What A Difference A Ray Makes

Never one to normally complain about the weather (people say I deliberately go on holiday to avoid heat or sun), I must say May up until yesterday was starting to pall a little, if not so much through lack of warmth but more through the dour lack of decent sunlight.

Last Sunday morning had been a typical example when I popped down to HESC for a couple of hours armed with camera and high hopes of a few interesting shots. Once again though, I was greeted by grey skies over a grey lake that was being whipped into a mini version of the North Sea by an uncharitably cold wind.

The hirundines and swifts didn’t seem to mind though and good numbers of swallows, house and sand martins wheeled and flicked across the lake surface suggesting there was a good hatch of flies taking place, even though the conditions appeared incompatible with such activity. After checking out all the usual spots I concluded that if was going to use the camera at all, then I may as well have a go at trying to take a few pictures of swallows in flight.

 Swallow over water by J R Hartley

Yes you’ve guessed it. Bad light, fast exposure times, high ISO speeds and rocketing birds = dull, colourless, grainy, swallow shaped blobs that after much fettling in photoshop, still remained reminiscent of poor hand drawn illustrations, in a 1950s cheap bird book. If there was a bright spot it was pretty much under my nose in the far hide, where a pair of Reed Warblers were nesting and a Reed Bunting posed (just out of comfortable lens range) now and again. On the walk back to the car a Whitethroat also showed himself fleetingly amongst the bushes, but connived to remain, a successfully reluctant pin-up.

Reed Bunting - I thought this picture reminded me of an illustration in one of the old ladybird books.

What a relief then, that things started to change so dramatically late Monday afternoon. The great golden orb finally appeared and along with its warmth came the emergence of a cornucopia of insects and the inevitable, increased bird activity. I even watched a fox sitting in the middle of a meadow, appearing to luxuriate in the warmth permeating his red brown coat, the pleasure was obviously so great that he could barely be bothered to lope away when he saw me.

Reed Warbler, LBJ Yes, but I think a very handsome little bird

I have promised myself that this year, I will try to learn a little about damsel and dragon flies and recognise a few more than the most common varieties of British butterfly. To this end I have therefore, ordered via t’internet, what I hope will prove suitable, pocket field guides (will let you know in due course). Despite not yet having received delivery of said books, I was pleased to be able to identify my first hairy dragon fly of the year (which my ever patient walking Odonata reference guide tells me was a female).

Hairy Dragonfly

This also gave me the chance, to again try out, my recently acquired macro lens. This is a new branch of photography to me and I had not initially appreciated how amazingly shallow the depth of field is on these lenses, particularly when you get in close. Despite a number of trials, tribulations and downright disasters, I find this a fascinating aspect of the art and hope to reveal in weeks to come, a few examples of my more successful shots, both in these pages and on my Flickr site and the FoHESC blog (see links).

Fly away home, the insurance underwriter is there to assess the flood damage.

Anyway that’s me done for this week. So long for now, the great orb is again rising high and digital hay needs to be made in the sunshine.

Wonder Warble

The general consensus of opinion amongst friends and others of around my age seems to be, that as we get older the ability to keep our eyes open, when we want to, seems to diminish. If that is not bad enough, unfortunately the ability to sleep, when we really, really, would like to, also seems to escape us.

So it was, that in the early hours of the morning, as I lay awake first listening to the rain falling and then to the opening bars of the dawn chorus, that my mind started to wander.

What would be the subject of my next blog post, buzzed in and out of my brain like an angry wasp defending it’s nest, while the usual hornet thoughts of where am I going, what have I done, what could I have done differently (you know all the usual rubbish that invades your head, when all you really want to do is snuggle down and sleep for another few hours) circled my mind.

The rain and spring arrivals (hirundines, swifts, warblers, hobbys, cuckoo and even a black tern) - the obvious candidates that have dominated events of the last month down at the nature reserve – have all been well documented in the new, improved, FoHESC blog , which now has three authors. Whilst Imperfect and Tense  had beaten me to the post regarding the bluebells and other new flora and fauna at Little Linford Wood (he has an unerring knack of seeing and identifying, more species of birds, insects and plants, than I am able, which sums up his skills and my current position on the learning curve).

An unusual sight, not the Sedge Warbler, the fact it's not raining.

Is the appointment of Roy Hodgson as the new England Football Manager (clearly a side effect of my earlier post, Harry’s Game) worth a mention? Certainly along with the appointment of Stuart Lancaster as England Rugby Manager, it is a distinct pleasure to see people running our national teams that are both erudite and eloquent, in their ability to convey their thoughts and ideas. Although in the cases of Messrs Rooney and Terry one does wonder, regarding the value of such traits.

Whilst on the subject of sporting plaudits, well done to Northampton Saints for reaching the Premiership Play Offs (a game too far?), Olney Colts for reaching the final of the Oceanic Cup and Northampton Town for avoiding relegation from the football league (again). Commiserations and best wishes to Olney First XV for next season in a more suitable league.

Serenity, GC Grebe knows how.

Then the last worry of all, why do I find it so hard to find new music that I like - am I turning into my father?

I have a distinct memory of watching The Old Grey Whistle Test and seeing Yes performing the still fantastic Yours Is No Disgrace. As a sixteen year old, I was thinking, this is the best ever, whilst Dad just said "they're making it up as the go along, no one can write this stuff". I off course knew better and vowed to keep an open mind regarding the progression of music through the years and to never call bands rubbish, just because I don't like their music. But recently, I even think that at least 50% of Jools Hollands guests are rubbish!

So at last, having let my mind wander where it will go, I knew where I was going. Finally the wasps and hornets had left the nest and it was time to turn over and go back to sleep, well after all it’s just a wonder warble......

All photographs taken by and © Tony Bedford