Autumn in the Clyne Valley, Swansea

Video of an Autumn walk in a local woodland in Swansea, Wales:

Last Night's Sunset

Just to show I'm still alive (just about), here's a shot from Monday evening. It was taken on the hill above my house, looking west. The sliver of water in the distance is the Burry Inlet, which separates the Gower Peninsula in the South from Carmarthenshire to the North:

Whilst I was up there, I noticed a half-dozen Swifts and a couple of Swallows flying around, which reminded me that I've hardly seen any of these birds this year. Anyone else noticed a shortage of Swifts and hirundines this Summer?

The River Clyne

I've been a bit 'under-the-weather' lately, and this evening was the first time I've been out with my camera in seemingly ages. I've got an almost-permanent pain in my lower back, no doubt caused by lugging this heavy gear around for so long, so I just wandered down to the beach with my Canon 40D and newly-repaired 17-40mm lens, hoping a nice sunset might develop.

These were the best shots I could come up with - some pics of the River Clyne, a small stream which flows into Swansea Bay here at Blackpill, with the sun going down in the background:

While I'm on the subject, here's a little video of the same river I took about a mile upstream last Summer:

Today was the first day, after a long, cold Winter (by our standards) that felt truly Springlike round here, and it was appropriate that I should finally get to see (and hear) my first Swallows of the year, as a small group twittered overhead on my walk down to the shore.

YET Another Star-Trail!

I know I promised I wouldn't, but the sky was so clear and starry on Sunday night that I couldn't resist leaving out my camera in Clyne Woods for a few hours - whilst I relaxed at home watching the snooker on T.V.! Unfortunately, the night was very windy, meaning that all the trees' branches are blurred when viewed on the original large version - even the trunks (the main tree in shot was swaying alarmingly above me!). However, hopefully it doesn't look too bad on this small version:

It seems like a good spot for this sort of photography, so I'll try it again when the wind dies down.

Another Star-trail

Apologies for posting another of these star-trails, but as we had an unexpectedly clear sky on Thursday evening, I left my camera out on a tripod in Clyne Woods for a couple of hours whilst I relaxed at home. Sixteen ten-minute exposures (for a total of two hours, forty minutes) merged into one gave this result:

Will try to post something other than a star-trail next!

Woodland Star-Trail

I confess to having a bit of a Waxwing fetish: who can resist these beautiful birds? There was an influx of these into the Cardiff area back in December, and another flock of 20 or so a few weeks ago. All my visits to photograph them coincided with deadly dull weather, so I haven't bothered to upload any pictures. Yesterday, I thought everything had finally come together: another small group of Waxwings had been sighted in Cardiff, I had the afternoon free, and the weather was gorgeously sunny and bright. Even better, on arriving in Cardiff just before noon, I checked the internet to see that the birds had been seen on Canada Road at 10.30 that morning. Everything was going according to plan for my upcoming award-winning snaps! Until, that is, I arrived at the location at 12.30 p.m. - and the Waxwings were not there! I wandered around the area in vain for an hour, but the birds had obviously seen me coming and scarpered. Damned rude of them, after I had gone all that way to see them.

I headed back to Swansea with my tail between my legs, and arrived back under a clear and starry sky. The perfect night for a star-trail shot, I thought. I remembered an isolated tree which stood atop a hill above my house, and thought it would make an excellent foreground for a star-trail picture. I headed out after dark with my camera gear, convinced I was about to get the best star-trail shot ever taken. I was not! A local farmer had blocked off the previously-public footpath leading to the hilltop - bastard, I thought! I was determined to get at least one photo out of this so-far-disastrous day, and so I set up my camera in a small wood and pointed it at the stars, before heading home to watch the football. On going out to collect the camera afterwards, I was relieved that the lens, for once, didn't seem to have fogged over. Of course, something was bound to have gone wrong, and it had: the battery had run out! However, it had completed about a 75-minute exposure, so here it is (the yellowish light on the trees is caused by the nearby street-lights):

Hardly worth all that bother (and all that unnecessary waffle I've just written) for one crummy picture!

Clyne Woods Star-trail

Continuing the theme of not sleeping very well, I woke early on Saturday morning, and couldn't get back to sleep. Seeing a rare clear sky outside, I decided to head out into my local woods and try for a pre-dawn star-trail shot. I pointed my camera through a gap in the trees, towards a patch of sky with plenty of stars, which turned out be looking roughly north towards the pole star. I had time for three ten-minute exposures before the lens clouded over with condensation, so this is a total of thirty minutes' star movement:

It was a rare treat for me (not being much of an 'early-bird'!) to be out at dawn listening to several Tawny Owls calling to each other around me.

However, as the day dawned, the peace was soon shattered by the arrival of several noisy dogs and their owners!

Sunday's Snaps

After not much sleep on Saturday night, a sunny Sunday lured me out into the great blue yonder. I was too tired to lug my DSLR with me, so took my little Olympus Pen Mini EPM-1 with me on my walk along Swansea seafront. Gale-force winds soon blew over some dramatic clouds and squally showers, resulting in some dramatic cloudscapes over Mumbles Head:

Thunder and lightning made occasional appearances on what was a dream day for landscape photography. The combination of heavy rain and sunshine resulted in the inevitable spectacular rainbows over the bay:

Unfortunately, just after taking this shot, the battery in my camera ran out, and I realised to my horror I had neglected to bring a spare with me. There's a moral in there somewhere!

Looking West from Langland Point

I decided to have another go at a sunset shot on Wednesday evening, so headed round to Langland Point at the western end of Langland Bay near Swansea. At this time of the year, it's a cold and invariably windy spot, with great views along the rugged Gower coastline towards the setting sun.

However, just as yesterday, the hoped-for sunset failed to materialise, and I was once more presented with the slightly-depressing cold blue light of dusk:

Dusk at Worm's Head

Yesterday evening, I headed out to Rhossili on the Gower Peninsula, hoping for a beautiful sunset. This view over the coastguard hut was as near as there was to a colourful sky:

A stubborn bank of cloud then positioned itself behind 'The Worm', resulting in this cool blue light:

I turned to the right to photograph this view along Rhossili beach towards the small tidal island of Burry Holms:

I zoomed in on the outer part of Worm's Head:

Finally, a long exposure of 124 seconds:



I also had a try at a star-trails shot over the headland, but that was a failure as well!

Another Star-Trail

Taken last night, this is the same tree as my recent post, but with the camera pointing in a different direction:

It's a combination of three ten-minute exposures. I bought an intervalometer, and I had set it to take 18 ten-minute exposures, but all but the first three were ruined by condensation forming on the front of the lens, despite me trying a chemical hand-warmer wrapped around the lens to try to keep it warm, as was recommended to me.

Anyone know a foolproof way to keep the lens condensation-free when doing long exposures on a cold night?

Pied Wagtail and an Eagle

After photographing the crows in my previous post, I came upon this little Pied Wagtail perched nearby in the dim blue light of dusk:

If you're wondering what it's standing upon, it's this sculpture of an eagle (or osprey), photographed at sunrise way back in 2005:

Star-trail

A rare clear evening (amidst the rain and gloom) saw me head down to the beach to try another star-trail shot.

My previous efforts HERE had shown me that a single exposure of longer than twenty minutes, even with long-exposure noise reduction activated, tended to result in excess digital noise, as well as picking up too much noise pollution from the city lights. This evening, I decided to try a different approach, and took five ten-minute exposures, one directly after the other, and combined them, along with a single dark-frame, in this free startrails application.

Here's the result:

I would have liked to have combined more shots for longer star-trails, but the clouds soon rolled over, so I headed for home.

Yesterday's Sunset

A few shots taken on a walk along Swansea beach on Saturday evening. Unlike all previous photos on here, which were taken with various DSLRs, these were taken with a little Olympus Pen E-PL1 camera:

After a sunny Saturday, it was back to the usual rain today. And now that the clocks have gone back, the evenings are going to be longer and darker than ever. Uh oh!

Moonrise Over Swansea Bay

A few shots taken yesterday on an evening walk along Swansea Bay. As the sun set over the houses behind me, this moon rose over the sea in front:

I scouted around looking for some foreground interest:

I found this Teasel growing in the sand dunes (in fact, I planted it as food for Goldfinches):

The sky's colour had gradually turned from orange to pink:

Not exactly Ansel Adams, perhaps, but thought I had better make at least one blog post this month!

Evening at Three Cliffs Bay

A few shots from a walk along Pennard Cliffs to Three Cliffs Bay on Saturday evening. Whilst heading towards the bay, I heard my second Chiffchaff of the year calling from a hedgerow (the first was at Rumney Great Wharf near Cardiff on Thursday). The sky was colouring up quite nicely; but, by the time I got in place for a picture, the colours were fading, and I had to make do with this shot:

Unlike on my previous visit, it was high tide, enabling a couple of long-exposures of the tide as it rushed in to the bay:

It was a clear and starry night, so I decided to stay around for a star-trail shot. It was a slightly unnerving experience sitting on the cliff-edge in almost total darkness for one hour waiting for the exposure to complete. As it turned out, the final image was a bit dark, so I've had to increase the exposure in post-processing, which has increased the noise somewhat:

I'll definitely be heading back there for more star-trails, as it's a fairly remote location, and so not so bedevilled by light pollution as the city.