Durham Night Views

An evening walk in Durham by the River Wear. A high ISO with a slow shutter produced some unexpected effects.

The moon appeared through a break in the clouds for a short while.

The wider panarama.

Interesting lines.

Going Home.

Durham Views

A couple of photos from my trip to Durham earlier in August.

Framwellgate Bridge

Passageway to old University Residentual Buildings

Sand Martin Nesting in Cast Iron Pipe

We were amazed to see a Sand Martin dive into a cast iron pipe sticking out of the embankment of the River Wear on our recent visit to Durham. Intrigued we watched as a bird arrived and then quickly left every 2 or so minutes. Clearly the birds had a nest with young, and fortunately the pipe no longer functioned as a drain. The birds didn't seem disturbed by people standing on the footpath 2 feet above their nest whilst feeding bread to ducks in the river below.

I tried many times to photograph the bird coming into feed its young, trying to anticipate the focus point. These are my best efforts, taken at 1/1250 sec, only just slowing down the action.

Arrival at the pipe, before flying off.

Occasionally the bird would disappear into the pipe for a minute, possibly to clean the nest. This time it peeped out first to check that the way was clear and safe, before flying off.

Later we discovered another cast iron pipe with yet another nest in use by sand martins. Perhaps in Durham we have discovered a sub-species, the Cast Iron Martin!

Ashridge Misty Dusk

An early evening's walk yesterday around one of the open deer fields in Ashridge following rain earlier in the afternoon. The light was not good and the deer were not close.

Initially the only special interest was in 2 young fallow deer bucks sparing, a little one-sided contest with one being a yearling with little antler growth. The deer rut itself is at least a month and half away at least.

The light improved a bit as the clouds started to break. At the same time a beautiful mist rose, initially only covering a few areas, leaving the deer standing out above the mist

Senior bucks with palmate antlers, unlike the young bucks that were sparring

In the gloom, with the camera pushed to its limit, leaving a grainier photo than would be preferred.

Durham Cormorant and Lamprey

My first walk by the River Wear just after we had arrived at Durham

This Cormorant had caught a Lamprey. I thought it was an eel at the time, but after looking at the photos I realised what it was. The first Lamprey I had ever seen.

After a minute or so of trying, the cormorant manged to get the head down his throat and swallow it.

A young cormorant drying its wings.

Durham Friday Night

Elvet Bridge after rain

Durham Salmon

A visit to Durham in August coincided with Salmon making their way up the River Wear to spawn. Following a few days of heavy rain the river was full and Salmon and Sea Trout were jumping the wiers rather than use the spillway through the Framwellgate electronic fish counter. So numbers counted this year will be below the numbers that actually swam upstream. Unfortunately I failed to take any photos of a Sea Trout (unless of course these are Sea Trout and not Salmon).

A Herring Gull with a rather over ambitious idea!

This really beautiful fish using its powerful tail to clear the weir

Norwich Swan

Swan's foot detail

Ivinghoe Beacon Evening

More photos taken around Ivinghoe Beacon on the first evening in August

The remarkable swirl of clouds above the Whipsnade Lion

A Blue (Chalkhill?) settling down for the night

The evening sun catching his hair

The grass was full of the resting Blues trying to catch the last of the sun

Gull flying to roost

August Evening Clouds

The first evening of August and it started with a beautiful and interesting sky above Ivinghoe Beacon. I am afraid I don't know the names for these cloud formations

A swirl of cloud

A Dappled Sky

A strange rainbow coloured shard of light. I have darkened the photo to show the colours and the lines of cloud caught in the sun rays

Cloudscape

The shard of light in the photo above was just forming
to the right in this photo