The Hawk Conservancy Trust

As previously written, I bought my Canon EOS 5D body from T4 Cameras, their Swindon branch being quite local to me.  In conjunction with Canon, T4 laid on an Open Day at the Hawk Conservancy near Andover on Sunday (22nd) for which I obtained an  invitation. 

I had no preconceived idea of what to expect from the visit, other than an opportunity to photograph birds of prey, possibly in flight as well as in a captive scenario.  Well, the Hawk Conservancy easily exceeded my expectations, providing a superb day out.  At the various flying displays, the commentaries were not only interesting and informative but also very amusing.  The displays themselves, which were staged at intervals throughout the day, were astonishing in that numerous eagles, vultures, kites, hawks and owls were released and then encouraged to perform for the audience and to do so in very close proximity, necessitating members of the audience to rapidly duck out of the way at times! 

 Yes, the above vulture was at my eye-level and close enough to call for a rapid zooming-out of my EF 100-400mm lens.  At other times they came over far too close - I would have needed a wide-angle lens to fit them in!

I highly recommend a visit to the Hawk Conservancy and applaud their dedication, skills and endeavours in the conservation of birds of prey.  Also, thanks go to T4 Cameras for laying on the day and for their comprehensive display of photographic equipment.

More images from the day are being slowly added to the Bird-life subalbum of my Photo Gallery.

Spring has Sprung

The first day of Spring!  After the beautiful, warm long periods of sunshine this week, the English countryside has burst into bloom with a vengeance.  Much as I have enjoyed quite widespread foreign travel over the years, the English countryside in early Spring still takes some beating.  Of course, it is impossible to resist the temptation to be out and about avec camera in such weather so an early-morning foray to the Stone Circle at Avebury was made, in order to try to capture the magnificent megaliths against the early-morning mist as the sun broke through.  There was still frost on the ground and by the time I was on my second lap around the stones, my tiny fingers were frozen - but the results were worth a minor discomfort.  Canon EOS 20D + EF 15mm f2.8

The daffodils, of course are out in great abundance and making bright splashes of colour across the countryside.  However, that cannot be said for one that popped up in the garden - it’s paleness gave it a very delicate appearance so I could not resist taking a macro-photo of it.  Canon EOS 20D + EF-S 60mm f2.8

Old-Fashioned Winter!

Well, this winter is turning out to be a bit of a ‘blast from the past’.  All those frosts in December and January, followed now by substantial (in UK terms) snowfall.  The trouble is of course, that as a nation we just seem to be incapable of coping.  ’Elf & Safety runs riot, schools close willy-nilly, traffic slithers to a halt, trains are delayed/cancelled and runways are closed.  Wiltshire has now just about run out of road salt.  Now, where did I put my winter hiking gear…

What is needed now is a bit of sunshine to add sparkle to the snow and I will be off out with my trusty Canon 5D to capture the local scenes.

UK Defence - What Next?

Ex-Defence chief in call to cut new aircraft carrier order down to one - The Scotsman

Astonishingly, the quote comes from Marshal of the Royal Air Force The Lord CRAIG GCB OBE MA DSc FRAeS - a major patron of the UKNDA.  Very recently, this same gentleman and his fellow UKNDA patron were calling for Labour to avoid delays to major UK defence programmes, including the two planned aircraft carriers.

Similarly, the Sunday Times carried an article:-

RAF launches dogfight for control of navy’s aircraft - The Times 21 Dec 08

“The RAF is trying to take over the Royal Navy’s historic Fleet Air Arm and assume control of all army helicopters in a plan to cut more than £1 billion from the defence budget.

The navy clashed with the air force at a meeting of senior officials last week. Its admirals are furious about a campaign, waged under the slogan “one nation, one air force” which would see the Fleet Air Arm scrapped in 2013, a few months before its centenary.

Air Chief Marshal Sir Glenn Torpy, chief of the air staff, is proposing to scrap all 75 Harrier jump jets shared between the navy and the air force. Helicopters operated by the Army Air Corps, formed in 1957, would also come under RAF control. Its aircraft include Apache gunships which support troops on the front line, although transports such as the Chinook are already flown by the RAF.

The changes would leave the navy with no planes for its carriers until the new Joint Strike Fighter is introduced, which is unlikely before 2017. RAF chiefs want their pilots to fly the new aircraft from the carriers.”

By far the worst aspect of this inter-Service internecine fighting (becoming a fight to the death?) is that the Service Chiefs are doing the Government’s dirty work for them. It is a classic example of the ‘divide and conquer’ tactic and there is no-one better than Nu Labour in applying it. If we are to preserve (or better, achieve) the Armed Forces that the UK needs and deserves, the Service Chiefs need (for once) to put down their back-stabbing daggers and turn their forward-facing armament onto the Treasury and Downing St.

Monetary Machinations & Mysteries

In an article in Friday’s Daily Telegraph, it was stated:-

“The economies of Germany, France and Italy all contracted in the first quarter and may now be in full recession, shattering assumptions that Europe would prove able to shrug off the effects of the credit crunch.

The picture is darkening so fast in Spain that Prime Minister Jose Luis Zapatero cancelled holidays and called his cabinet back to Madrid yesterday for the first emergency session of its kind since the Franco dictatorship. The crisis meeting agreed to a €20bn (£16bn) blitz on public works, tax cuts, and a mortgage rescue to halt the downward spiral.“

So why, if the Eurozone is in such deep trouble, has the £ weakened so much against the €? Should we care? Well, on a personal standpoint yes, as we tend to spend four months or so a year in mainland Europe. The fall in the exchange rate from circa £1 = €1.45 to £1 = €1.20 (17%) hits the budget hard. Factor in the other inflationary price increases and the personal budget becomes very stretched indeed.

All industrialised countries are affected by the rapid and dramatic increases in the price of oil, other raw materials and foodstuffs, so why has the £ weakened so much against the €? Is it the price we, the voter, pay for being blinded and bemused by ten years or more of budgetary smoke and mirrors by one G. Brown? Yes - emphatically yes - and unless the somnolent Tory Party get off their collective backsides and offer some real opposition and alternatives, we are undoubtedly going to suffer more.

Macro Photography - Beasties

During our sojourn on the island of Rügen (on Germany’s Baltic coast), our caravan awning was visited by a variety of insects, the most common being various types of hoverfly. I found these to be quite interesting and entertaining little beasties, so set to with my Canon 20D and EF-S 60mm macro lens to capture their antics. A selection of photographs can be found in the Hoverfly album in my Gallery.

We had various other visitors too in and around our pitch, some of which can be seen in my Gallery albums Reptiles and Insects.  Perhaps some kind soul can tell me what they are!

Back on Air!

Well, well - finally I’m able to access my blog. Everything was fine and dandy when we left the country at the beginning of June for our tour of Germany  However, unbeknown to me, the gremlins got at my blog domain/url and made it unreachable (ditto my email address) and due to lack of internet access whilst travelling it was some weeks before I found out.  Now that we are back in good ol’ Blighty, I have struggled to find a way around the problem, but luckily have just had one of those Eureka moments, thanks to Wordpress.org   troubleshooting pages.  Sooo, standby for a torrent of new blog entries!

Tour of Spain - Report & Photo Album

Recently I managed to finally complete the write-up of our tour of Spain and also to upload photographs to the album Spain Spring 08 in my Gallery. Hopefully the report and photos might whet the appetite of fellow caravanners etc who have not yet explored those particular areas of Spain.

Given the downturn in the value of the £ against the €, this autumn may well see returning to our old haunts in Cornwall rather than our usual autumnal foray into France.

Back in the USSR (UK Branch)

Well, here we are, back in the USSR - oops sorry I meant the UK. Difficult to tell the difference really. Pervasive, intrusive government at national, regional and local levels; a politically-controlled police force; crumbling infrastructure; a self-serving bureaucracy and a political opposition that doesn’t understand the word ‘oppose’.

I never thought I would hear myself saying this but “why can’t we be more like the French?” Why, as a nation, do we sit on our backsides and let this pathetic excuse for a government impose their unworthy and unworkable ideas on us without protest? Will the people of Crewe rise up and deliver a clear and concise message to Labour that they passed their sell-by date a long time ago? Will Cameron actually articulate policies that chime with middle-England? I continue to live in hope (but despair lurks around the corner).

One of the beauties of spending a couple of months out of the country is that one is in ignorance of the day-to-day machinations of those masquerading as the ‘UK Government’. The downside is the shock of returning…

Canon 5D in Spain

Amazingly, in our first ten days or so in Spain, I have managed to clock up 5.5Gb of photos (RAW + large jpg), even after weeding out.  Compared with my 20D, the file sizes are substantially larger and I will either have to buy a stack of DVD’s to transfer the RAW files or consider changing back to using just large jpg (i.e. forego RAW).  There is a limited amount of time available for post-processing so jpg’s with a touch of in-camera sharpening offer the easy way out, but on the other hand I like the ‘comfort-factor’ of having the RAW files available for future tweaking etc.  Yesterday, in our visit to the Alhambra, I took something in the region of 150 shots, which equated to about 3.5Gb. Even just going through and weeding out the immediate ‘delete’ shots takes time and then the post-processing begins…  but so do the demands on my time from other quarters!

Given the nature of the photo-opportunities so far, I have mostly used the 24-105mm f4L. It is absolutely ideal for a ‘walking’ lens as the 24mm setting on a full-frame sensor is wide enough to cope with most shots in a medieval/historical/citadel-type situation whilst the range 24-105mm at a constant f4 allows rapid framing and shot-taking in a varying light conditions.

Tomorrow we head up into the Sierra Nevada mountains and I will put the 70-300mm IS USM to (hopefully) good use. Lots of snow still about so I plan to put it to good use as backdrop to shots of the Andalusian white-washed villages.