Skomer 2024

 

Well with a dodgy advance forecast, and nippy start to the actual day, it turned out just fine for this year`s venture on to Skomer Island.

45,000+ Puffin are on the island this year, along with an estimated 250,000 Shearwater, plus all the supporting cast. The island didn`t disappoint, and after last year`s washout it was good to get some shots in this year.

The 87 steps are hard work these days, tough on the lungs going up, and even harder on the knees coming down!! However, the sailing is a lot smoother compared to the thrill of hanging on tight in the days of the `Dale Princess`.

I could have stayed on there a lot longer, so here`s to next year .....

Off to Skomer

 

Looking forward to visiting Skomer Island off Pembrokeshire the coastline again next week. 

An annual `pilgrimage`, it`s always great to be there, but all the better if the weather and sea-state remains kind.

Skomer is home to 40K + Puffins, along with Guillemots, Razorbills, Kittiwakes, Peregrine and Short Eared Owl. I`ve been there in baking heat, blustery winds, and (worst of all) driving horizontal rain and spray. Hopefully we`ll get a bit of decent high pressure and calm conditions. Well, I can but hope ......

Watch this blog for some follow up info.

Missed the big Northern Lights show!

 On the late evening of Friday 10th May into the early hours of Saturday 11th May, the UK saw one of the biggest Northern Lights showings for decades. You had to be in the right place of course, and it just didn`t happen for me. 

There were many stunning images from across Wales, making me kick myself all the more, but full credit to all those who nailed it.

With the "red aurora alert" still continuing throughout Saturday, I headed off to Rhossili on the Gower coast, sandwiches and flask ready for a long night. However, as the night wore on, the alert level  dipped from red to amber to yellow, but then increased again. Looked semi-hopeful, although there was increasing cloud from the West before sunset.

The hours passed, and it was very hard to see anything of the Northern Lights. With the moon still up too, it took some time - closer to midnight - before there was any slight hint of purples to the naked eye.

With the bay bathed in moonlight, and by altering camera settings to try to pick up any aurora, I just managed to pick up the purples in the sky (although this is facing more or less West instead of North). This was nowhere near the standards that I was after and hoping for, and nowhere near the standards of images I saw from yesterday.

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Looking North from the cliffs in the direction of Burry Holmes island and Llanelli beyond, there were more mauves and purples barely visible to the naked eye. 

All a bit disappointing, but let`s hope there`s more to come fairly soon.

Dawn Chorus walk

 

A good group on the Dawn Chorus walk at WWT this morning. The weather was unusually kind to us for once, with some good light too.

Thank you to all those who booked themselves on it and supported the event, and making the effort to be up early.

Back to some more traditional Welsh weather this afternoon - ie damp.

Day two tomorrow.

Thank you everyone

 

The push-up challenge is over, and i`d just like to say one final THANKYOU to everyone that has donated.

£800 has been raised, plus an additional £181.25 in gift aid. 

With 100s, maybe 1000s taking part, let`s hope that Cancer Research UK has been well-funded from this charity challenge.

I know that Dad would have been thanking you too, always the gentleman despite his pain.

Thank you so much.

The final push

Day 26 of the 100 push-ups per day challenge for Cancer Research UK, and the final push is on. 2,550 gone as of this morning, 450 to go.

I had no idea how the donation side of things would go, but I am really grateful to everyone who has donated. To date it`s £710 plus gift aid. Thank you so much.

This time last year we were at Dad`s beside in his care home while he was quietly tolerating the discomfort and pain from his skin cancer during his palliative care. How quickly that time has gone.

All the money raised from everyone taking part in this challenge will help Patients benefit from the investment in cancer research. For that reason i`ll paste a final link to my donation page if anyone else would like to give to Cancer Research UK:

https://fundraise.cancerresearchuk.org/.../russs-giving...

Thank you all again.

Some old outtakes and mistakes

 

Having a look through some of those side-lined shots that could have been okay, but were a bit `out` on that split second.

This is a classic moment where things could have all come together to make a good shot, but my depth of field was just too shallow. This image needed a slightly greater depth of field (only a smidgin`) just to get the eyes sharp as well as the bill. I was, believe it or not, aiming for that head-on shot, got bang on with the bill and gape, but blew the shot with the eyes not being perfectly sharp. 

It`s not so obvious at this size, but not good when seen at a larger resolution.

I always work manually on exposure, and I was probably trying not to blow the whites, for example the facial whites can become almost soft grey at an angle. Therefore I try and control my ISO, but on this occasion I ended up selecting a slightly narrower aperture than I should have used, so very tricky to balance off exposure.

Very often on a Puffin you also get unequal brightness of the whites on the bird, so again in this case I got it right for the `face portrait`, but the whites on the front of the bird (a nightmare in summer sun) where `blown`, so this shot - along with some others - got put to one side!

It happens to us all at some time or another. The shot could have been a good one, but ended up being allocated to the shots that might have been binned.