Winter Wonderland - Humph!

Days and days of snow are probably great for children, nice to look at through a window and interesting for the occasional photograph but it gets a bit wearing walking three times a day on compacted snow and ice. A good job that I finally got Round Tuit at last and bought a snow shovel before this weather started. I hadn't realised how much easier it would make keeping my paths clear. At one stage our four inches of snow had started to melt but a night with a further two inches soon made up for that.

It looks as though this cold spell will begin to lift around the end of the week, as long as the forecasters aren't telling porkies.

A view or three from this morning:







How much longer do I have to stand here freezing my paws?

Friday at the Flicks - Apple Lovers - Fieldfare

Confession time - I am now pretty sure that what I saw on the bird table a few days ago was not a Fieldfare but a female Blackbird like this one enjoying apple when the Starlings stopped barging in:




But - to make up for things - a lovely surprise this morning. A genuine Fieldfare spent hours under the Birdy Bistro defending and eating the apple it had found. It was alone so I guess it had been blow a bit off course as they usually arrive in flocks.

    

This one was obviously very hungry and vigorously chased off any Blackbird which got too close. Shirl (Shirl's Gardenwatch) wondered whether I would manage to capture any video - here it is, taken this morning:



Have a great weekend observing the wildlife around you.

Well Wrapped Up

It did manage to get above 0C, just, so Penny had her padded coat on when we went down the lane just before lunch:





As usual this time of year my lane is like a bumpy skating rink. Any snow is compressed by traffic and any melt can't run away so freezes again as soon as the temperature drops. I have been getting my moneys worth of use from my shoe spikes. Without them I would soon be going base over apex but with them I can safely have a brisk walk though Penny does tend to slide about a bit.

Amongst others there are about a dozen squabbling Blackbirds spending most of the day in the garden. The speed bird food is disappearing I think they all have hollow legs. The bird bath if frozen solid and covered in snow. Fortunately the pond pump is still working so the waterfall is their chosen spot for drinking and bathing.

A Bit on the Cold Side Today

Outdoor temperatures so far this week:



Forecasts indicate that temperatures will struggle to get up to 0C during the daytime until late Sunday. It was about -6C when we went for our early morning walk-about. Fortunately there was no wind or it would have felt much colder. The birds are getting through seed like it is going out of fashion. A good job a new supply was delivered yesterday.

My Own Dining Table by Penny

For six months I have chased my food dish round the kitchen. Every time I tried to get at the tasty bits the dish would slide around. At last dad got round to solving the problem. He bought me my own dining table.

 

It is a nice height so I don't have to bend down so much. It has two stainless steel dishes and they don't try to run away from me. Now eating and drinking are so easy I can enjoy my food even more.

 




The only problem is, I enjoyed my food so much I even ate the bit I usually save for supper and I am too full to do anything except sleep it off:

 

I wonder how many of my cuddly toys you can spot.

Snowy Night - Nikon v Lumix

Experiment - Nikon S9050 on a tripod shooting through the kitchen window. Had to take a lot of shots as the scene was so dark. In fact the LCD screen was virtually blank even with the outside lighting switched on. Exposure was about one second. These were about the best of the bunch. Orange sky is the falling snow reflecting the sodium street lights. Also there is an interior reflection from the window.



All photos tweaked with the ReDynaMix plug-in in Photoshop Elements.


Yellow foreground is from a low energy lamp outside.

Finally I tried the Lumix TZ7. This time I was able to see a dim view of the scene on the LCD screen. The Lumix took 8 seconds to take the photo plus another 3 or 4 seconds processing before it was saved.



Interestingly both cameras claimed they were properly focussed by giving a green indication on their screens and by beeping. Both cameras were set to their fully automatic settings with flash forced off.

Cloudy Sky

Today was the first time since I bought the Nikon S9050 that there have been cloud formations worth looking at. Overhead there was a virtually clear blue sky but in most directions there were dark brooding clouds building - looks as though things are getting ready for the snow forecast in a day or twos time.

Most photos have been cropped and all were processed with the ReDynaMix plug-in to increase contrast:

Full colour:
 

With the green 'popped' effect done in the camera:
 

Oooo look, clouds:


High contrast monochrome done in the camera:


I also used the 'Wire Worm' plug-in on these to get rid of a very prominent telephone cable:




It really made a change from the occasional day with no cloud and the many with full dreary, grey cloud cover.