Tag Archives: nature

Murmuration

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starlings flocking
Today, I want to share a very special experience.  Last week I had the pleasure of witnessing one of nature’s great Autumn spectacles, a murmuration of starlings.  During Autumn and Winter, starlings flock together at twilight, performing amazing aerial ballets that attract more birds to the group until they descend, all together in a moment, to their roost for the night.
starlings flocking
It starts with just a small group, circling in the sky in a way that seems to attract others.starlings flocking
Soon many more have joined, and fantastic shapes are created as they bank and wheel about.
starlings flocking
This was a very small murmuration, with numbers in the low hundreds.  Flocks in the thousands are seen at certain key locations in Britain at this time of year.  Sadly, however, starling numbers nationally have fallen by 70% in recent years and they are now counted as a threatened species.   For more information, see the RSPB’s website.
starlings flocking
I feel very privileged to have seen this waning, natural wonder.

Boldermere

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Surrey landscape

f/11, 2″, ISO 50, 24mm, 0.6 ND Grad and 0.9 Pro Glass

I have had a wonderful week of photography, with two full days out in the field with fellow enthusiasts, Jenifer Bunnett and Tony Antoniou.  Conditions were perfect, with mist and patchy sun.  On both occasions I visited Boldermere, a peaceful lake incongruously nestled in the crook of the M25’s junction with the A3.  Each day was rounded off perfectly with one of nature’s most spectacular Autumn displays, a murmuration of starlings.  Those shots will follow in another post soon.  For now, a gentle panorama of this quiet, forgotten spot.

I have been outside all week, and am consequently very behind with visiting blogs.  I will try to catch up soon, before we head off on our next big adventure, Down Under!

Golden light and morning mist

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Surrey Landscape
Jen and I enjoyed a wonderful shoot on Chatley Heath yesterday. For a short while, the sun burned through the early mist to cast its rays across the landscape. Chatley Heath is a designated Site of Special Scientific Interest and it is managed as a nature reserve by Surrey Wildlife Trust, a favourite charity of mine.
Surrey landscape

Smiler

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insect close-up

f2.8, 1/640, ISO 100, 100mm

It’s been a while since I posted a bug shot. Well, at least a couple of weeks, which is a long bug-holiday for Focused Moments! These are shots from 2010, found today while trying to clear some space on my hard drive. I recently heard someone describe dragonfly faces as scary but I think they’re rather cute; they always look to me as if they are smiling.
insect

f.13, 1/80, ISO 400, 100mm

    The Dragon-fly

Today I saw the dragon-fly
Come from the wells where he did lie.
An inner impulse rent the veil
Of his old husk: from head to tail
Came out clear plates of sapphire mail.
He dried his wings: like gauze they grew;
Thro’ crofts and pastures wet with dew
A living flash of light he flew.
-Tennyson

Lace bug

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insect macro

100mm , f13, 1/200, ISO 800

This bizarre creature is a lace bug, probably stephanitis rhododendri, which is bad news for the rhododendrons and azaleas in my garden.  Or it might be stephanitis takeyai, which is bad news for the pieris in my garden.  So it is bad news for me as a gardener either way!  I don’t know why it was posing in my sumac tree instead of one of its preferred meals, but I thought the colours worked rather nicely.

The secret waterfall

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waterfall
A couple of weeks ago, I was contacted by a photographer, Jenifer Bunnett, based in Surrey who had found me on the internet and suggested we might go out on photo safaris together. We met up for a coffee and a chat and found we hit it off. Jen is a super photographer whose interests are similar to mine. On Tuesday we had our first adventure together. I have already posted my shots of fungi from the woods around Friday Street in the Surrey Hills. However, our main quarry was this waterfall, something Jenifer had read about but hadn’t yet found. It seemed to be something of a secret, mentioned mysteriously on the internet but without directions. It turned out, to my surprise, that I had been there, several years ago, on a family hike. Surrey isn’t known for its waterfalls, but this one is pretty and tranquil – we had it to ourselves. Although most of the trees around it are laurel, and so evergreen, we did notice a few birches so a return visit in a couple of weeks is very much on the cards.
If you are interested, do visit Jen’s website and/or her Facebook page.

More forest secrets

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mushrooms

55mm, f7.1, 1/25, ISO 800

It’s a grey, drizzling day here, the sort of weather that people imagine when they think of England. A day for editing images rather than shooting them.

mushroom

55mm, f8, 1/40, ISO 800

I hope you can forgive yet another mushroom-related post. There were so many toadstools and other fungi in the woods near Friday Street yesterday. I snapped a few of the nicest, or strangest, depending on your point of view.

fungus

55mm, f4, 1/150, ISO 800

The last couple of days have been bad back days so I only had my little Fuji along. But it coped well with pretending, using the 18-55mm kit lens, to be a macro shooter.

mushrooms in leaves

55mm, f 4.5, 1/80, ISO 800

One or two of the mushrooms were kind enough to pose above ground level.

mushrooms

55mm, f4.5, 1/60, ISO 800

Using a wider lens than I would normally gave me the chance to try something a little different from my usual shallow depth of field, isolated subject, loads of bokeh style. In the shot below I wanted to make more of an environmental shot, using the log to lead the eye into the frame.

mushrooms

18mm, f5, 1/40, ISO 1600

It was while I was taking that shot that I noticed the cute little toadstool posing on top of the log featured in my post yesterday. Here it is a bit closer. Well, I couldn’t keep the bokeh at bay for long.

toadstool

55mm, f7.1, 1/12, ISO 800

Despite having now edited all of the images from the shoot, the image I posted yesterday remains my favourite of the day. But I have made a better edit of it, muting some of the brightest highlights in the background.

fungi

18mm, f.5, 1/50, ISO 1600

Tomorrow, one more secret of the forest, but not a mushroom in sight.