A Sunny Day - for a change

Saturday was a lovely sunny day though with a cool breeze. There are only a few flowers showing as yet but the extra warmth from the Sun should encourage more.





What was nice to see was the first bees of the season busily visiting the crocuses:



Surprisingly I didn't notice any bumble bees.

Of couse, madam was making the most of the sun:



For our lunch time walk we took a tour round the edge of the cricket field. From the bottom of the field I could see part of one of the rookeries. The rough piles of sticks which pass for nests are easy to spot:



Most of the trees in that area are deciduous and exposed to the cold winds so there isn't much sign of new life yet:

 

Hidden amongst the trees are some outbuildings which serve as stores and shelter for the sheep which usually graze nearby:



Next to one of the Poplars is an older tree which has been shaped by the prevailing westerly winds:



For our afternoon walk we went to have a look at one large field which is usually arable but this year has a large flock of sheep grazing. Amongst the usual all white sheep were a few with black faces and about four brown sheep. A type I haven't noticed before in this area:



Maybe several people are sharing the cost of hiring the field for grazing. Most of the sheep are heavily pregnant so it won't be long before there are Spring lambs frolicking about.

Toon Time + Impressionist Video

We have managed to get one and a half days of sunshine recently which gave me the opportunity to test out yet another iPhone photography app. This time it was "ToonCamera" which caught my eye. This app has many different settings to create photos and videos in the style of toons. Usually such things are done as a post processing activity but this app does it in real time, even with video. The only down side is that the results are of a lower quality than those taken with a standard camera app and each photo has to be manually saved before another can be taken but it still has it uses as a novelty, fun camera. Certainly worth the 69p charged.

A few still results exactly as taken by the app:

Lunch at the Wagon and Horses

Walkies - Impressionist Style
iPhone4 hand held:



I seem to have got well behind following other blogs so will have to try catching up over the weekend.

A Dreary Time + Domesday

It is a week since the Sun showed for more than a couple of minutes. Constantly overcast sky, low temperatures and a chilling breeze seem to be the order of the day. This shows how the local temperature has stayed constantly below average since last Tuesday:



One day last week I decided to try out a couple of panorama shots using the Nikon. The first looks North across the cricket field and was made from six landscape overlapping shots stitched using the free PC program Serif Panorama Plus 2:



The second looks East from the cricket field. It gives a good idea of how flat this part of Lincolnshire is. This one is made from seven portrait overlapping shots again stitched using the Serif program:



The above are as taken by the camera. The following is the first given the ReDynaMix treatment in Photoshop Elements:

 

I often think the cricket field exhibits ridge and furrow features reminiscent of the Medieval strip field system. Running N/S the length of the field there are gentle, regular hollows and high points. The camera is looking straight down one of the dips which shows as a darker colour.

The Domesday Book (1085) records that this village had 5 smallholders and 6 freemen.




The village entry (in Latin) is the 4th up from the bottom. A description of the strip field system can be found here on Wikipedia and an explanation of the ridges and furrows left over from that farming system is here on Wikipedia.

Guess What

Congratulations and a virtual gold star to Jan and ImaBurdie for identifying the crocus flowers in last week's Guess What:





These crocuses have been ready to open for well over a week but I guess they are waiting for the temperature to rise:





For the new Guess What I took these shots this morning with the iPhone4 fitted with a macro lens: (they are in colour)





Can you work out what I was photographing on a cold February morning. Not quite cold enough as these items were visible for a lot less than a minute.

No prizes - just for fun.

Song Thrush

The past couple of days a Song Thrush has been singing nearby every dawn and dusk. It is especially nice to see and hear them as they are on the RSPB red list of species whose numbers have diminished greatly. Even at -1C this morning we were greeted with its easily recognisable repertoire of repeated though varied songs. This somewhat wobbly clip was taken as the Sun was setting yesterday.



It is rare for me to see one in the garden. This shot was taken in December 2010.

Boo!

As it was a reasonable afternoon yesterday we went walkabout round the church again. This time I got nearer to the church to take some closer shots of the various carvings, gargoyles and grotesques. Rather than have a dozen full size photos here I used Photoshop Elements to make a slide show. (My first attempt with that particular facility):



The soundtrack is 'Tedeum', from a ProTracker module by The Weasel.

All photos were taken with the Nikon S9050. One was lightened and a couple cropped. All had a vignette effect added in Elements to darken the edges otherwise they are as taken by the camera.

Full size copies may be found in the CHURCH set on my Flickr account.

Woody Returns

It seems that the Great Spotted Woodpeckers are making frequent visits to my peanut feeder. Yesterday morning I spotted a male on the feeder and managed a few still shots.

 

You would have had a good laugh if you had seen me on hands and knees crawling over to the video camera to move it further away from the kitchen window. Fortunately the ruse worked and I was able to get some video. Unfortunately the Hitachi DVD cam got its white balance in a twist and the video turned out very blue which I managed to partly correct on the PC. I also managed to take some with the Nikon S9050 which is the last part of this video:



The soundtrack is 'Hunger After Dinner', from an old Protracker module file by Delta X of Fraxion.