Coffee.....

I like coffee, so much so I invested a couple of years ago on a DeLonghi Magnifica beans to coffee machine. Plug it in, fill with water & coffee beans of your choice (see later), press button, it whizzes, whurs & splutters, then moments later a fresh cup of coffee is deposited into your favourite mug. Expensive, but convenient.

I searched for ages to find a nice balanced coffee bean and finally arrived at.... bog standard Sainsbury's Medium Roast, couple of pounds per 500g & easily available in the 2 local stores.

Year's ago during my quest for the coffee of choice, I stumbled across "Jamaican Blue Mountain" coffee, said to be the finest in the world. I bought some at Fortnum & Mason in ground form for my Cafetiere, it was hugely expensive, but at the time I thought it was excellent. So during my time off last week, I undertook a retail therapy day in Knightsbridge and visited the Harrod's Food Hall and procured more of the "best coffee in the world" as you can see it wasn't cheap at more than £106 per 1Kg.

Sadly it dissapointed, bitter & sharp. Much like the Taittinger experience, I'll stick to what I know I like.

Garden life

Having spent a few weeks at home on holiday dossing about, I spent today in the garden tidying up and noted a Leaf Cutter Bee using the bamboo shelter I had installed in the spring, so out came various camera's, lenses, extension tubes, flashes and tripod to catch the fast moving thing.

Shot with a Canon EOS 5D body with a Canon EF180mm f3.5 Macro lens attached with Canon Extension Tube 25. ISO 200, 1/250th at f5

Holidays....

... are here again!

I've decided to take 2 weeks off and do a couple of things for me..... retail therapy, photography and relaxation are high on the agenda.

I combined all of these yesterday evening by going to Stockbridge to take some photo's of a barley field, popped into Orvis for some new shirts (I just have to comment on the girl who was at the checkout.... beautiful is the only word!) and then went to the 3 Cups pub for a couple of pints of draught Peroni in the garden.... fantastic.

A review of the food at the Three Cups is in the pipeline as I will be visiting to partake of their evening menu in the very near future.

UPDATE : went to the Three Cups for lunch on Friday 8th. Hugely complex menu with probably 60+ dishes available, every one had some twist of ingredient - e.g. Hake with Paella and Razor Clams or Salt March Lamb & Green Olive Wellington with Jerusalem Artichoke Cream. Gordon Ramsay would have a field day here, they need to cut the complexity and number of dishes down dramatically, it would save having 2 chefs on a lunchtime and the probable large amount of food wasted.

I went for the most simple dish I could find and had Roast Garlic Chicken Salad with tomato's, parmesan, capers and croutons, my companions had steak & chips and soft shell crab tempura. The best thing of all was.... the chips. Tough Chicken, tough steak (that came minus portabello mushroom & beef tomato as described) and crab was 50% edible.

Dessert however was spot on, Eton Mess with Shortbread and the Strawberry parfait with marinated Strawberries were both 100% perfect.

Rumour has it that Gordon Ramsay has bought the old filling station in Stockbridge High Street, if it's true, existing Stockbridge eateries with delusions of grandeur will have to watch out, a serious restauranteur with great idea's, a clear business head and a stack of cash to invest is on the way to your town.

Bird watching excursion.....

my first dedicated trip to a bird reserve at Titchfield Haven was interesting, but I did feel a bit of a nerd.

Nice weather was a bonus, sighting of a Kingfisher, Little Egret and various dippers, waders and gulls added to the day, but photographically it was a bit of a challenge from the hides as they are a new environment for me.

Lens envy was clearly in evident in hides, various Canon (500mm & 600mm) & Sigma (300-800mm) lenses on show. Noise etiquette and keeping still also clearly high on list of requirements of serious twitchers!

I have finished reading a book....

..... you may well think thats not very impressive, but in my mind it is.

I do read a lot, I mean A LOT, but almost exclusively online and nearly all for reference, whether it be online news, Teletext\Ceefax sport, information on helicopters or the latest magazine report on a bit of photographic equipment. The Sunday Times sections that interest me are picked out & the rest discarded almost blindfolded, add to that the copious amount of email I have at work and personally, it all stacks up to a lot of reading.

I have never really been a reader for pleasure, I only really realised why this week - in my O-level English literature exam we were told to read The Hobbit, the well known epic tale of Bilbo Baggins et al. Sadly I didn't like it, in fact I just couldn't get on with it, so I didn't read it past the first chapter on several occasions. This event probably turned me off reading for pleasure forever.

I have since read few books from cover to cover, (un-authorised biog's of Al Fayed and John Delorean are most noteworthy thus far) I now add another - "Bearded Tit - confessions of a birdwatcher" by Rory McGrath. I like the writer, his appearances on "They think it's all over...", "QI" and "Three men in a boat" demonstrate a fast wit (mostly directed at Jonathan Ross & his attire) and an irreverant attitude to anything "establishment". Add to that the books premise around bird-watching, drinking and womanising all make it really rather good.

Sign of the week.....

... saw this & it made me smile at least.

Shitty week, stress, stress & more stress. Chest pains (muscle strain after lifting 100+kg pot in garden [full of soil & plant!] not heart attack) all week have merely added to the pain.

All topped off by physio visit where the pain was enhanced with deep tissue massage - why didn't I show them this sign first!?

FYI - the sign is in the cockpit of a Westland Scout helicopter.

Sleeping Cygnet.....

This was taken a few weekends ago when it was dry! There were 2 Swan nests at Rooksbury Mill Lakes nature park, it appears that only one Cygnet has survived the hatch.

I have been messing about with a few settings on the cameras to try & get them right, with mild success, but mostly HUGE frustration!

Anyhow, pictured right is an edited RAW image, processed in DxO Optics Pro v5 and then modified in Paint Shop Pro v7. Taken with a Canon EOS 40D with my EF500mm f/4 & EF1.4x converter at 1/2000th sec at F5.6

Memories.....

This Camellia was given to me by my old Solicitor, now sadly passed away, it always reminds of her when I walk past it in the garden.

Pictured in the rain a few weeks ago, just beautiful.

All the flowers now gone, but the plant seems to have thrived in the recent warm & humid conditions.

When feeding smaller birds in the garden.....

..... always be aware that bigger birds are watching!

This male Sparrowhawk swooped in on the Goldfinches tonight, don't think he got anything, but I suppose it's only to be expected given the numbers of smaller birds around at the moment.

Sort of nice to see, but always hope they might get a Pidgeon or two versus a Goldfinch or Greenfinch.

Shot through a pane of glass in the Dining room, so not as great as it could have been, but needed to act quickly as it was gone as quickly as it arrived. Luckily the EOS 40D with EF500mm f/4 and EF1.4x was at hand already set up.

Garden visitors.... and departures

A welcome visitor has been the Goldfinch, a couple of them in fact, all feeding on the black thistle seed (also called Niger seed) feeder I put up about a month ago.

I was just about to take the feeder down as nothing had shown any interest - when they turn up and start feeding like crazy, taking it in turns to feed & then preen.

Also present in the garden have been Greenfinch, Dunnock, Starling and the usual Blue Tit's, Blackbird's, Thrushes and many Robin's. Haven't seen the Goldcrest for a while, but hope to get a good photo of it later in the Summer.

Grey Squirrel's continue to get shot upon entering my garden, I must have taken 30+ now!

Still trying out the new lenses....

...... the Canon EF 15mm Fisheye lens used in a slightly different way.

A much over done subject, the yellow sea of Rape Seed that is so beautiful (if pollen filled & smelly) in early May in the UK.

Dodged the April showers which are still hanging around for my birthday week to take this in a field close to home.

Took a couple in landscape, then a few more in portrait & decided I liked that orientation better with vivid colour of the field with shadow in foreground and large expanse of bright, but cloudy sky. Critics have said they don't like the tree in the top left corner as it distracts the eye, but I think it works.

Bad news......

..... the lady who owns the biggest plot on the road where I live has sold out to developers, sadly for me it means the view I have had for the 10 years will change.

As you can see from the photo taken from my neighbours loft conversion window just 2 weeks ago (left), it's a beautiful large open garden, but it's a crappy delapidated house, and if my 70 year old mother was in the same position I would have advised her to flog it for £1.2m as well.

Banner Homes Wessex Ltd. have applied for 8 houses to be built, having looked at the planning application I have made my objections known, so now it's in the hands of the Test Valley Planning committee to consider them.

12/06 UPDATE : well, well, well. I have now received letter from Banner Homes saying that they have modified their plans in accordance with my suggestion and deleted the 2 windows I said would overlook my property, they have said that they will also frost glaze the 2 remaining windows on the same elevation. They haven't mentioned any of my other suggestions, so assume that they were too much to ask. At least they listened to my main objection, only time will tell whether they are as keen to listen when they start work on the site....

Bad days.....

..... just when you think you are having a bad day because of something trivial like dropping a plate, burning the dinner or things just not going your way. Spare a thought for these two.....


BBC News website reports that a stunt driver delivering the ONLY Aston Martin DBS available for filming of the new James Bond Film - Quantum of Solace, crashes it on a wet road & it then plunges into Lake Garda! Oppps! Luckily he was OK.





Then, photo left shows a minor incident in Mexico to a Eurocopter AS365N3 Dauphin helicopter. It was being towed from the hangar when a part of the undercarriage gave way, I do hope that the proud customer wasn't there to witness it!

Photographers rights....

.... as I have been taking loads of photo's recently, this caught my eye on the BBC News website.

There have been many stories of late of photographers being challenged, and at some point if you take photo's in public places I suppose a stop & search is at some point inevitable, however if anyone (even a Police Officer) asks you to delete photo's or surrender Compact Flash cards etc. - YOU ARE NOT OBLIGED TO DO SO.

This link provides a very useful 2 page PDF file for reference.

You can sign up to the Downing Street petition to stop over zealous local authorities preventing us from doing what we have done for years & years.

Sadly, advertising like this from the Metropolitan Police doesn't help. It goes without saying (or advertising) that if anyone is taking any kind of interest in noting where things like CCTV camera's are in any location it should be reported.

Some of the more intelligent and enlightened forces have adopted some aircraft spotters as another set of eyes. Even the Metropolitan Police worked with Scotland Yard & BAA a few years ago with a scheme of registration for aircraft enthusiasts with LAAS International. The MoD have just started a similar scheme at RAF Coningsby.

They're back......

It may have something to do with my neighbours insistance to feed the birds in the garden with peanuts, or my feeders full of "Robin Bird Feed Mix" which they seem to like as well, but the little bastards a.k.a grey squirrels are back.

So, along with my trusty Theoben I have despatched 3 in the last 2 days (so I've probably got 20 or so in the past 6 months). Keep 'em coming as far as I'm concerned, I've got a couple of thousand pellets spare!

Lot's of coverage in the media about how the grey squirrel does so much damage to bird life and how it carries a virus that wipes out red squirrels, but people still think of them as little fluffy darlings - they're not, they are tree rats & vermin!

Royalty free picture by nvmdigital.com

Things could get a bit samey.....

.... if I over use this lens.

Just a close up of the car, weird how it cuts of the headlights, windscreen & roof.

I'm sure I'll take a load more just like this of many different things that I stumble across, but I'll probably spare you looking at my whimsical snaps.

Fisheye frolics.....

This is a shot I have wanted to try for a while, with the new 15mm Fisheye, I thought it would look a bit different.

Just a snap at the bottom of the garden at the moment, I will try & explore for some more densely populated woodland at the weekend.

A different perspective.....

.... through a newly acquired Canon EF 15mm f2.8 Fisheye lens.

I've always wanted a fisheye lens for my camera, so when one or two came up on ebay I decided to get one, saving s quite a bit on the list price for a new one from Canon.

I don't this it's going to be the most used lens in my camera bag(s), but a useful addition none the less.

As you can see from the quick snap taken earlier today at Rooksbury Mill lakes (home of the Kingfisher), landscapes are big with this lens. Closeups are also interesting as the distortion becomes more noticeable, particularly if the subject has straight lines.

New kit......

In my last post I eluded to the fact that I had successfully found all the elements of photographic kit I was spurred into getting by my chance meeting with a wildlife photography enthusiast a few weeks ago.

The photo left shows some of what I now lug around...

When I attach the EF500mm lens [the taller lens pictured left] to my EOS 1Ds Mk II with a 2 x Extender II and Manfrotto monopod it all weighs in at 7Kg (15½ pounds) which has meant further investment in lens\camera specific bags.

I'm hoping that once I get used to using the kit, I may even start to derive some earnings from photography for a change, maybe try & sell some stock photo's or even get a commission or two for some wildlife images.

Updated kit brings results... but could do better

I've found and procured all the elements of the camera kit I wanted, all 2nd hand, but still mad silly prices - I keep telling myself I can sell them for what I paid..... yeah right!

At least the equipment has proved capable of getting results, I think it's now a matter of me getting better at using it.

Simple things like covering up the dirty great big white lens with something green or even camoflauge would help, I don't think I'll be getting myself decked out in Realtree though.