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!

Badger on a Trail Camera

Just trying out a new trail camera I purchased a few days ago. I sprinkled a few peanuts on a likely-looking path in a Gower wood, and set up the camera for a couple of nights to see if anything took the bait.

It didn't take long for a Badger to show up:

Marbled Whites

Nicholaston Burrows on the Gower Peninsula is a good place to see Marbled Whites, surely Britain's most-beautiful of this butterfly family. Despite the fairly overcast conditions on Monday evening, a few sunny intervals had goaded maybe a dozen of these 'leps' into action. The semi-cloudy conditions meant they were perhaps more docile than usual, and I was able to sneak up for a few handheld close-ups with my 90mm macro lens:

I returned again on Wednesday evening, but was greeted by a shower and far fewer butterflies. This shot, taken with my 70-200mm mounted on a tripod, and using an extension tube to enable closer focus, was all I could manage:

This wet summer has been very poor for butterflies, so to get any shots of them in the bag was a bonus!

Puffins in Flight

Very difficult to capture these speeding bullets as they whizz past at high speed, but I managed a few reasonable flight shots on my recent trip to Pembrokeshire:

The weather was closing in by now, and for this last shot I had to resort to a high ISO to get a fast enough shutter speed:

Within a half-hour, just before we boarded the boat to the mainland, it was starting to rain.
However, it seemed we timed the trip well, as it coincided with about the only three dry days we've had this summer!

Skomer Island Puffins

A few photos from my recent trip to Skomer Island:

The one picture I didn't get was the classic shot of a bird with sandeels in its mouth, as any Puffins landing with fish would disappear hurriedly down their burrows to escape the predatory gulls and to feed their young.

Something to try for on my next visit!

Video of Puffins on Skomer Island

Here's a little footage of the Atlantic Puffins I took on my recent visit to Skomer Island:

I used an Olympus Pen E-PL1 camera, with a 500mm or 70-200mm SLR lens attached via an adapter, plus a homemade wind-muff (a piece of fake fur!) over the external microphone to hopefully cut out wind noise without affecting the sound quality too much.

Razorbills

There's normally a small group of Razorbills on the rocks near the landing stage on Skomer Island. I didn't notice them on my way onto the island, but they were there as I was leaving, and I just had time to fire off a few shots before departing on the last boat back to the mainland:

A couple of flight shots, taken from the boat as it cruised near the island:

Still sorting through my Puffin shots!