A walk in the woods - part 2

There's something very restful and peaceful about being beside a rushing stream. Even though it was a cold day, I found a convenient log to sit on for about 10 minutes just to take in the tranquility of the winter wood.Sunlight on a mossy log is always an attraction to me. The rich colours really stand out at this time of year.

I love the holes created at the base of trees, I always find myself wondering what creatures might use them for shelter.A home for fairies maybe? (-:There wasn't much birdlife apparent, but I was entertained by this Treecreeper for a while as it flitted from tree to tree and gradually got closer to me. In the end it was investigating a birch trunk right above my head so this shot below was made with a cricked neck and my favourite baseball cap abandoned on the floor!I was desperately trying to get a photograph with it's head in, but it was not to be. Most of the time it had it's head stuck down a crevice in the bark.

This is the only shot I got of the whole bird and I nearly didn't post it as it's not the best shot in the world! (-: It does show that lovely fine decurved bill though.The only other fungus I found on this walk was this one called King Alfred's Cakes. Click on the brown link to find out more about the 'Great' King Alfred.Here's a close up of this inedible fungus.A mossy macro........I don't know what this plant is, but I loved the lovely rounded leaves lined with frost.Well, that's the end of my woodland walk. Thanks Evie for giving me the inspiration to get out there and start clicking!

Thanks also to all of you who are kind enough to have looked at and commented on my blog this last year. Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to you all.

A walk in the woods.

'Fraid I've been in the blogging doldrums recently, but was inspired by a recent 'walk in the woods' post by Eve at Sunny Side Up.
I went to a favourite local wood at Edford just 15 minutes drive west of Frome. The Mells stream runs through the wood and there is a lovely streamside path to walk along.

Here are some of the things that I observed during an hours wander..... some lingering leaves.

Clinging Ivy root......Magnificent mossy trunk.....Another.....Tree skeleton.....Another......Streamside path......Ferns finding the north facing side of this fallen tree.....Fantastic fungus.....I'll have some more photos from Edford wood in my next post.

First Frost - part three.

While it was a wintry frosty morning, there were still plenty of warm tones to be found around the reserve. The bare twigs of the Purple Loosetrife edging the lake that had given such a show during the summer months was now giving a much more subtle golden brown show in the winter sunshine.Certainly during the summer the purple/pink flowers of Purple Loosetrife were a haven of nectar for various insects. I'm not sure whether there is any benefit to birds from seeds of this plant at this time of year, but even if not, the coppery colour certainly added to my enjoyment while walking round the lake.The bulrushes also added warm colour as well as their distinctive seed heads to the scene.There is something very photogenic to me about these seed heads, the way the winter light falls on them.Even these didn't escape the frost! (-:Every now and then the Black-headed Gulls would get skittish and fly around the lake. I kept looking up for some raptor that might have been the cause, but couldn't find one.This Black-headed Gull is in it's winter plumage. In summer their head is covered by a chocolate brown hood.

These male Mallards showed up well against the dead Purple Loosetrife, not so the female. If you click to enlarge, she should become more apparent.There was still a touch of green in the foliage which picked up the green of the male Mallards head. The female continued to do her 'wallflower' act.These Alder catkins showed up beautifully in the sunshine. Unfortunately they were quite high up and I couldn't get any closer for a more macro look at them.It was great to get out for an hour with the camera. Hopefully I'll get another opportunity soon!

First Frost- Brrrrrrr!

This second post on my early morning walk around Rodden Reserve is the more 'shivery' one! I guess I wasn't out long enough for my extremities to get uncomfortably numb, but it was cold enough for thermals!(-:
I've shot this scene before when there was beautiful autumn colour in those two trees. I think they're pretty beautiful nude too!This shallow area of the lake was semi frozen which gave me an opportunity for some lovely icy photos.As you can see from the following photos, there were some beautiful patterns created by the icing up around the edges.

A couple of these close ups I decided to make black and white. I'm not sure which I prefer.

How amazing the way the ice has formed around the dead stems! Beautiful!Here are some close up of the frost on flower seed heads and leaves.

These Hazel catkins have a way to go before they'll open out in February!I'll have a slightly warmer, toasty tone to my last post from Rodden Reserve.

First Frost.

We've had a lot of wet and windy weather here in recent weeks, so when on Wednesday morning, the sun was struggling to peak though, I decided to sneak out for an hour at my local Rodden Reserve.It was a lovely crisp frosty morning, the first that I've noticed for this winter season. I've broken this up into three posts. This first is a mish mash of, to be honest, anything I could get my lens onto! The next post will show the cold icy tones around the reserve and in contrast, the last post will show the warm winter sun tones I came across as I walked around.After the mildness of the winter so far, I think these Black-headed and Lesser Black backed Gulls were surprised to be standing on ice where they would normally been taking a morning bath! Despite several scans through these Gulls, I didn't manage to find the adult Mediterranean Gull that I found here a few days earlier. That was only the second sighting of this lovely white winged gull at this reserve.Now that the Purple Loosetrife has died down to a lovely golden brown around the edge of the lake, it's possible to get some nice views through the foliage across the lake. It was fun to try and sneak up on the local Grey Heron. This still isn't very close, but it's better than I usually manage here. He's looking left and then right, obviously looking for traffic before crossing the pond! (-:

As I was just standing here, listening to the distinctive sad call of the Siskin flying overhead, I noticed that the sun had come out and was shining at the end of the path. I'm not sure I captured it very well in this photo as the sky has whitened out badly, but it felt magical being there.Luckily the sun stayed out for a while and glistened beautifully on the frosty grass and foliage around me.

There was a touch of mist across the water which added to the peaceful feeling walking around that morning.For some reason, I was fascinated by the frosty bridge, as you can see by the next three photos! Please remember that I hadn't been out 'photogrophising' for a while, so had been getting stir crazy! (-:

The sun was slightly in the way for this photo, but I liked the soft and serene reflection over the lake.More from Rodden Reserve in my next post.

Birding Cornwall

After getting off the Isles of Scilly, we stayed overnight in Penzance on the southwest tip of Cornwall. We had planned to gradually bird our way home, but although the previous day had been a beautiful blue sky and sunshine day, this day dawned cold and grey and drizzly. In spite of this, we managed to get a couple of hours birding in before having to call it a day and head home. The photo below shows St Michael's mount which is a small island just off Penzance. At low tide there is a causeway across to the island.Our first birding stop was at Nanquidno Valley. The scenery here is wonderful even on a drizzly day!We were hoping to see Firecrest and Yellow-browed Warbler down this valley, but the weather conditions just weren't right. Nevertheless, it was a wonderful walk along the Cornish cliffs here.You wouldn't have liked standing so close to the cliff edge as my friends did Evie! (-:

On the way back up from Nanquidno valley, we stopped briefly near St Just airport to see this Snow Bunting. As you can see, this photo is heavily cropped and taken in bad light, so not a brilliant capture, but a nice record shot.We couldn't leave Cornwall without having a famous Phipps Cornish pastie, so as it was nearly lunchtime by now and the weather was worsening, we stopped at Copperhouse Creek to have our pastie lunch. The photo below shows the estuary.At least here, there were some bird photo opportunities. This Little Egret was feeding just below us. You can just about see it's bright yellow feet in the water.

I think the birds have got to know that many people come here to eat their pastie, so as we munched away, we became aware of many beady eyes watching. Rooks are generally found out in the countryside around agricultural fields, but this one has discovered an easy meal can be had at Copperhouse Creek!

They differ from Carrion Crows with their more shaggy look and bare parts around the bill.This is easily my most favourite corvid, the Jackdaw. They have the most wonderful 'chacking' call and that white eye and pale neck are distinctive. They are quite a bit smaller than Carrion Crows or Rooks.These two look like right Jack the Lads! Ready for a bust-up! (-: All they were doing though, was waiting for me to share my pastie with them!Which I eventually did, and then it was a free for all!After lunch, the weather deteriorated even more, so it was time to head home back to Chris after my week away.

Scilly odds and ends and farewell

First of all, I apologise for the length of this last post from the Isles of Scilly. The following photos are some odds and ends that didn't really fit into a whole posting but that I wanted to share with you, so I've stuffed them all in here along with photos of my journey back to the mainland.
This photo below was taken on the island of St Agnes. The plants here thrive in a mild almost semi tropical climate. It would be wonderful to visit these islands in May or June to experience the flora at its best. The succulent below seems enormous compared with the ones that grow back at home on the mainland.Here is a heavily cropped photo of a juvenile Rose coloured Starling on St Agnes. This bird is an annual vagrant to Britain from eastern Europe and beyond. It is a much more sandy coloured bird than our juvenile European starling with a striking yellow bill. In flight it was a very obvious bird. I think the shrub it is hiding in here is a type of Pittesporum, but please feel free anyone to correct me on that.Another bird on St Agnes was this Northern Wheatear posing nicely on a rock on the Wingletang area of the island.Again, a heavily cropped photo of this beautiful bird.The boat trip back from St Agnes was reasonably bumpy, but I did manage to stand up briefly and take this photo of a fishing Northern Gannet. Like the Oystercatcher, another bird that is ubiquitous to the beaches on these islands is the Ruddy Turnstone. I spent an hour on Thomas Porth beach on St Mary's trying to get close enough for some shots of these characterful birds.They're always on the move, turning over stones and seaweed looking for tasty morsels.

Also on Thomas Porth beach I was entertained by this White Wagtail flycatching.I'm not sure it was as successful as the Stonechat in my previous post!And so, as must always happen, my last day on the Scillies came around. It was a beautiful sunny blue sky day and the helicopter waited to whisk us back to the mainland and reality.I managed to get a good window seat right at the front and so got a look at all the mind numbing array of controls needed to fly this thing! Our lady pilot gave us a great trip.We had a pleasant surprise when we got on the helicopter. We were told that we would be taking a small detour to the island of Tresco to pick up some passengers from there. Here we are approaching Tresco to make the landing.Here you can see the Abbey pool on Tresco where earlier in the week I tried to photograph a Long-billed Dowitcher. I wish I'd had time to spend on some of those soft sandy beaches!Having picked up our passengers, we set off away from the islands, heading for Cornwall. The views of the islands from the helicopter were a real treat. I think this was the uninhabited island of St Helens or Tean, I'm not sure which.

The last island I saw from the helicopter was St Martins. I didn't get to visit it on this occasion, but will hope to maybe on my next trip over.After about a 10 to 15 minute flight we were approaching Lands End on the tip of Cornwall. The cliffs in the late afternoon sunshine were lovely. I should say that the window on the helicopter was filthy otherwise all these photos might have come out a bit clearer.Passing over Lands End.A Cornish village with the church at its centre.Our destination, the Cornish town of Penzance.The harbour at Penzance from where the Scillonian ship sails. My helicopter lands a little to the right of this picture a short way out of town.Well, thank you all for coming along with me on my first proper holiday for three years! I had an amazing time and I've really enjoyed sharing it with you all. I hope this has encouraged some of you to visit these amazing islands.