Reflections at Cors Caron
Waterlilies
Stalking Raindrops
Half & Half
I have pondered for a while whether I have any photos that fit with this week’s photo challenge. Yet again I have to tear myself away from my preferred small world and look a bit further afield. That’s why they call it a challenge I guess! I took this photo last month at Cors Caron, when I briefly moved my camera away from the damselflies and grasshoppers and saw this duck. It seemed to like perching on this stump and I thought it made the shot more interesting than just an empty lake. So we have a shot of 2 halves – half water, half trees and sky, and a bonus duck 🙂
In response to The Daily Post’s writing prompt: “Half and Half.”
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The joy of our own pond
I’m so glad we made a pond. Bruce’s back didn’t enjoy it but even he agrees that the pond is worth it. We can sit and watch frogs and newts, and all manner of insects who enjoy being near the water, without even leaving our garden. At the weekend I spent some time watching Damselflies sunbathing and mating in various places across the pond.
Cross Country Splash
rush
lying
in warm darkness
the quiet
is not so quiet
the stream rushes
louder tonight
swollen by rain
in my mind
I see
the white water
pouring down
from the hills
crashing over stones
splashing
swooshing
swirling
and I might be swept along
in the tumbling torrent
swept with the twigs
and the leaves
the lost things
and the rush
of all the possibilities
all the twists
and turns
of where we start
and where we find
ourselves
and all the things we might do
the places we’ll go
the changes we’ll make
and the love
that keeps growing
as the year turns
and the unknown future
rushes towards us
Stormy Tears
The weather is atrocious as I’m sure you know if you are in the UK. It’s not really ideal for macro photos as even when the rain stops it’s too windy! I sneaked out for five minutes today to try and get some shots of droplets on leaves. There was too much wind and not really enough light and my shots didn’t come out how I wanted them to, so I decided to do some tweaking and this is what I’ve ended up with. Not quite like reality, but I like the way it looks like glistening teardrops.
Morning Raindrops
We had some rain yesterday and overnight after a long dry period. The plants were crying out for it and so was I if I’m honest – the heat has been too much for me. This morning the sun was shining and the garden was covered in droplets so we had to pop out and get some photos. Not all of them turned out well, but these are some that did…
Here’s some droplets on a blade of grass that are catching the light of the sun beautifully. It kind of looks like I might have photoshopped the sparkles in, but I promise I didn’t!
Here’s a grass flower all covered in droplets, and if you look closely towards the tip, you’ll see that there is a bug in the big droplet! I think it must be an aphid, and I hope it’s swimming, not drowning in there!
More droplets on grass here, but the droplets have reflections of alchemilla flowers in them so they look a bit different.
And one last photo of droplets on another blade of grass. In this one I like the way there’s a droplet with a lovely sun-sparkle in it as well as another to the right with a bit of rainbow bokeh as well!
A droplet of sky
The rain and mist went away for a while today, and we had some lovely sunshine. I took a few photos round the garden, and I rather like this one. You can see the sky reflected in this droplet on an Alchemilla leaf. Makes me think that if I drank this tiny droplet I’d get to find out what the sky tastes like 🙂
Wet Willow
The other day, the evening sun came out after rain and there were some nice droplets on the little Willow tree. I like this shot because my house is magically contained in the water droplet! It’s upsidedown but still, I think it’s cool 🙂
There were also a lot of droplets on the catkins and I took several photos. These 3 are of the same catkin, just changing the focus on each one – so if you move through the images you’ll see the droplets clearly starting at the end of the catkin and working your way back towards the tree. I was just going to put one in but I can’t really decide which is best! If there had been a little more light I would have been able to up the aperture and perhaps get them all in focus at once, but it was evening and not possible without fetching out the tripod.
Serene Duck
I’m in Bournemouth at the moment, visiting my sister. The other day we went for walk to a local pond which has lots of ducks, and as it turned out a lot of gulls too. Anyway, I took a lot of photos, as usual, and this one stands out to me. This duck was fearless and was hanging around our feet on the side of the pond, hoping we had some food. I was able to get down to eye level and get this shot of her looking at me calmly. I like how clear and focused her eye is – I had several other similar shots and her eye was fuzzy when you looked in close, but this was by far the best 🙂 [You can click on her to see a bigger version]
