7: July

Another burst of unexpected colour in the garden. No idea where this sprang up from. I think it's some sort of Phlox (Phlox carolina, perhaps). Anyway it's staying!

Mr Bunny trying to hide in a dark corner of the shrubbery so that he does not have to come in from his evening romp in the garden. Unfortunately he is big and white!

Not one of my beasties, but one of about 10 young rabbits needing a home (3 litters) at a local rescue center. Now so over run that old hutches are being brought back into service.

Most gardeners will recognise this as a weed that is extremely pervasive. Luckily this section of Bindweed (Convulvulus) is not in my garden, but in a hedgerow I passed during an evening walk. Just thourght it may make a good image for the day.

Iwonder what Tiger Woods would make of this hole. No fairway, no rough, no bunkers, just a 150m or so drive though a fountain to the green. There are one or two slight issues to consider; the whole green tends to drift around a bit in the breeze, and you will need a boat to get you there for the final putt. Sounds impossible, yet I could see around twenty balls on the green when this shot was taken.

Never quite managed to get back to take an image of the Eco Wall in June, and I think I may have missed the wall at it's best. But given the current hot spell it's holding out well, with very few bear patches. I must try and find out how they keep it wartered, given that ot is about 4 meters high and about 3/4 of a football (soccer for those of you in the US) pitch in length.

Yet another bunny from the recent three litters brought int the local rabit rescue. Now over eighty bunnies of all sizes ages and dispositions needing homes.

This is Marge on of my mini colony of rabbits. She is in the garden for he evening stroll and weed fest, as happens most evenings she is never too keen to come in. At less than a year old and she is even now quite a character. She and her brother were adopted from Kirkby Pet Welfare in October last year. Although I would love to adopt more and expand the colony; the four I have is enough believe me.

Usually at this time of year the tail end of Pendigo lake is covered by a grat raft of folwering water lillies, but this year the groundsmen have been "tidying up" and only a few lillies remain.

No appology for the recent bunny fest. The local rabbit rescue is at capacity if not beyond at the moment, and soon these little ones will have to be seperated from thier parent and split in to single sex groups. That means more hutches! So far this year (2010) over 80 rabbits have been rehomed, but there are always more waiting to be rescued.

Every time I visit the village of Cromford or walk up to Scarthitn there always seems to be something new. Today it was a brightly coloured tea-pot attached to a tree as a nest box. I hope the bright colours dont but off any potential residents. Nice afternoon out, a lunch at wkrights Mill, and a visit to Scarthin Books (see Day 152) without buying anything!

My GPS data logger (Holux M241). As the weather this evening is particularly awful, so it's back to winter style photography. Having just downloaded a bunch of GPS tracks from a walk at the end of May, I decided to photograph it. The batteries (AA and AAA) are to show scale. My main use of this logger is geotagging. Isyncronise the clocks of my camera and the logger, then set it to record my location every 10 seconds. S/W then matches up timestamps and tells me where the image was taken.

Velvet, at around nine years old she is still doing OK. Today after a strenuous session of gardening and Cat stalking, she needed a little help in cleaning her self up. Velvet is known to be indecline and is currently under veterinary care, yet she still enjoys causing mayhem every minute she can.

The path towards St Mary's Cromford from the A6. What I was trying to achieve with this image was to balance the forground path (in heavy shadow) with the sunlight on the church and the sky. I know I could use multiple exposures and HDR, or spend time playing about with levels and curves in PS. But I did this the hard way, in camera with a couple of ND graduated filters.(One hard, one soft.)

As those of you that drop into this website will know, I enjoy walking in Derbyshire, and that I have a Derbyshire Walks Web-Site. The Lowrance Endura GPS was recently launched in the UK, and I managed to get on at an introductory price. The GPS logger is easier to use to photo geotagging, and I always have a map and compass when out walking; but I love technology, the Endura uses Mapyx mapping software, very easy to use; plus I can extend the mapping as I require at less than the cost of a paper OS map.

We lost Velvet today. This is my last image of her claiming the cat's bed shortly before she passed away.

Three Moorehen chicks in a nest on the River Wye at Bakewell. Taken from the A6 road brige looking down stream. Aththough not in shot the parents were busy strengthening the nest and providing food for the chicks.

Road side shrines are not something I ofren come across in the Derbyshire or the UK. This one is on the approach to Earlswood Reservoir from the raod between Buxton and Whaley Bridge.

Getting up a stupid O'clock and going out with a camera before heading off to work can be worth while. Especially on a fine summer morning when you get a shot like this.

This image shows why it best to have a camera at the ready! Out for a walk this young Deer and I came across each other unexpectedly. As can be seen by the flicking tail this deer was as startled as I was.

The advantage of early morning photography on weekday's is there is no-one about, so the beasties come out. Just like this water vole did on his way from the canal to graze on grass and dandelions.

Just in case anyone was wondering what happened with the House Martin's. Well I think they are an inexperienced pair, nothing happened for quite some time, then silence, then over the last week or so much noise from the nest. This evening a chick has fledged, one parent is supplying the nest with foot, the other the fledgling. Not the greatest of images, but with evening drawing in, and the location of the bird, it's the best I could manage.

Fledging continues, morning light in a more favourable position, I was able to get this image. This is the second one out that I know to, from the noise there are more in the nest. The bird leaving the nest is one of the parent birds that are currently reurning to the nest every couple of minutes.

Ginger the hamster has gone down with "wet tail". As this usually causes death from dehydration and starvation, she is on 2 hourly feeds of baby food and water by syringe, until we can get her to the Vet's tomorrow.

The view from my hotel room window, down into the atrium of the Hotel. Unexpectedly with such a view the rooms were very quiet, but rather warm. Not a place to spend more than one night, definately a "transit" hotel.

A British Airways aircraft on it's final approach into Heathrow. It as always seemed a bit silly to me to put a multi-million pound Computer Center on the primary approach into Heathrow.

The outside of the Hotel, three nights there as it is close to the "Disaster Recovery Test Center", but I will not be sad to leave it behind. Suprising how little English Hotel Staff need these days.

Getting a bit stuck for photo's and having done all I can at the Hotel, I decided to have a nother shot at fhotographing an aircraft approaching Heatrow.

Out an about I came across this Austin 10 Cambridge palked in amongst a group of more modern machines. So never neing one to miss an opportunity for a photograph, out came the camera.

Whilst walking past a pen restraining some pygmy goats from eating just about everything, one of them decided my camera looked like a tasty snack! For his efforts he got is picture taken.

This is the inside of Scarthin Books (Scarthin, Cromford,Derbyshire). Although at first glance it may seem a bit unorganised, that is not the case; each subject area has either it's own room or a clearly sellotaped label on it's shelf. I could spend hours and a fortune in this place. Just to add to the fun some book cases slide to reveal, guess what more books! In addition this is the first photographic outing for my new phone, sorry but this place is too busy to wield an SLR and tripod (needed to do true justice to the wonders of Scarthin Books).

Return to Top of Page.