Trying out my new Cyber-shot camera…

Favourite shot so far with my new Sony HX50 camera – a scarlet lily beetle, Lilioceris lilii

All I want is a decent point-and-shoot compact camera that is good at taking pictures of birds from a great distance and flowers and insects in close-up. Plus general views, obviously.

I have great affection for my old Olympus Camedia C-765 Ultra Zoom, which has been with me since August 2004, a good five years before I started this blog. I had long been wondering what

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A childish fear of volcanoes…

The Indonesian volcano of Rinjani in 1994, by Oliver Spalt on Wikimedia Commons

STOP PRESS: Moments after I published this, reports came in of a volcano erupting in Sumatra – so best wishes to everyone struggling there…
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Did you have an irrational fear of something when you were a child? In my case, for a while at least, I was terrified of volcanoes. You might say that’s not so crazy. But as I lived in Wales, where an eruption would be pretty near impossible, I think it was.

So this post is all about what

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Institutional blue breaks through…

Institutional blue reappearing on a green-painted fence, March 2, 2013…

The above is an iPhone snapshot and this is just a short post to launch my 2013 gallery, which you can see here.

But it’s also to ask if anyone else out there recognises this turquoise colour as “institutional blue”. A couple of decades ago it seemed

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The view from my window – through a Photoshop filter

The view from my window – with Photoshop stained glass filter…

This post is just a bit of playing around with Photoshop, really. I’ve had Photoshop CS3 for years but still love messing about with the “filters” options. They are such an easy way of creating a special effect with no artistic talent whatsoever!

As the basis for these experiments I used this image of

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Blue skies, nothing but blue skies…

Blue skies over Penarth Pier – although this was a winter sky, in December 2009…

Blue skies, nothing but blue skies…
Since the jetstream moved north again a couple of weeks ago and summer arrived at last, I can’t get that song out of my head. Here’s the version by Frank Sinatra…

We had maybe a fortnight of dazzling blue skies and scorching sun here in Wales but now it’s turned changeable again. Which is the way I like it, as it

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A game of fox and magpie…

Romance – or at least interest – between a fox and magpie…

I was pleased with this capture of a garden fox (almost) kissing a magpie, so thought I would post it here.

I took the photo in the early morning sun the other day and I had to lean sideways at full stretch, pointing my camera through a small landing window to get the shot, which shows the fox in a neighbour’s garden.

Another shot of the magpie sneaking up on the fox from behind, taken before the other picture…

The magpie was running around the fox, almost taunting it.

Here are my other fox blog posts:
Living with urban foxes
Foxy shows his (her) face again…
Foxy would a-wooing go…
Fowl play? Call in the feather forensics team…

And here’s a recent one about magpies:
Egging on the magpies…

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Itsy bitsy spider mite…

Red spider mite (Tetranychus urticae) on ivy in the garden, June 11, 2011

I was so pleased to catch a picture of this red spider mite (Tetranychus urticae) that I thought I would post it, as well as adding it to my spider identification project page.

It was running around very fast on a variegated ivy plant outside in the garden, over and under a leaf, and kept on evading me. I wouldn’t have noticed it if it hadn’t been moving, as it was less than half a millimetre long. It must have paused for just a moment on the stem when I shot this.

Spider mites are a pest on house plants and in the greenhouse, weaving their webs and sucking the life out of the plants. I don’t mind them in the garden, though (I say this even though this is the first time I have seen them outdoors…). More information about red spider mites on Wikipedia here.

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