As much as I generally dislike selfies, i`m going to be trying some vlogging here now and again as we head into winter.
These will be via links from this blog to start with, but will see how it goes.
So here I am, at Llanrhidian marsh in (the year 20,261):
I`ve had some enquiries already as to whether I would be putting together and selling calendars for 2027, like I have done for the last few years. All profits from the calendars for the last couple of years have gone to help fund-raising for St.Gwynogs Church in Llangennech.
Well i`m afraid I won`t be putting together any calendars for next year, as there is only a small window of time to sell them. I might instead look at doing individual things "to order", but nothing concrete yet. If so i`ll announce this as and when.
Thank you for your continued interest.
Russ.
Back after a good week away at St.Davids, with the bonus of better weather than was originally forecast.
Plenty of places for a pot of tea, which is always welcome for me.
Back to it now, and planning a few projects for winter.
The country seemed to be gripped with "Eclipse fever" this week, as the first solar eclipse for many years was due to happen when viewing conditions were good. I wasn`t expecting the chaotic scenes that were on the news and online, with roads jammed and people triple-parking.
I decided to go to the a quieter area, but there was still heavy traffic for a fee miles before it thinned out. My plan was to solely get the sun being covered by the moon, rather than stacking a sequence across the sky, so I chose to use an infrared filter (IR850) so that the camera sensor would hopefully not get damaged during exposures.
The resulting shots produced a surreal magenta colour, which I liked when I was doing some test shots a few days before. Some of them seem to come straight out of "pacman"!
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I took two shots every five minutes from about 6.15pm to 8pm (with the peak being 7.13pm), and have just collaged some of them.
My favourite shot has to be around the peak at 7.13pm, which I might just get printed up on canvas one day. Such a thing to experience.
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This shot is just a few seconds early - the moon moving from right to left.
I`m glad I shot in infrared as it`s different from anything else i`ve seen out there.
It`s been a long time again since my last blog post yet again, but worth an update now as there has been success with the second brood of Kingfisher on the Reserve side at WWT Llanelli.
There was a male and female fledged in mid-May from the first brood, but I can confirm a male fledged yesterday (Monday 3rd August), together with another that quite possibly fledged the day before.
We are hoping that another bird might have fledged today, as the adult female was taking in fish to the nest site as well as feeding the one that had just fledged (in the image above).
Fingers crossed.
(For the blog post I posted last year about Kingfishers on the Reserve in 2025, click here:
https://russartworx.blogspot.com/2025/12/kingfisher-breeding-success-at-wwt.html )
Some of you might have seen on my facebook page that our Blue Tits, George and Mildred, have been successful this year, with a family of five young successfully fledge.
This was taken (very quickly) on 18th May.
During the time of bringing in food, George and Mildred endured both the 30C heatwave and some torrential rain and thunderstorms.
At their peak, the parents were between them bringing in food every 2 to 3 minutes from around 5am until around 9.40pm. Even if you said it was every 3 minutes over 16 hours, that would be 320 meals!!
They worked their little socks off, and managed a few times to defy a Magpie that was trying to get into the box.
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Since they fledged, I haven`t seen the family around, so I just hope they are doing well.
I`ll leave the nest box for a few more weeks just in case they are interested in using it again, but that is doubtful. It will then be carefully cleaned out, just in case there are mites and ticks to get rid of.
