I’m short of subjects and enthusiasm, so here are a few photos to cheer the day up. I hope I can write something later, but if I can’t there are worse things to do than post pictures of Puffins and think of Mrs Botham’s delicious fresh sandwiches and cakes.
The header picture is today’s entry in the Nugget or No-gett Competition. Answers at the bottom of the page.
I had a car accident yesterday, just one more brick in the wall of misery that is my mediocre life.
It wasn’t even an impressive accident.
The short version is as follows.
I had to move my car to allow someone out of a space in front of the shop where they shouldn’t have been parked in the first place. I was irritated. I forgot to engage the electric handbrake properly. Normally it engages itself if I forget.
The car ran down the slope (it’s so gentle I didn’t even notice it until yesterday) and gently came to rest against the car parked next to it. If I’d left my wheels straight, or if he’d been parked straight the cars would probably have not been damaged at all. But above all, it wouldn’t have happened if I had put the handbrake on.
So there you are. A minor collision at less than walking pace while neither driver was in the car. Some scrapes and paint transfer and, in my case, one dinge in the paper thin metalwork of my car.
It’s going to cost me £400 despite being insured, and I’ve already spent well over an hour on the phone in the last two days. Much of it was to a cheerful lady who was, she told me, based in Cape Town. I wish I was. They have good weather, penguins and a high crime rate. We have drizzle, idiots and a rising crime rate.
If you’re going to be robbed you might as well be warm and watching penguins as it happens. They aren’t puffins, but they are an acceptable substitute.
Puffin at Bempton Cliffs
This is a Puffin. Cute as a penguin, but able to fly. It also had a chocolate biscuit named after it.
Presumably they outsource the call centre because it’s cheaper. This has, so far, not shown up on my insurance costs. Over the last few years, despite a full no-claims discount and, until last year, an impeccable driving record, my policy cost has rocketed. I’m beginning to think they have abandoned actuarial tables and are just making things up.
Answer: That’s right, it’s a Herring Gull, so No-gett.
We went to Bempton Cliffs today.
It’s the first time I’ve found myself going through the motions. There are only so many Razorbills, Guillemots, Gannets, Kittiwakes and Tree Sparrows you can photograph before the novelty wears off. As for Jackdaws, I can see them any day of the week in Nottingham.
Tree Sparrow (Male)
I did get a photograph of a Whitethroat, so that cheered me up. I’ve not photographed one before, though it’s not exactly rare.
Whitethroat
There weren’t many Puffins about, but what’s new? There are rarely many Puffins about when you want them. At the moment they are mainly involved with feeding their young. I can identify with that.
It was a fairly dull day, and I couldn’t use the magic settings to liven the colour up as they limit the zoom to 40x, You need every bit of the 80x zoom to get a decent shot, and you also need steady hands, as any wavering is also magnified 80 times.
To make things worse, it was also windy.
The first Puffin shot was, I thought, only a shot of a half-hidden bird with bright orange feet. Imagine my surprise when, looking at the photos later, I found I’d been photobombed by another, much clearer bird. At 80x zoom, with a dull day and lots of concentration, I’d completely missed the obvious one!
I’ve decided on a post to cover up my lack of recent photography. I will, of course, be dressing it up as a listing of my favourite photographs. It will also make a change of pace from the last post,
Male Common Blue
I was on the way to visit Men in Sheds when I stopped to take a picture of round bales. We have a Hockney post card showing a scene like this and I keep trying to reproduce it photographically. So far I haven’t managed, but this Common Blue flew past and after twenty minutes of stalking I had a couple of decent shots. That’s about as good as it gets – butterfly photography can be tricky.
Small Copper on castor oil plant
This was one Julia spotted in the front garden. It’s a small garden and relies on self-seeded red valerian to attract butterflies, though it has plenty of marigold and allysum as back up. We’ve had quite a variety this year, with the favourites being the Hummingbird Hawk Moths.
Though they are great things to see, they are very difficult to photograph, so they haven’t made the cut.
This was the opposite of the previous photograph – no stalking needed. All I did was get the camera out as I walked from the car to the door.
A Puffin thinks about ending it all
I know it’s only contemplating flight, but it does seem forlorn as it looks down. The clown face adds to the general air of despair. This photograph was taken as a group of birds loafed about just below a viewing platform at Bempton Cliffs.
We also went to Flamborough Head that day, and spent an enjoyable time on the cliffs there too. With a mixture of poor health, work and creaking knee we’ve not been out and about much this year – which makes the good days all the more special.
Bee-eater at East Leake
This is a poor photo, but we had an interesting trip out and saw, albeit distantly, some exotic birds. The quality of a photograph, for me, lies in the memories of the day it was taken on, as much as in obtaining a pin-sharp picture of an event. Even people with top quality equipment were struggling because the heat was making the air shimmer and at the distance we were working this was causing problems. With low quality optics and a dirty lens I never expect perfection…
They were very much on the edge of their range, despite global warming and the nests failed in the end, but it was a brave attempt.
This one always cheers me up. The photo, that is. The subject of the photo always has a list of jobs for me.
This was taken as a new profile photo when Julia started the new job at the Mencap Garden. It’s a typical pose – outdoors, dressed for gardening and with that enigmatic smile. It’s a smile that shows how happy she is to have been married to me for all this time.
Well, I think that’s what it means.
The featured image shows my first attempt at using the Panorama setting on the camera. It just goes to show that a boring photograph is a boring photograph, no matter how you dress it up.
The wheelbarrow is quite interesting, as barrows go, and is a lot easier to use than a conventional barrow if you have mobility problems. The recycled BBQ/herb planter adds a splash of colour. Apart from that the view from the front door of the container/office/canteen is very dull. Julia has plans for this and I’m hoping to document them over the coming year.
What starts as a dull picture therefore has potential to become an interesting series of dull pictures., though it would be foolish to ignore the possibility of producing a dull series of dull pictures.
It is likely that in next month’s photo the barrow may have moved, but will that simple change be enough, or will I have to include another item in the picture to ensure that people keep looking?
I also used the Self Portrait feature. I’m not actually sure what it does. In a break with tradition, I wasn’t wearing my selfie shirt, so maybe it is just a liberating setting to break people out of a rut. It certainly doesn’t make bad haircuts look better. After a few practice shots I have now learned how to avoid the Fungus the Bogeyman look (wide in the chin and narrow at the top) and can make my head vary in shape quite considerably, but that, again, has nothing to do with the setting, just experimentation.
They say the camera never lies, which is true, as the camera, philosophically speaking, cannot form the intention to mislead. It can, however, give a false picture, depending on the angle you take your selfie from. I won’t show any of these shots as you suffered enough last time, so here’s another Puffin. People like Puffins, and it gives me a chance to work three P’s into the title (though a Phalarope would have fitted better). At times they can look very sad. This one appears to be thinking of ending it all…
Goodbye, cruel world
We went to Bempton Cliffs today. It was a testing drive after months of being virtually housebound but it has, we thought, the best paths and least walking of all the places we visit.
We only saw a couple of Puffins which flew directly into burrows, so they were probably males on the way back with food.
I cheated on the Featured Image, as the second picture shows.
Puffin Poster – Bempton Cliffs
More to follow tomorrow but here’s a video of Gannets…
We had a day off today; it’s getting to be a habit. We decided on Scarborough again (well, Julia did, I just drove), but started off sooner and dropped in at Bempton Cliffs on the way. They seem to have spent a lot of money since we last came, with nice flat paths making it easy to walk round, even for a fat man with arthritic feet.
Unfortunately this also allowed all sorts of undesirables to access the reserve and get in my way. There was one particular woman who seemed to make it a point of honour to get in front of me and block the best view. When I got fed up and walked on she seemed to immediately give up and slip in front of me at the next good spot.
If it had been an episode of something by Agatha Christie the third occasion would have seen a body spiralling into the sea, hundreds of feet below. I can see the shot now…
However, that’s more of a comment on my favoured reading matter rather than the Bempton Cliffs experience.
We only saw one species of butterfly on the cliff top – ringlets! Would be wouldn’t it? They flew low, sheltering in the tops of the grass from the stiffish breeze so I couldn’t get a decent photo. The breeze was quite handy, as it was blowing out to sea, and taking the stench of fishy bird excrement with it. On a hot windless day, this can be a memorable part of the visit.
Here are some pictures – I’ll let them speak for themselves. Puffins are looking a bit dull after rearing a family – next year we will visit sooner.
