Wandering thoughts and musings.

Having not been able to get out for the last two weeks, first because of illness and then because of the North Yorkshire weather, I was keen to get out and try out my new Canon R10 with its 18mm – 150mm zoom lens. Unfortunately the local wildlife were much more sensible in staying at home, but I did witness first hand how wet the land has become. It had no respite today as I only managed about 90 minutes before heavy rain forced me back to the car. The mornings extremely poor

Several months ago I decided to try "serious photography" primarily as a mechanism to get myself off the couch. After a healthy amount of internet research I settled on the Panasonic Lumix DC-FZ82 bridge camera as a way to dip my toes in the water, without breaking the bank. It was still the most expensive camera I had ever bought! As an introductory camera for a someone new to the hobby it has been fantastic. It has most if not all the functionality of a much more expensive

With great plans for an active weekend including getting up before dawn to catch some frosty sunrises, I promptly caught a winter bug instead and spent 3 feverish days in bed. I did stagger out on the final evening to get some fresh air but then had a giant fight with my camera settings, as I had forgotten that I had configured them for action in bright sunlight. Still not firing on all cylinders I even managed to shoot "shots" in video without realising. Once I had shown the

The UK contains a lot of wonderful countryside but is also home to many millions of people. England in particular has a significantly high population density which causes our countryside to be heavily used, and sometimes to be heavily misused. If all visitors would follow a few simple rules it would make all the difference to subsequent visitors, and more importantly make a massive difference to the wildlife trying to survive. The UK Countryside Code has been with us since

A very dark and dreary day in my part of the world so probably not the best time to try out manual settings on the camera! Luckily it was nice and invigorating to be out in the wind, and the autumnal colours were really showing before the last leaves hit the floor. The mallard ducks were being very sensible and staying out of the way of the worst of the wind and the rain. Although my camera settings struggled with the limited light I do like the colours on these two guys.

As it was predicted to be a beautiful Saturday morning this week I made sure that I got up early to make the most of it. Unfortunately, I still managed to leave late and found that the morning charge of runners and dog walkers had beaten me to it. Certain that I would not get any wildlife photographs I "contented" myself with some nice reflection shots of Fewston reservoir and some shots of the grey squirrels who are not phased by anything. Still in a seriously bad mood for "

The Lindley Wood reservoir, which I believe acts as an overflow reservoir to control river levels downstream, literally filled up in a week in October 2023. It was difficult to get a comparison picture since I would need a boat to get to the position I was in in August 2023. A happy accident in today's picture of the bridge was the early morning sunlight shining under the arches. No visit to a reservoir would be complete without a picture of a Mallard duck and this chap was s

After recent weather it was not surprising to find most tracks more like streams on this walk. At least the wild fowl seemed at home. In addition to some very vocal Canada Geese plus a few high speed Mallard Ducks, I had a nice surprise when a couple of Mandarin Ducks wandered by. There could have been some video footage of the geese calling but unfortunately even the image stabilisation software could not save it from me slipping in the mud. Lesson learned in bringing the tr

An early Sunday morning walk introduced me to an unexpected waterfall that was not there last week. This part of Yorkshire was relatively lightly touched by storm Babet, but there is still an enormous amount of water coming off the moors. This is also demonstrated by the fact that where I was standing to take pictures last week is now under several feet of water. The plenitude of running water did prompt me to try out the 4K video recording function on my Lumix DC-FZ82 camera

Autumn is my favourite time of year and this day was as cool and fresh as they come. Perfection in the early morning sunshine. I was not early enough to catch the sunrise but was lucky enough to beat the dog walkers in. This allowed me to see (and hear!) all the wild fowl waking up. Although I could have used a better aperture setting I do love the grey swan photo which is now also in my portfolio. Hopefully we will have many more mornings like this over the next few months

As it was too blustery to consider drone flying this morning I did a return visit to Lindley Wood Reservoir instead. Again it was fantastic exercise for the very unfit me, and I do believe that there was more water in it than last weekend. Unfortunately the dog walkers beat me there so there were no wildlife picture opportunities this time. However that did not include the industrious grey squirrel population who are not put off their stride by the odd Rottweiler wandering ar

A woodland walk near Lindley Wood reservoir provided a lot of exercise (for me). It is certainly a great place to stretch your legs and I will be back regularly. Being there very early in the morning I had the place to myself, and was treated to the wonderful sound of running streams combined with bird song. It is a very mature woodland and I came across many trees of unusual growth and character. One in particular reminded me of the "magic faraway tree", a children's story t