Black and White Wednesday

Winter  in Ireland is mostly a grey and wet season with snow cover on higher ground. So today’s photo is my take on farming in Ireland in winter.

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Wet weather farming.

 

 

 

Thank you for visiting, please feel free to comment.

 

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Hillsborough Forest Park.

On my way back home from picking up some decorating supplies I stopped of at Hillsborough forest park. Well I needed to get some air and a break from working. With the fine weather the park was busy and a parking spot was hard to find. I was in the park around 2.30 pm. This time of year the sun starts to set around 3.30 / 4 pm.  So time to find a few shots on my walk around the lake. The low winter sun was throwing a warm light onto the lake and trees and I wasn’t the only photographer out and about.

Right lets get started.

 

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Holly and cobwebs, the low sun back lighting and adding a rim light to the leaves and stems.

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Blue skies and reflections.

 

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The light breaking through the trees spot lighted these young ferns.

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Sycamore leaf in its winter wardrobe.

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I don’t know the name off this fungus , but if you were ever a Star Trex fan it might be call the Enterprise. Google it if you never saw it.

 

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Mute swan Cygnet

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Mute Swan.

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A Cormorant taking off, it uses it feet to help it get airborne by pushing them against the water surface.

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A more peaceful image of a duck silhouetted against the brightly light  water.

Thank you for joining me,

George.

From snow to coast.

This time last week I was digging the snow from the drive, taking photo’s in the snow. A week later and bar the mountains the snow is gone, well for now. Here in Ireland the weather can change in an hour. With a cool breeze and sunshine that gave no heat I headed for the coast. With heavy rain showers and a bitter wind I sat with a coffee and watched the bird life feeding in the mud flats left has the tide receded. With the return of the no heat sunshine I grabbed the camera’s and went for a walk. Below are a few of my shots from the day.

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Relax now this is the only bird shot this week, a couple of Redshank’s feeding around the mud flats.

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Fishing boats and one of the markers at the mouth of Strangford Lough. In the back ground is the Isle of Man, Looking closer because of the use of a telephoto lens.

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Kilclief beach looking the Irish sea towards the Isle of Man on the horizon.

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Then I spotted this, photo below.

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Parked in the wrong spot…. the colour of the toy car caught my eye on the walk back.

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It was the sun hitting the seaweed and lichen on the rocks that drew me to this photo.

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My final one of the day.

Thank you for visiting my blog, feel free to comment. What you like ,dislike etc.

Enjoy your weekend.

George.

 

 

 

 

A mixed bag.

Went to bed Thursday night and the fields were green, woke Friday and the place is white. First snow of the year and it was evening before I could get time to head out of a walk around the local roads. There’s not a lot of great shots around here with it being just grazing and most of the old buildings pulled down and new homes replacing them. The one weekend it would have been great to be free I’m busy, snow just won’t last more that a few days here. Anyway back to a few photo’s.

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Beside these trees there was a lovely old ruin, a home from over around 200 years ago with a little history.

Murder in Carricknaveagh

Scroll down the page in the above link to read the story of this spot.

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Not much traffic here.

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Above details and textures.

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Winter sun.

These next Photos I caught at the last minute and were shot to be silhouettes has I metered off the black bird with spot metering against the bright sky.

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This next shot is not something I do often but I enjoyed creating this. It was taken down by one of the many small lough’s we have around here.

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And we have some visitors here at the moment, Redwing’s migrate here for the winter along with the Fieldfare both members of the Thrush family.

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Above this is the Fieldfare.

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The Redwing is the one in the foreground.

The next set of Redwing photo’s see the bird spit out a Hawthorn seed from the berries they were feeding on.

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Did not know till I process these photo’s I had caught this, all the bird shots where taken with a 600mm and chopped in production. One more to go.

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In this photo we have three Fieldfare’s and one Starling, So spot the odd one out.

Thank you for visiting and take care.

George.