I originally did this as a camera club Christmas project, but after the bloody awful year we’ve had, I’ve decided to upload it here. Hopefully people will at least have a bit of a giggle in these terrible times. Secondly, it took me so long to get the images and put them together, I wanted to force it on others, lol. The only set of shots I didn’t take were the "ten lords a leaping", they were taken by a friend, of ME ( and the fact I nearly broke my ankle on landing is of no consequence, when will I ever learn that I’m not 20 anymore !!! )

The Eight maids a milking took the longest to do. I have a friend close by with a dairy herd, and luckily a beautiful female dairy maid, all the images were taken on a tripod and put together in Photoshop, (I had to find out how to do that !!!)

Anytheway.... I wish you all a Merry Christmas, and thanks for the virtual friendship through what has been a most strange year. Here’s hoping 2021 gets better at some point 🤔

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A few years ago I made and put up this Barn Owl box in the field behind our house. For the last two years they have fledged 3 Owlets each year. This year I decided to buy a Trail cam to see what was happening through the nights, within days I was hooked. Using Lightroom to catalogue the activity...... feeds, hunting, flights, that sort of thing. I found I had well over 800 owl clips, with a range of activity. These are a few of my favourite clips, pretty much in the order things happened throughout the breeding season from egg laying to fledging. The Owlets were ringed between 5 to 6 weeks (by the BTO).

The young bob their heads a lot, this head-bobbing action helps make up for an anatomical limitation: an owl's eyes are fixed in position — they can't move the way a human's eyes do. The owl's varied head movements help it judge the position and distance of things around it — essentially, to triangulate on objects.
I'm still getting adults at the box, so I have my fingers crossed for next year !!!

Thanks for all your well wishes and kind thoughts, it's been a tough second half of the year for me, upwards and onwards for 2019 :o)))
Happy New Year.

Tags:   Owl Barn Owl Nesting Wiltshire

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After the complete cobble up I made of the last time-laps I did here in 2014 I thought I'd have another go.
So a few days ago I got up at 4.30 to drive to a bluebell wood, Badbury Clump. I set up the camera about 10 minutes before sunrise (5.30) and took a picture every 2 seconds for about two and a half hours, all with a intervalometer of course, that added up to 4439 images. There were seven idiots .......... sorry, very keen photographers, there at sunrise, we are all scurrying around trying to capture the moment in stills, one being in her seventies and having driven about 65 miles to get there !!!!! You get more points if you can spot her Golden Retriever :o)
The time-lapse is playing at 60 frames a second, so it only lasts a minute.
I HOPE IT WAS WORTH IT !!!!!!! Sigh...

PS, extra points for knowing the music :o)

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The winter solstice December 21st 2016. The Druid's gather around the neolithic standing stones at Avebury, Wiltshire, to witness the sunrise, banging drums, chanting and blowing their horns.

The strange thing is, they get out their mobile phones and then drive off in their Volvo's !!!

1400 images
4 second intervals
About 1 and a half hours
Played at 12 FPS...... I tried 24 FPS, but I didn't like it.

Taken on the 1Dx Mk2 and the use of an intervalometer, I'm not that impressed that you can't set it up in camera !!! Taken in small Raw so the files are quite small but I could still process them in Lightroom, then put together in Photoshop, and finished off in iMovies.

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Just for fun,
Slow motion footage taken on my iPhone and put together in iMovies.
A young Wobin visiting my workshop for her morning Mealworms. She is so light on her feet, and on my hand :o), just like a ballerina.

Tags:   Robin Slow motion

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