Category Archives: Wildlife

Salou, Spain – Part 2

Sunday 20th October

After a long lie-in and a leisurely breakfast, I went and paid €10 for the Internet for 3 days. O2 will let me roam here, but it only offers 15mb data for that. 15mb? I’m not sure that’s enough even just for a bit of online research, this blog, and twitter. The Internet will be useful to find information about travel, and use Tripadvisor for restaurant reviews. That’s what I’m telling myself anyway.
I’ve already managed to use it to save some money, by finding out about the train to Barcelona, which is seemingly cheaper and faster than the buses we’ve seen advertised, oddly.
And the bus company has an app with all the times, prices, etc. to different locations. That’s another reason why the Internet is absolutely required. And not just because I can’t go for a few days without it.

Noisy trees

We went for a walk around Salou again, and while out, heard a lot of noise that sounded like birds. But unusual-sounding birds, going absolutely crazy about something.
It’s times like this I’m happy I have a camera which might not have the clarity of a digital SLR, or be particularly compact, but it does have a pretty good zoom.

20131025-201801.jpg
Upon closer inspection, right up there at the top of a tall palm tree, Continue reading Salou, Spain – Part 2

Bees and plants

We all know that bees are good for your garden. However, I’ve always been a bit scared of them. I once had one fly into my ear. I stupidly covered my ear, got a noisy buzz, removed my hand, and the bee flew out.

Incredibly, I’ve never been stung by one, yet I’ll still jump a mile if it flies right at me.

A few months back, at the Bristol Festival of Nature, I went along and saw Brigit Strawbridge (wife of the man with the tremendous moustache, and well-known green advocate) do a presentation about bees, their lives, why their numbers are dwindling, why necto..neonecto..nectoninnoids?..nectin….why pesticides are bad. From this presentation, I learnt that only one of the many types of bees has the ability to produce the right frequency and pollinate tomato plants (maybe I’m lacking that bee, and THAT’s the reason why my tomato plant failed! (A bad workman blames his bees)).

Especially after discovering that lots of species of bees don’t even have the ability to sting, I started looking forward to seeing them in my garden. I’ve noticed they tend to gravitate more towards some plants than others, and so I thought I’d document the top 6 bee-favourite ones, and show them here, in the order that they flowered this year.

Continue reading Bees and plants

First Experiences with a 35mm Camera

As I’ve mentioned in other recent posts, I’ve recently acquired a 35mm camera. Actually, I’ve acquired three of them – all the same model. One of them is a Minolta XG-M (and so are the other two).

Here one is, in all her glory.

Although this photo was taken on a mobile phone in bad light.

The cameras were gifted to me in a camera bag. In there, were three identical cameras, a load of lenses (most in cases), a flash unit, several well-used camera cases, what I think is a shutter release cable, and a load of other stuff I didn’t recognise. Continue reading First Experiences with a 35mm Camera

Digital and Film Photography

I list photography as an interest, mentally (and sometimes on my CV). Despite this, I don’t really know much about it. I like going somewhere, taking a camera, and taking some pictures, but I have no idea what I’m doing.

I’ve been pondering learning more about photography for a while, but never quite got around to taking a course.
A few years ago, I nearly bought a digital SLR, but then I balked at the cost, lost my nerve, and bought a superzoom bridge camera (Panasonic Lumix FZ8) for half the price.

Not really thinking about what I wanted to take pictures of, I was probably partially won over by the 12x zoom lens. Of course, the first thing I did after I got it, was take pictures of things too far away to see clearly with the naked eye. Continue reading Digital and Film Photography

Frogs!

Yesterday something jumped off my lawn and into the pond, scaring my girlfriend in the process.
And it was a frog.
Or rather, several frogs.

Very odd actually. They’re actually smaller than some of the tadpoles, and a different colour.
I wondered for a while whether they might be frogs that have jumped from another pond, but there isn’t another nearby (as far as I know) so they must be mine.
I got the camera out tonight to try filming them, but they’re so small (smaller than a 5p piece), they’ve really hard to focus on. Plus my camera won’t refocus while it’s recording, so if they move (they jump, and swim…. very fast) then that’s me scuppered.

Here’s a quick video I managed to make anyway.