Pulborough Brooks

A bright sunny and warm day so quick breath of air around Alfriston then cooked breakfast at the Star Inn. Very nice and well cooked poached egg. All the waiting staff east European as seems to be pretty normal these days.

Travelled onto RSPB Pulborough Brooks and dropped off the latest collection of postage stamps in aid of the Save the Albatross appeal.

Fitted the Sigma 120 – 400mm lens to the camera and headed off around the reserve. A hot day by now. Dragon flies on the ponds and a family of Nuthatches near the ‘pipe pond’. They were making a lot of noise and showing well.

Took a good three hours walking round the reserve visiting most of the hides. Not much on the water apart from ducks in eclipse, lapwings, fallow deer and cattle.

Once back at the visitor centre took more photos of the dragon flies and had a cup of tea and cheese scone. Once refreshed headed into the more wooded area of the reserve but most birds hiding away in the heat. The highland cattle managing the reserve seemed quite at home.

Finally back to the car at 5 P.M. and headed home about half past. Traffic not too bad other than a stretch of M25 so came of at J10 and went via Chertsey.

Technorati Tags: photography,birds,RSPB

Seaford & Alfriston

Decided to take a trip to Seaford and Cuckmere Haven to try and take some good photos of the Seven Sisters cliffs. Booked a room at the Star Inn, Alfriston (http://www.thestaralfriston.co.uk/) via the web and drove down in bright sunshine.

Walked down to Cuckmere and the beach then back along the cliff top towards Seaford. Looking for an ideal location to capture late sun on the cliffs, the sunset and moonrise!

Will go back to South Hill Barn car park.

Once at Alfriston checked into the hotel, room 14 then took a walk around the pretty village taking pictures on the way.

Technorati Tags: Photography

London trip & Knoydart pre meeting

Jamie Dean has arranged for some of us going to Knoydart in July to meet up to chat about what to take and expect.

The meeting place is Ha Ha at Cardinal Place, Victoria. Despite the final England world cup group game taking place in South Africa I headed to the OXO tower to see an exhibition of Wildlife photos at the gallery by Roger Hooper. Very good studies of wildlife in Antarctica and the African plains.

Then onto the Tate Modern. Well I never ‘get’ most modern art and was tempted to ask to the the Emperor’s new clothes gallery. There was a photo exhibition here too; called Exposed showing a century’s worth of pictures taken surreptitiously or with hidden cameras.

As the time was now nearly 5 P.M. I walked across the Millennium bridge and took the No. 11 bus to Victoria. There met up with Jamie, Sarah, Tony, Richard and Anna. Jamie and Anna have been to Knoydart before so could give some useful tips on what to expect but he didn’t want to spoil all the surprises!

Technorati Tags: photography

Pond now waterproof

Looks like the latest attempt to seal the pond has worked so will look to stock up as soon as possible.

Technorati Tags: pond

John Spedan Lewis Trust for the Advancement of Natural Sciences.

Day trip to Leckford with the John Spedan Lewis Trust for the Advancement of Natural Sciences. As last year net at 10:00 in the cricket pavilion for an introduction by Malcolm Crabtree and Glynne Evans. Then moved down to the river for talks on presentations on Moths, flora, river flies and bird ringing. In between the two we stopped for a packed lunch by the river. As we were finishing up lunch the bird ringer arrived and asked all to gather round as he had a Kingfisher in the hand!

Pond still not water tight

Tried testing the plugs in the patio pot but a very slight leak still present. Will use some shoe repair paste to seal the combination of PVA and Plumber's Mait.

Wimbledon

Received tickets for Centre Court at Wimbledon for the first Tuesday. Two single tickets at £41 each.  Meeting Jan Palmer outside Wimbledon mainline station at 11:00.

Fantastic weather. Picked up tickets and found they were some way apart (block 508 and 518) on centre court.
Had a wander round to show Jan the layout.  Took a quick look at the practice courts but didn't recognise the two ladies playing.Had they been top seeds I guess the crowds would have been bigger!

After a coffee made our way to the court and agreed to meet up after the first and second games.
Serena Williams, Rafael Nadal and Robin Sodeling got through in straight sets. Jan headed off to meet hubby Tony at 19:30 but I stayed until about 20:45 before heading home.