The first thing which caught my eye was the beautiful red and yellow of the Flowering Quince (Chaenomeles) which starts to flower in March and last year continued right in to Summer.
Then the succulents which keep a bit of colour in the garden all year round as well as being drought tolerant and the first of my Grape Hyacinths to start opening.
Sempervivum , Muscari and an indoor pitcher plant
There were quite a few of my usual feathered visitors around including what is becoming a regular visit from Rooks and when they arrive bird food can vanish at an alarming rate.
There was the usual gathering of Starlings and a visit by one of the Blue Tits.
A female Blackbird obligingly posed on the fence for a few portraits.
As did this Chaffinch which sat for a while on the cables to my shed.
This was my favourite shot of the day. To me it looks as though the Chaffinch is asking, "Please may I take this Sunflower seed?"
Of course any camera session here has to include at least one shot of the hairy monster - Bobby. He was enjoying a brief few minutes of warm sunshine.
Also visiting was the usual furry monster in the shape of a Grey Squirrel. Lovely to watch their acrobatics as they leap from place to place at an amazing speed but a nuisance in the wrong place.
On the whole I was very pleased with some of the results of my practice session with my 'new body' (something I could really do with to get rid of some of the aches and pains). Brighter lighting conditions later in the year should give me better depth of field and practice at concentrating more on what is in the viewfinder should help also. The one thing I did notice was far less 'noise' in the out of focus backgrounds which makes the pictures look cleaner so I concluded that it was money well spent.
Oh my goodness what a lovely post John and I nearly missed it!!! While visiting Shirl's site I noticed you had a new post 'and why don't I know about this, and what has gone wrong here' I thought. So nipped back to my own site only to find I had inadvertently missed you off my blogroll. This has been hastily rectified!
ReplyDeleteThe photos with the new body are excellent. I love the Chaenomeles or Japonica as I call it. we have one in our garden which was originally a cutting given to me by an elderly neighbour who is no longer with us, so it has a special place in my heart.
The bird photos are lovely also, and the cheeky Squirrel. Please give the beautiful Bobby a big X from me.
Thank you once again for your kind comments. I had lost the name tag for the Japonica so had to trawl through a garden centre site to find its name. It's always confusing when plants have several names. I must buy a couple more of them as they really brighten up early Spring days.
ReplyDeleteToday I set the camera up in the conservatory looking through the open door at the bird table as the Sun was shining brightly on it. Needless to say virtually nothing visited and now it is clouding over again. Ah well, there's always another day.