglings by the amount of dappling still visible in their plumage.
And a black swan -
And here is a muscovy duck who looks a little down at heel, somehow -
There are certain pleasures in life that don't change - there are pictures of D-d at this age doing exactly this -
And a couple of the smaller birds - a robin, and what I think is a sparrow - I have friends who are much more learned than I when it comes to bird identification and so if it is something more exciting I'm sure someone will point it out!
Finally - one plant was in bud - but I have no idea what it is, as I am even worse at plant identification than I am at birds!
The last few pictures were taken yesterday, another bright day. I went about 2 or 3 miles from home, up Abbeylands, where I took these.
You can see that this is really in full colour by the green of the gorse and the blue of the markings on the sheep - but again it looks as if I might have Photoshopped it down it is so lacking in colour! Not a new leaf on a tree yet -
And here is the place where a small stream runs - it sounded so loud in the quiet up there and yet, beneath the branches and the dead grey grass, it is more or less invisible -
I just liked the pattern that the trees, bushes and grass made.
And, finally, a flash of colour - at the entrance to Strenaby farm there are open crocuses and daffodils that are beginning to show yellow - although they are not exactly tall and swaying in the breeze!
Yesterday, when I took those last three pictures, the temperature actually struggled into double figures - the car thermometer reached 10C for a few brief minutes and people in town were walking around coatless. I spent the morning helping at a Fairtrade coffee morning but then went to Abbeylands and Tesco's without my coat too - just a knitted jacket. Last autumn when the afternoon temperature was down to 10C we were all going around huddled up - it's amazing how hardy we all get over the winter, really!
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Ah - I thought the bird had a touch too much grey, somehow, but couldn't work out what else he could be. Things with complicated sex lives should certainly be encouraged!
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http://www.rspb.org.uk/wildlife/birdguide/name/d/dunnock/breeding.aspx
no subject