A Christmas dozen

JANUARY A murmuration of Black-tailed Godwits over Pulborough Brooks
FEBRUARY The basis for a future painting - male Reed Bunting and buds at Holmethorpe
MARCH The early promise of the summer to come in the form of a Small Tortoiseshell at Canons Farm
APRIL Lilliputian flora at Dungeness - Early Forget-me-not
MAY Green Hairstreak warming up in the morning sun, Chipstead Bottom
JUNE A day at Box Hill with the DSLR camera capturing Sainfoin on the southern slopes
JULY The Boquer Valley spills into the Med, with Balearic Warblers and Eleonora's Falcons to ease the journey
AUGUST Perennial Sow-thistles at Langley Vale Farm - the commonplace becomes art form
SEPTEMBER An orthopteran snacking Stonechat, Canons Farm
OCTOBER Adult Caspian Gull at Dungeness
NOVEMBER Golden dawn at Dungeness
DECEMBER It's either a Robin or a clump of Mistletoe...

Comments

Gavin Haig said…
Nice. I think May and October are my favourite two, though June and August run them close. Your final photo reminded me that I once came across a flock of Waxwings feeding on mistletoe in Windsor Great Park; now that would have made a nice December pic!
23 December 2016 at 14:48
Steve Gale said…
I've Photoshopped the Waxwings out Gav...have a peaceful holiday my friend.
23 December 2016 at 14:50
Factor said…
July for me - it brings back happy memories -and August because it is a great photo. November's great too.
23 December 2016 at 22:44
Steve Gale said…
You cannot beat a bit of Boquer Valley action, can you Neil...
23 December 2016 at 22:50
Derek Faulkner said…
March for me, not so much for the lovely shot of the butterfly but for the fact that you can feel the exciting warmth of that early Spring day coming back out of the photograph. Also love the fact that you're often prepared to make the ordinary look good, as in August.
24 December 2016 at 05:42
Steve Gale said…
There is beauty in the ordinary Derek - I doubt my wife would have married me otherwise!!!
24 December 2016 at 08:29
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Goldfinches and Lavender

Image
We have three medium-sized Lavender bushes in our back garden. Throughout the summer the flowers (which last for several months) are a magnet for insects and give off a most restful aroma. As tempting as it is to cut the dead stems in the autumn, we always leave them, as we know that during the late winter we will get visitors to feed on the seed heads... This video was taken from the kitchen window this morning. We will normally see one or two birds over a few days, but have had up to 14 at once. We never tire of watching them. Lavender is a wonderful plant to have in the garden, with year round natural history benefits. So what are you waiting for? They are readily available at a garden centre close to you right now! There is an historic association with Lavender in this part of northern Surrey and south London. Lavender fields have been harvested for many years, with one particular field close to Woodmansterne being very popular with day trippers. A significant proportion o...
Read more

Welcome back!

Image
In November 2005 I purchased a pair of Swarovski 10x42 EL binoculars from The London Camera Exchange shop in Guildford, for the then princely sum of £899. These bins have served me well, with almost daily use in all types of weather, testing their durability to the maximum - salt water spray, deluges of rain, 38C temperatures, dust, dirt, slight knocks... and apart from the armour coating that had started to bubble and come away from the body, nothing to be alarmed about. Then, in the summer of 2022, I noticed that I had a problem when close focusing - the outer focusing wheel would lose grip and it would take me an age to regain a middle-ground distance of focus - plus, over the next few weeks this outer focusing wheel became loose. I resorted to the use of tape to keep it all in place, but realised that I had to do something about it in the long run. For a while I did consider buying a new pair - after all, they were then 17-years old - but they were still optically superb. It seemed...
Read more

A special day

In birding, timing can mean the difference between an average day in the field and that of a spectacular one. Good timing can be helped by reading the weather conditions correctly, or understanding local conditions but it is more often down to pure luck. In this case, I just got lucky... I had not visited Dungeness since March 2022, quite a gap for me. It was high time that I once more trod the shingle and my timing of a visit was down to several factors, mostly a personal liking for mid-late autumn but also because I needed to be at home until September 20th and could not make the journey south until then. I also chose to stay at the bird observatory for a few days rather than make it a day trip. All this conveniently found me stepping outside the observatory's back door in the breaking dawn of Sunday 22nd September, quickly making my way to the fishing boats, an area I prefer to stand to best appreciate any visible bird migration, an aspect of birding that I find exhilarating.  A...
Read more