AnnMarie's Blog

One of the many things that I love about Wales, is its variable weather. Yes it does rain frequently but it’s also so changeable; which means it’s rarely boring and sometimes quite dramatic.

Take the last few days for example …

A couple of days ago my photography took me to the coast and we decided to mix business with pleasure by making a family day of it.

The weather was glorious, clear blue skies, strong hot sunshine and a comfortably warm sea as well. Conditions on Aberdaron beach were fabulous.

Jane & Tamsin enjoyed a swim in the sea and a bit of rock pooling whilst I worked on some photography.

The flowers at the base of the sandy cliffs were also enjoying the sun.

I was well aware that a frontal system was approaching from across the Irish Sea. Indeed part of my plan included a desire to catch some interesting clouds over the coastal landscape or failing that, a colourful sunset.

So after a bite to eat we left Aberdaron and drove across to Porth Oer. As expected the north western skies built up and produced a pleasing display.

An added bonus for our journey home was a clear inland sky with a glorious full moon.

So where’s the contrast in this weather? Well that front I mentioned; it has brought us several days of stormy weather with over 3 inches of rain falling in a 24 hour period. This is what Tal-y-llyn looked like at the end of those 24 hours:

With boats a bobbing, water bursting out of its banks and clouds ready to release another deluge.

And now, thankfully, we’re expecting a few finer days again.

You can see more Welsh Landscapes in my galleries over on Nature’s Universe.

Looking through some old photos today. Here’s two of Tamsin:

Firstly on her bicycle in May 2004

and then …

on her bicycle in May 2011

I think the title says it all.

There are more Tamsin pics in the Gallery.

At 11:57am today (April 1st) Tamsin reached double figures. It really doesn’t seem that long ago that she was just toddling around on all fours!

Anyway here is a brief description of her day:

Breakfast in bed – a good way to start any birthday. Followed by open the post, some playing, swinging, fussing of ponies etc.

Barbecue for lunch with Tamsin acting as chef of honour, see pictures. Delivery van arrived with some presents whilst we were having the barbecue.

In the afternoon we had a treasure hunt for Tamsin to find her hidden presents & after that she went for a ride on Tarragon.

click an image to see a larger view …

That brings us to her favourite evening meal, Lamb Chops; followed by a special chocolate cake.

To round off the day, we had fun mothing before bedtime; 4 different species of moth seen (not that we’ve identified them yet).

All in all, a busy day & a happy Tamsin.

It strikes me that I don’t post very much about my home patch. There’s lots that we can all do to help our planet, it’s flora & fauna. Whilst photographing, educating & evangelising is great, it is also important to ‘do our bit’; so what have we been doing, chez AnnMarie?

  Our Home, click image for a larger view …

We have about 50 acres of land in the heart of Dyfi forest, it comprises permanent pasture, river bank & deciduous woodland. We are bounded by river, forestry & SSSI. Our general goals are to maintain and if possible increase biodiversity. Here are some of the actions that we have taken so far:

• Reduce artificial chemical use to a bare minimum
• Plant new hedgerow
• Plant new trees
• Restore old hedgerow
• Graze pasture in a manner that encourages flower seeding & protects sward
• Leave areas of rough pasture over winter for insect cover
• Designate a specific area ‘flood plain’ & manage to encourage plant diversity
• Keep livestock out of woods to encourage young saplings & woodland floor plants
• Maintain quiet backwater for amphibians to breed in
• Leave some fallen timber for invertebrate & fungal habitat
• Establish several bird feeding stations
• Fence off sections of river bank to allow re-establishment of bank cover for riverside mammals
• Encourage & feed wild mammals, as practical
• Develop garden with wildlife friendly plants & technique, see RSPB website and Wildlife Gardener.

   click image for a larger view …

The general thinking is to work in harmony with nature, not against it. The region is particularly rich in fungi and we also have a good selection of lichens. Some of the lichens are quite rare & are very sensitive to pollution, so great care is taken not to endanger them.

Not only can one help wildlife in this way but there are also lots of personal gains to be enjoyed, for example:

• Its a fantastic place to bring up our daughter
• The dawn chorus is wonderful
• You’re never alone with all the wildlife around
• We probably get fitter & healthier doing all this
• Why not beautify your surroundings with plants & wildlife
• It helps broaden our understanding of nature
• Its just good fun

There’s more that we can & hope to do, but it all takes time & resources; it also pays to go steady & learn the lessons as you go. Here are some of the things still on our wish list:

• Provide additional nesting places for a variety of birds & insects
• Plant / restore more trees & hedgerow
• Increase availability of water / bog habitat
• Provide further butterfly habitat

I hope that this has given you an idea of what I might be doing when not behind the camera or computer. Perhaps its even inspired you a little.

With the recent snowy weather, some may be interested about the conditions in southern Snowdonia as of Thursday afternoon:

  Click on any image for a larger view …

As you can see we took an afternoon walk on Cadair’s slopes. There were frequent snow showers blowing in on a northerly wind. The snow on the ground was starting to drift around and while the temperature in the valley has crept just above freezing, it certainly hasn’t done so on the mountains.

The ground is icy and if traversing far or high, crampons might be advisable. I don’t know what the weather will bring over the next few days but if it continues in this vein, then all who venture out should be experienced and well equipped. That said it is very beautiful and enjoyable.

Our walk was only a short family one, taken on the way back from the local farm suppliers but well worthwhile & a good stretch out after our day photographing wild birds of prey yesterday.

The major roads are in very good condition, the council having done a good job but some of the higher minor roads may not be passable. Yesterday we found snow ploughed drifts that were up to the top of the car windows!

P.S. I have some more kite & buzzard images coming up – maybe I’ll get to post them tomorrow, do check back soon.

Well all good things have to come to an end, as they say. Tonight is twelfth night and for everyone who follows the tradition its time to take down the Christmas decorations.

I like the bright colours and sparkly glitter, so here’s a picture to remember them by:

  Click image for a larger view …

And look forward to putting them up next year

Well I hope you have all had a fun Christmas / mid-winter festival or whatever. We’ve had plenty of fun and are now looking forward to a few quiet days of recuperation.

Tamsin certainly seems to have had much excitement, I thought I’d share a 25 image slideshow of her Christmas; just click on the image below to view the show in a new window:

I think she has plenty of things that she wants to do …

Good luck to everyone at CERN for the initiation of the LHC (Large Hadron Collider), on Wednesday.

What an experience, one of the greatest experiments undertaken by mankind. Does the Higgs Boson exist, will you see those meson trails that tell of its presence? Will extra dimensions be hinted at and what new exotic particles will be discovered? I and many other members of the public will be awaiting your results over the next months & years.

May the God particle speed you to success

Sun, clouds, lightning, rain; yes it’s a British summer! The night of the 27th clear spells gave way to a hot (27C) & humid day yesterday, with very little breeze. That’s just what I needed to demonstrate an answer to Tamsin’s question … How do you take the images of the tree canopy that I see in magazines?

So off we trundled with tripod, camera & fisheye lens, we took 4 differently exposed views of the tree canopy & returned to the computer to process the 4 exposures into one high dynamic range (HDR) image. Whilst walking the conversation turned to "How are zoom lenses made?" – hmm, this daughter keeps me on my toes Anyway the resulting image is below:

The full res image (not posted here) shows details of leaves & bark whilst retaining plenty of sky detail, all in all a good recommendation for HDR technique.

As evening came any ideas of a night’s astrophotography were blown away by rather ominous looking thunderclouds. An opportunity for an early night? Well maybe not, 2am found me sat in the bird hide watching some beautiful lightning & being lulled to sleep by the patter of rain on the canvas. Naturally I had a camera with me …

Lightning occurs when droplets of ice & rain, circulating in the thunder cloud, build up electrostatic charge. The charge created can be huge and an equal but opposite charge is induced in the ground below the cloud. The highest electrical field exists on the tip of objects such as tall trees, electrical leaders form that eventually connect cloud & tree top and it is then that a huge discharge leading back up the ionised air, into the cloud, takes place. This is the bright flash that we most often see. Most lightning strikes are a discharge of negative charge from the cloud with a typical current of 40,000 amps; potential difference may be several hundred thousand volts. However lightning strikes that emanate from the top of an anvil cloud can result in a positive discharge, these bolts carry significantly more energy and are both rarer & more dangerous.

Lightning storms in Wales are rarely viewable without a large amount of associated rain, so trying to keep equipment dry, whilst photographing the view, can be a bit tricky but well worth it I think. So Aberllefenni & Corris had a stormy night, but all seems fine today.

Trivia: Did you know that the path of a  lightning bolt may only be 1 or 2 inches wide but 1 mile long.

We took a trip to the beach on Tuesday. I needed to work on a photographic project and the weather looked good for Jane and Tamsin to have some seaside fun.

Whilst there I decided to do some work on panoramic imaging in high dynamic range or HDR. On the expanded section of this post I’ve included a highly compressed panoramic animation of the beach. Be warned there may also be a picture of Tamsin deciding to do some extreme beach sports!

Read on for the full story…

(more…)

Well it’s always nice to have some Daffodils in flower for St David’s Day, and this year the garden has duly obliged. I do like Leeks too, but they’re best cooked in butter and served up with a joint of Welsh Black cooked in Red Wine. So my preferred 1st March celebration is to  watch the daffs bobbing in the breeze.

In fact Spring is definitely  trying to have sprung, with various flowers giving a welcome splash of colour. I’m not sure of it yet though, this coming week could feel rather chilly and snow in April isn’t uncommon. Still, here’s hoping Spring has arrived; let’s enjoy the flowers. I wasn’t the only one to be doing so, as you can see below:

Oh and by the way, I’ve just added a separate Bird gallery to share some bird images, so please do have a look.

I felt like imaging something a bit different last night. My full astro setup is currently dismantled whilst undergoing a PC upgrade and the skies partially cleared during the evening. So out I went with camera & static tripod.

Now Orion is usually a really nice widefield at this time of year, so I started playing around with different settings but then Tamsin’s pony, Snowy, came to offer her help in the proceedings!

So I settled for my full spectrum modified Fuji on the tripod and attempted to produce a portrait of sky & pony. The thing is, pony models don’t keep still for long and stars don’t really show up on fast exposures. So… I had to use a bit of HDR technique to apply duplicate exposures, one for pony & one for sky. Foreground lighting was supplied by the 60Watt tungsten outdoor light on our house, everything else supplied by nature.

  Click picture for a larger view …

I thought of calling it “Pegasus meet Orion” but I’m not sure that Tamsin or Snowy would have been in favour. Oh well, that was a bit of fun, back to work now (which is fun too {grin} ).

It’s a dark, wet & windy night outside tonight; last few nights too. No astrophotography then, and I’m almost up to date with my standard photo processing – that means I’ve had a little time to indulge myself in a hobby that I keep meaning to learn but never get around too – computer aided 3D artwork. I had in mind a beautiful woman who comes to save a stranded Unicorn. The image was to be set in daylight with a rainbow background; I did that but then I changed it (fickle aren’t I). This is what I’ve ended up with …

  Click image for larger view …

I  settled on simply calling it “Friends” because that’s what we should be with creatures of all kinds. It’s not a complex image but then I’m only a beginner at this. The Lady represents the spirit of Mother Nature that we all have, somewhere within us.

I hope you enjoy the image. Maybe I’ll get chance this winter to practice my artwork some more; if so I’ll post some here.

In these modern times, we have become rather profligate with our lighting. Yes a bit of light to read or work by is beneficial but do we really need to light up our whole planet like some over decorated Christmas tree! There seems to be a common held belief that high levels of external lighting will improve safety and reduce crime; yet there is very little evidence to support this. If light is genuinely required then it should be used sparingly & only be directed where needed, not left to pollute a large area. There are various good reasons to control light pollution, here are just a few:

• Creating light costs energy, wasting energy is environmentally unfriendly
• Broad light pollution can confuse & maybe harm wildlife
• Lack of proper darkness disrupts the natural rhythm of human life and can lead to illness & an inability to sleep
• A complete generation of city dwelling children are growing up without seeing the beauty of our night skies
• Besides anything else, give your eyes a few minutes and its amazing how much you can see in the dark.

I’m lucky to live in one of the darkest areas of the UK with magnitude 5 – 6 skies, great for wildlife & great for astronomy. BUT even here there are a few street lights across in the village, not many but a handful. I can often avoid them during astrophotography sessions; they’re at least half a mile away behind my house & some trees. However I want to illustrate just how damaging even a few lights can be, here is a picture from the other night:

  Click image for larger view – Canon 300D 10mm f3.5 49secs

It was taken at almost 2am, long after the street lights are needed for anything. The night was basically clear at high levels with mountain cloud & valley mist drifting in and out. There was a partial moon so the high night sky wasn’t as dark as it can get but the village lights are dominating the scene with their orange glow. If that’s from a few lights imagine what an entire city of lights can cause.

What can you do about this? Well try not to use ‘flood’ type lighting unless you really need it. Use outdoor lighting that only throws light downwards to where its needed. Ask your local authority to minimise the use of wasteful street lighting. Join a campaign for dark skies. And more immediately …

You can carry out a survey on how dark your local night skies are. We were part of the UK specific survey earlier this year. Now Ed over at Flintstone Stargazing has kindly pointed out that there is an International Survey taking place and we can all take part in this project, so why not head over there and take a look, it closes on 15th October.

Woo! Hoo! It’s our Crystal Wedding Anniversary today. Yes that’s 15 years that we’ve been married, almost 18 years as best friends too! I am so happy. We’ve had lots of fun and I’m still so in love.  

Here’s looking forward to many more years together.

A temporary change from my normal posting topics; cooking time. I have various favourite meals to make and to eat, but an easy everyday one is quick curry in the wok. This is just what I made the other night and coupled with a cocktail that I put together on a whim, it went down really nicely. So without further ado, here it is:

• one small pack of pork sausages
• left over roast chicken
• 1 large onion
• 1 large sweet pepper
• 4 sticks of celery
• 6 large mushrooms
• 10 baby corn
• 1 can of sweetcorn
• 1 can of chopped tomatoes
• 1 can of pineapple segments in own juice
• 1 can of baked beans
• 1 can of coconut milk
• Spices – 3-4 tsp Curry powder, 2 tsp Coriander, 3 tsp Turmeric, 2 tsp Gara Masala, 2 tsp Paprika, 1 tsp Ground Ginger, 1tsp Cumin,
• Herbs – Coriander Leaf & Thai Lime leaf to taste

Note my teaspoons tend to be generous heaped ones.

Cut the sausages into bite sized pieces, cook thoroughly in Groundnut Oil (in Wok). Add roast chicken and cook until just browning.

Toss sliced fresh vegetables in extra virgin olive oil, add to wok and stir fry for a few minutes, now add all tinned ingredients except for coconut milk. Cook for a further 2 minutes then add coconut milk, rapidly followed by all herbs & spices. Allow to simmer for at least 15 minutes for all flavours to blend together. Serve with your favourite accompaniment, rice or chips for us. This will also keep well in the fridge, the flavours mature over 24 hours and it reheats well.

The cocktail:

Take a hi-ball glass add an inch (2-3 cm) of Vodka to the bottom, now add an almost equal amount of Peach Schnapps (adjust for sweetness to your liking). Top the glass up with equal parts of Cranberry, Raspberry & Blueberry juices. Stir thoroughly and enjoy. Anyone like to suggest a name for this?

Yes yes I know poor title choice, I am a Def Leppard fan after all. Anyway this post is really about quartz the rock, you know put a voltage across it and it pulses regularly to keep your wrist watch nice & accurate. Well I’ve always had a thing for it. I used to collect it as a child and Tamsin appears to have inherited the trait.

We have a tumble polisher (Jane’s) and that can produce beautiful glossy specimens. The picture above shows you various samples that we have polished plus a few lumps of ‘raw’ milky quartz from around the farm. You can clearly see different structural qualities within the stones. They are attractive in their own right but can also be used for making your own jewelry with. Manchester Minerals are a great place to find out more info & to buy supplies from.

Quartz is crystalline Silicon Dioxide and is the most common mineral on Earth’s surface. It occurs naturally in many different colours, as you can see from my picture above. It is a fairly hard mineral, rated at hardness 7 on Mohs scale.

Some of the varieties are listed below:

• Amethyst (purple)
• Rose Quartz (pink)
• Rock Crystal (transparent)
• Milky quartz (partially opaque white)
• Citrine (yellow)

Ssh don’t tell anyone but last Tuesday was my birthday. No, I’m not telling you which one! Anyway I had a great day with my family and a wonderful dinner to round it all off. I’m all excited about the new piggyback camera bracket for our telescope and the new enamelled casserole tin is something I’ve been after for a while. As for the new swimming costume well it’s yet to arrive but looking at the weather I think it may be more ‘survival wear’ than something pretty to wear on the beach

Here’s some pics of the beautiful flowers that Jane & Tamsin bought me.

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P.S. The smaller thumbnail pictures that you see on my blog now, just click on them to open a larger image on their own gallery page.

Welcome to my Blog. I’m still building it at the moment, so I wouldn’t expect much before the middle of February.

Please do come back again when it’s all finished. Thanks.