Dawn is at around 8.00am at the moment, but up in the hills it arrives slightly later and the sun doesn't crest the horizon until about 8.30 (which is marginally too late for me). These shots were taken as the first light was beginning to show.
08:04
08:08
08:11, pied wagtail in a tree
After that the light changed sharply as the clouds began to filter the light. These are some goldfinches at 8:17.
And a cormorant taken over roughly the next five minutes. I'm a sucker for a cormorant on a No Fishing sign.
Camera note: all shots taken with the Canon 7D and EF 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6L USM IS lens.
derWandersmann
3 Jan 2013Good shots, Words! I especially like the second and third cormorant shots … you got such good detail in the feathers.
The pied wagtail and the tree full of goldfinches are nice, too.
The limb in the first shot bisects the picture in such a way that it reminds me of the old Africa / South America matchup that started us all arguing like crazy about plate tectonics.
serola
3 Jan 2013:yes: Wonderful shots 🙂 The first cormorant pictures is the funniest 😆 S/he looks like thinking: "Maybe catching just one fish does no harm." 😀
derWandersmann
3 Jan 2013LOL
Words
4 Jan 2013dW, thanks. I seem to be getting nothing but cormorants at the moment. The light was really nice when I took these ones but hopefully we'll get even better mornings over the next month or so.
I photograph that tree a lot, but usually with sparrows or other birds on it. I can see what you mean about plate tectonics with the first murmurings of fractal theory coming in at the edges.
Words
4 Jan 2013Sami, thanks! I got a nice little sequence of the 'scratching' cormorant. They are such strange looking birds. Really nothing else quite like them.
gdare
5 Jan 2013How come that No Fishing signs are always deep in the water. I mean, birds just wait for that… 😛
SittingFox
5 Jan 2013Lovely sunrise. Even better, for sunrise you need a sun, so it's good to know that it still exists 😉
I haven't seen any goldfinches lately. They're very pretty birds.
derWandersmann
5 Jan 2013Dare, England, at least southern England, has lately been subjected to … well, if it isn't Noah's Flood, it's the next best thing. There's 'way more water in these local ponds than "normal" (whatever "normal" is), and the ground is saturated, so the water can't percolate out, and there's been precious little sun, to help evaporation. The signs were put up in "normal" times, with a bit of allowance for variance in water depth, but this is 'way beyond what could have been anticipated.
SittingFox
5 Jan 2013Yes, it would be quite interesting to go back through some of Words' earlier 'no fishing' posts and compare how much of the sign is visible!
Words
5 Jan 2013Adele, yes we've had a few hints of sun, but it generally hasn't quite appeared. Just dawn, and then it vanishes 🙁 Today was simply mist up here.
Words
5 Jan 2013Darko, they put them low like that so they don't have so far to reach 😉
Words
5 Jan 2013dW, this year has been the wettest in England for over a century (and the 2nd wettest in the UK, by a few mm). What is odd about Falmer pond is that it sits on 100 metres of chalk, so you would expect it to drain away. The reason it doesn't, a local ecologist was telling me, is that there is a very localized substrate known as 'Woolwich and Reading' (or Lambeth Group). This is a clay layer (with flint), which holds the water. There are very few ponds elsewhere on the Downs, other than man-made clay-lined dew ponds (a technique dating back to the Bronze Age). He also surmised that the name 'Falmer' comes from 'Fal Mere', where 'mere' designates an area of standing water. In any event, it's full to overflowing at the moment and does drain out onto the surrounding road at times!
derWandersmann
6 Jan 2013Ah, I see you have your share of local wags, like everyone else.
Yes … clay is remarkable resistant to percolation, though it certainly can get wet; I've made small, crude pots out of some of our local clay, known to podologists as "Greatlakean till". Nothing very elaborate, of course, because there's a good bit of organic material included in it, which makes it (sometimes) explode in the kiln. I've lost shoes and boots to it (temporarily) while trying to cross my back yard in the Spring.
Words
6 Jan 2013Adele, your comment made me finally go back and check some earlier photos. Here are a couple from summer 2011 and January 2012.
SittingFox
6 Jan 2013LOL! Yes, that really does show how much it has rained of late.