Wandering thoughts and musings.

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

return to Ben Rydding Nature Reserve after a couple of months away revealed an ecology beginning its autumn slow down. Obviously less wildlife activity than in early summer but plenty of picturesque tree berries and the local squirrel population to get on camera. Autumn is also a prime time for fungi to develop and one nice example caught my eye. Although I have trained mycologists in database design in a "previous life" I have zero identification skills. A brief search of

An early morning expedition to flight test my new camera drone. Having never seen a drone in use before, much less ever flown one, I have been careful to research the laws about how and where they should be flown etc. After passing the Civil Aviation Authority online flying test, the drone was labelled with my operator ID and I was good to go. For my own peace of mind I picked a very out of the way place for my first flight practice. Unfortunately the place was so out of the

A wonderful weekend of weather which I "squandered" by spending a lot of time in front of a computer. However it did get the website up and running. Sunday evening allowed for a trip to the Toft Gate lime kiln near Pateley Bridge where I enjoyed some fine evening sunshine along with the local cattle. The site has been associated with limestone since the 16th century with the kiln ruins dating from the early 18th century. It also appears popular with the local hares.

The oldest sweet shop in England, and in my opinion definitely the best. They even let you order in quarters! Although this blog is supposed to be reducing my waist line by making me more active, I think I will be making regular visits to North Yorkshire's Pateley Bridge !