A couple of years ago, I took photos whilst travelling & posted them to Google Maps as a Local Guide. I also added places of historical interest & other missed places, like the Car Park at the end of Loch Long, along with photos.
I had all but forgotten about the pics I’d posted until this e-mail arrived today in my inbox.
Local Guides views
Now that my wife & I have started travelling again on our bikes, I’m going to restart my local guides posting, biased towards cycling; ease of getting to, bike parking etc ๐
Following on from my rescue of a weary bee with sugar water a couple of weeks ago, I came across another struggling bee in the garden a few days ago. I think this wee chappie had got a bit drookit from a recent shower & was too tired to take off. He was struggling through the grass, but every time he climbed a blade to get into the sun, it bent under his weight & landed him back where he started.
My wife mentioned that she’d read about people handling bees when they were tired to help them out so I gave it a go. I put my finger next to him on the ground & he climbed up onto it. I thought that he would hang on there until I got him up onto a leaf or twig in the sun so he could dry out & recharge; he had different thoughts. He climbed up my finger to the back of my hand & promptly took a nap.
Taking a nap on my hand
So, what next… My wife got some kitchen roll & smeared some honey on it to hopefully give him some energy. After a few minutes of dozing the bee woke up & started lapping away at the honey ๐
After another few minutes of him lapping away at the honey, I was able to entice him onto the kitchen roll & set them down in the sun. After another few minutes of drying, recharging & feeding he took off & joined his friends in the hebe hedge ๐
After a somewhat tense 36 hour wait, we finally got our results through & thankfully both were negative — yay us ๐
We thought that would be the end of it & life would resume as normal, or what has become the new normal. However we’re both still running temperatures, although Susan’s showing signs that her temp is returning to normal. Mine, however, remains stubbornly 1.5-2โ above normal. I have to wait till my temp returns to normal levels & stays that way for 48 hours before I can head back to work.
A huge thank you from us both for all your thoughts & best wishes, they made one hell of a difference ๐ A massive virtual hug from both of us ๐
My wife, Susan, hadn’t been feeling 100% for a couple of days (98% in her own words) & started to get a bit of a niggle in her throat today; so we started monitoring her temperature & found it was about 1.5โ up from normal throughout the day ๐ค. I checked my temperature as well & found I was about 1โ higher than normal ๐ค. I’ve also experienced a change in my sense of taste today — all in all, not good ๐ท
So, we’ve just been down to the local walk-through test centre in Cumbernauld to get tests done & are now isolating & awaiting the results, hopefully within 48-72 hours ๐ฉ. Fingers & toes crossed that this is just us being a bit under the weather ๐ค
Since my trip to Palacerigg on New Years Day, we’ve been back in lockdown & travel pretty much prohibited. My work’s also been pretty hectic, so much of my photography has been either inside, in the garden or on my walk to work. I’m finally getting to head out today so have had to check all my gear over.
Ready to go
My basic day out gear:
Snappy (DSLR) with 18-55mm lens (+ lens bag)
Sigma 18-300 lens (+ lens bag)
Lensy with case, glass stand & suction holder
Cross poloriser filter
ND8 filter (haven’t used this one yet, so going to give it a go)
+10 close-up filter (not taking my macro lens — mostly going to be landscapes)
This morning sees the last full moon of 2020, so I thought I’d have yet another go at capturing it. Up until today, all my shots of the moon were over-exposed & subject to the dreaded camera shake (even when using a tripod). My awesome wife found a video on YouTube by Paul Farris at Photo Genius.
Moon shooting by Photo Genius
I knew what was going wrong with previous shots, and had mostly got the issues sorted, but no matter how hard I tried, couldn’t get rid of camera shake (every time I pressed the shutter release, there was shake ๐ฉ). Apparently the trick is as simple as using the timer on the camera ๐ค Having watched the video, I set up & headed into the back garden at about 5am, pitch black & a chilly -3โ. I say pitch black, apart from the moon obviously ๐
Some of the shots were over exposed & lacked definition.
Over exposed full moon
Some were under exposed but with good definition.
Under exposed full moon
…and finally, I think I manged to hit the sweet spot ๐ with good definition & exposure level ๐ with a shutter speed of 1/60 s ๐ค
Hi all ๐ Whilst out in Cumbernauld House Park one misty morning, I’d noticed that there were alot of Ravens about; there were groups of them on the snow, as well as filling the trees. These first shots were taken on my way into the park
On my way back out, the fog had shrouded the land & everything was a lot duller. There was one Raven pecking away at the grass under the snow ignoring the others. A couple of others must have taken umbridge at this & went over to hastle it. There was much raucous squalking & the fight then took to the foggy sky. The aeriel combat was fast moving & constantly changing direction swiftly; hard to follow in low light conditions at the maximum range of my 300mm zoom lens.
Eventually the solitary raven evaded the others by pulling off a sharp mid-air u-turn, & shot off into the fog; while the three of them were flying in a straight line, he basically folded his wings & when he re-opened them was heading in the opposite direction ๐ฒ
Still playing around with the slider; I read that it didn’t have to be the same image, so I thought I’d use it to show the difference 5 minutes made with the weather
