Anyway fired off a few shots as suddenly got a strange interest in Moths and Butterflies (going be harder ID’ing instead of birds!!!!) and headed back to work to find out what the hell it was. After only 10 minutes there it was staring me in the face.. a Drinker Moth Caterpillar, quite common alledgly but first time I’ve seen one, 3 inches in length and weird looking!!!

As much as I appreciated everyone shoving a camera in the poor birds face I decided to go for a different angle and take a shot of one of the birds tools of the trade… its talons. On converting to black and white I got an image that I am very proud of.

Once again I forgot about shooting into the sun so the majority of my shots of lines and lines of grave stones turned out really bad (must beat self until I remember this lesson!!!). After a few more shots of grave stones I came across a flock of Redwings skitting around in the cemetary, if you do not know what one is well… its a migratory bird that spends its Winter in the UK, anyhow the flock was quite far away and not a good enough shot to add am afraid to say.

Decided that I would head over to Stanley Park and check out the scenery in the fog and I was not disappointed, the light and the imagery was amazing. As soon as I walked into the entrance of the park I fired off a few shots and after a bit of cropping this is what I got.

This was starting to make my day as I could see images all around me, therefore fired off shot after shot after shot. The ones I liked the most you can see from the front page of my site, or select the Landscape section from Browse a Category.

Please let me know what you think as this was a great day for me, plus it made me think alot more about my photography.

After 2 cups of coffee and a chat with Jo, we then scaled the dunes opposite Pontin’s (or Auschwitz as I like to call it), the sun was out, the sky was blue with a few little fluffy clouds (an Orb reference there!!) so lighting to me was absolutely perfect, even though this did cause Jo to get blinded quite alot (sorry Jo). First few shots we both agreed did not seem to work as Jo looked in an uncomfortable posistion, so I decided to wander over to opposite dune and use a 75-300mm lens to get a few distance shots. As you can see from the image this blog post relates to it turned out quite bloody well!!!

We must of taken around 50-75 photographs at this area of the dunes, until we decided to then head up to the dunes near St Annes Pier, the grey cloud was setting in so I thought this might add some moodyness to the shoot. The other thing that was setting in was the cold, 2 more cups of coffee were needed before we braved it onto the dunes. To be fair Jo was the braver of the 2 of us, due to the fact I was perfectly wrapped in clothing and Jo wasnt (well you wanted to be the model hahaha). Anyway I took sympathy and asked Jo to wear her jacket while I sorted out how to shoot the scene and within 5 minutes we had it. I think out of 30 shots taken at this spot 95% I personally am very happy with.

A brisk run back to the car to thaw out and off to the last location, but first an impromptu stop at The Dalmeny hotel for Jo to change and then to the small waterfall near Fairhaven Lake. I was getting really frustrated with myself here as I just couldnt get the right shot, or the right lighting, Jo had some great ideas on poses but I just couldnt get the set up to work in my favour. Fired off about 20 shots and I think a couple have turned out ok but i’ll leave that for you guys to decide.

For a page with all the pics myself and Jo both like please CLICK HERE

Finally I want to say a huge thanks to Jo who braved the freezing conditions and also for having the faith in me to get at least some good shots.

Liz being the star that she is packed up the biggest lunch I have seen, infact this also included breakfast. Breakfast!!! I hear you shout, yep that was because at 8:30am we were on the road to the Lake District, therefore breakfast on the move. At 10:30am we arrived at the Whinlatter Park Visitors Centre, quick look around at the books and Christmas decorations… YES CHRISTMAS DECORATIONS, plus watched the live camera link of squirrels on feeders for a few minutes. We then purchased the Squirrel Scurry Trail map from the visitors centre and off we hiked. I did not get my hopes up for seeing one single Red Squirrel here and I was right, nothing. Back to the visitors centre it was then, so Liz could buy… wait for it…. some christmas decorations, then into the car, hot brew, pork pie and off we headed to Dodd Wood.

Once at Dodd Wood I was really starting to get concerned, I thought because the weather was so bad that we had no chance of seeing any Red Squirrels but got my boots back on and headed to the Osprey Viewpoint where there is a feeding station. 15 minutes later and sitting on a seriously wet bed of moss I got what we had come for RED SQUIRRELS!!!! Every 10 minutes they would vanish, only to reappear once again so that they could grab more acorns. Was chuffed to pieces as this is what we had both come for and got some lovely shots, below.

Larger images can be found here

All in all a wonderful day and think I will now set myself more challenges of finding certain animals that are difficult to find!!!

Anyway, while I was in the back garden keeping and eye on our 2 mischievous cats Mario and Yoshi, the local gang of Goldfinches were flitting around waiting for the cats to go in so they could have their fill of sunflower hearts on our garden feeders. While I was watching them in our neighbours tree, I got close enough to fire off…..wait for it….. 25 shots!! Yes 25 shots of one bird in a tree, I hear you laugh but I have learnt that you MUST take numerous of the same subject as alot of the time not much comes out as you want it. So out of 25 shots, 1 was successful, either that or I am just highly critical of my own work (DEFINATELY!!!). Once again I used aperture priority which was at F5.6, therefore shutter speed took care of itself and think this was 1/500 and as you can see turned out quite nice.

The shots of the Ringed Plover were taking with aperture priority and because so close was able to keep this at F16 to have a nice depth of field, seeing as the birds were quite camoflaged against the shingle. The Turnstone shots never turned out due to the annoying dog walker, gutted by this.

Continued the walk down and came to the new Cafe that had been built on the promenade. Did not stop for a brew but noticed the strange structures on the top of the cafe that seemed like wind turbine blades all woven into each other. Obviously were not these as the wind was blowing but these sculptures were not moving, still took a few shots looking up towards them and noticed an aircraft in shot so fired of a few more. Image can be seen here or within Landscape catergory.

All in all a quiet day but still got home in time to watch the mighty Toffees play, shame they are currently getting beat as I type this!!!!