The Eagle Has Landed

The final images from the ICPB set, of hawks and eagles.

If you'd like to see more, head over to the Birds of Prey Portfolio page.

Vulture Culture

 More images from the ICPB, this time of vultures. The next set really will be the last, honest.

Owl Stretching Time

A few more images from the International Centre for Birds of Prey. These are images of the birds themselves, made during the flying demonstrations. For the purposes of this post, I've brought together those of owls.

Of all the images that I made on the day, these are probably my least favourite - they're basically record shots, in my view. But I made them, and they're probably worth posting, when all's said and done.

Next time, some more record shots, although of hawks and vultures, which will probably be the last from the ICBP set.

I Don't Know Why The Caged Bird Sings

More images from the International Centre for Birds of Prey. Again, birds in their enclosures, this time with the mesh featuring as part of the image.

I've gone with colour images for this set, mainly because of the crazy face on the bird in the first image. The second image is probably my favourite though.

Hedwig has his eye on you...

Scoring a Birdie

Some more images from the International Centre for Birds of Prey (ICBP) in Newent. This set shows birds in their enclosures. I definitely intended to hit a melancholy note, but there's no implied criticism of the organisation. They do important work and the birds wouldn't be free if they weren't at this facility.

The images are slightly soft because I was shooting through a fine mesh which formed the front of each enclosure - the shallow depth of field meant that it became invisible once the focal length went beyond a certain point.

Each enclosure had a skylight made of opaque, corrugated plastic, which is the other factor determining the quality of light in these images.

For The Birds

On Fathers' Day, we paid a visit to the International Centre for Birds of Prey in Newent. These are a couple of the images that I made, there are more to come. 

I've also updated the Birds of Prey portfolio page with images featuring birds and their keepers. Enjoy.

Leafing Powis

 The final image from the Powis Castle trip, made in the formal gardens.

Orangery Order

This image was made in the Orangery during the Powis Castle visit. I really like it - I think that its the way that the background colour works with that of the flowers. Also, I see it as of a piece with the images of orchids that I made at Kew Gardens back in February 2020. However, I have to accept that others may fail to see the attraction.

There is a mono version, you'll be glad to know, which is below. I don't like it as much as the colour version, I don't think.

Look At Meeeeeeeeeee!

 

This image was made on a bank holiday weekend visit to Powis Castle. The animal in question was guarding the door to the keep and attracting a lot of attention from visitors, which was causing this display.

Paraglide in Blue

I was back out on the Malverns yesterday, after a couple of week's break. Around 1pm, as I was approaching the Beacon from the north, I spotted a group of six paragliders out over the Vale of Evesham. By the time I'd reached the top of the Beacon, they'd passed over the hills and were out to the west, which is when I made these images of them.

It may look like I'm flying with them in these images, which just goes to show what a good vantage point and a long zoom lens can do.

This first image is probably my favourite, and the next is very similar.

The wind was quite strong, so the paragliders were moving quite fast and were difficult to frame. On the up side, it was blowing from the west, which kept them close to the hill. I managed to get my horizons out of kilter in most shots, and had to fix them in post. 

Its a while since I've used the free transform tool in GiMP, but it's been improved in the meantime. For example, it will automatically crop the image for you once you've finished the rotation, which removes a fair amount of faff.

Last, and by no means least, this is another favourite of the set.

Snow Joke

I was out on the Malvern Hills earlier today and made a few images - the image above is probably my favourite. Its of North Hill to the right of the image and the Sugarloaf, lower and to the left, taken on the climb up to The Beacon.

I've written previously about my approach to images formats, which is fairly inflexible. Its pretty much 3:2 all the way with me. However, this image is faux-panoramic in that I've cropped it to a 2:1 aspect ratio, removing a great expanse of dull, grey sky.

There are a few more which are in the same format and with a similar treatment, below. This next one is different framing of the same view.

The same scene again, made at the top of The Beacon:

The one has some people in it:

And this final one was made on the way down:

Upton Top Ranking

Some images from a recent visit to Upton-upon-Severn, where the river had burst its banks. I have made similar images in the past, which were probably better than these, but here they are anyway.

The Missing Link

North Hill from Link Common, looking quite Nordic, or Alpine, even. 

Movin'

I guess that the time has come to announce that we've moved to Malvern in Worcestershire. The images in this post were made during a walk to the Beacon on the Malvern Hills on a foggy Sunday morning recently.

Harbouring a Grudge

This is an image of the seawall at Watchet harbour, made on a recent(ish) visit.

 

Eden Reject

A couple of images from another trip to the Eden Project. I've made images like the first on numerous occasions, and I'm not so sure about the second image, but here they are anyway.