Mulling

It's a time of the year for mulling things over.

Today, in a lull, between rain storms, I stand on the shore in Annestown and feel the power of the sea overwhelm the questions I have queuing up from 2015. Like fragments of flotsam and jetsam they end up in flithers on the high tide line.

With New Year resolutions being made all around me, my vague musings on 2016 are blown away on the wind, evaporating into white foamy bubbles.

The cold saltiness is an ice bucket challenge. The eyes are focusing on the horizon, capturing the constant changes; the head full of the roar of waves. Don't stumble, don't drop the camera, don't fall in.

Under her spell, hanging in there, mulling......



Happy New Year and great mulling dear friends!



PS Speaking about the sea, this moving piece by Ruth Fitzmaurice blew me away.....

Early morning web magic

Very early in the morning, before the sun casts it's spell, there are spidery webs everywhere. Have you ever seen the heavy curtains of sparkly fabric draped between the branches, leaves and blossoms? The first time I saw this phenomenon I was shocked by how much of the land is covered in the creative productions of what must be an army of arachnids!

When it's early like this, the light is soft and dew highlights the patterns and extent of this magical world. By sun up when most people begin to go about their daily lives, the webs have dried out and are strangely invisible again.

Besides the fact that I am not a morning person (in the slightest) over the last three years I have taken every opportunity to get out early with the camera and experience the slowly emerging day. It's a time of calm before the onslaught of alarms ringing and phones hopping. Wandering through this secret webby world always sets me up for a much more positive start to the day ahead. (Except when I lock myself out of the house in the dead of winter!)

This month you can see another web image of mine showing in a group exhibition called Being Here in Aoife's Gallery in Waterford City. This photograph was taken one icy morning in winter when the dawn light created a mini light show of rainbow colours. You can see the image HERE



And if you share this weird fascination for webs You can also visit the Gallery of Web photos here.

The butterflies make a come back

Thank you all for the supportive comments and thoughts you shared on the decline of butterflies and insects here. Out of the blue they are making a bit of a come back!

The butterfly bush is in the latter part of it's flowering season yet this is the first dancing butterflies show of the summer. I mentioned our "loose garden" before and although it's full of nettles and thistles going to seed we are keeping it that way as a small oasis in this desert of EU grass.

Earlier in the week some one on twitter called me a tree hugger. I think it was meant as an insult but I will be wearing it as a badge of honour now and forever more Amen!

For those of you interested in the practice of photography most of these images were shot with a zoom lens. (Canon 70-300mm on a Canon EOS 7D)You won't disturb the butterflies this way and if you use an open aperture (the low numbers) you can get some soft background effects too. Always a bit unconventional when it comes to camera stuff, I can't vouch for the appropriateness of this technique, all I know is "I like what I like...."  



More wild life here

Breakfast with a leveret and a pair of thrushes

Our young hare or leveret

One thrush stands guard

A small nap during breakfast

First shot of the thrush sitting on her nest

Every morning the young writer and myself have breakfast with the current neighbours. We enjoy watching the leveret, now weaned and left to his own devices. We used to joke about making a pet of him, especially my other half who secretly left carrots out for him!! Today the young writer remarked that he really is a pet already and you will see from his mid breakfast snooze that he is quite at home here in front of the kitchen window! 

This morning was especially exciting as for the first time a pair of thrushes have taken up residence in our bay tree. We have been watching them setting up home, one stands guard while the other works hard flitting backwards and forwards...too fast to capture.

Today I realised that I can see right into the nest.  If I get down on the kitchen floor, and use my longest zoom lens I can see her outline just sitting there. This is the very first blurry photo taken just now.......look very closely........ 

But sadly I have no time to linger and must get to work. Hopefully there will be more photos to follow! 

Every hop, nibble and silvery whisker

Sometimes they sit staring into space or take small naps in mid-nibble. As the sun goes down one cuddles up to a rock, settles down and I am left wondering who will survive the stoats and the foxes tonight?

I know now from my lens that rabbits have completely individual faces. Some are braver than others and they seem to have eyes in the back of their heads. The smallest vibration sends them scurrying, their white tails catching the light as they turn towards the hill.

On twitter they joke with me about shooting them! But I see it all through a romantic haze and hang on every bunny hop, twitching nose and silvery whisker thinking how lucky I am to share breakfast with three baby rabbits every morning.

The colour purple

After the devastation of the storm, the tree may be gone but the crocuses are still blooming unharmed beneath it......

Lost in leafy light

Do you share a memory of lying under trees, watching the light flicker through the leaves? Did you throw yourself onto the grass and stare into the sky? Did you roll in leaves and kick them down the path on the way home from school, or half close your eyes to see faeries dancing between the branches and the sunlight?

Although Ireland should be covered in trees, outside urban areas the forests tend to be the monotonous evergreen pines planted all over Northern Europe. Sadly there is a lack of autumn glory in this part of the world, here autumn is over and winter has arrived.

But today under this rare group of copper beeches I revisited dreamy schoolgirl moments. Perhaps the world has enough photos of autumn leaves? What the hell, here are even more!

Blackcurrants and Blackbirds

We had far too many and the plan was to make a liqueur. Blackcurrants make a wonderful boozy drink called Cassis, perfect for Christmas, when it should be ready for drinking.  KIR Royale, a mixture of Cassis and Champagne will never EVER be forgotten, once tasted. It's the perfect cocktail at a party for two............preferably in Paris!!

Anyway, the Blackbirds seemingly had a similar notion. As the damp evening drew in, Mr. Big put in an appearance amongst the blackcurrants and SMUG was written all over his face!

To see him drooling drunkenly in the bushes, almost unable to move with the feed of fruit inside him, made me reach for the camera and I even caught him with the evidence in his big orangey gob!

A fair swop I thought.

Rabbit, headlights.

It was so good of you all to put me into the final of the Blog Awards 2013  Thank you! What can I say?

For about 30 seconds after I heard the news I was delighted, but then performance anxiety set in and I wanted to go right back into the burrow and hide! Rabbit, headlights.

Immediate next thought? What kind of rabbit would have to be pulled from the hat for my next blogpost?  Nothing would be good enough.

It was all rabbits, burrows, hats and headlights. That's when this pheasant came striding out of the long grass. He puffed himself up, strutted up to my window and the cheeky divil even winked at me saying, look at me, just LOOK at ME!

I didn't wish he was less of what he is, or a bit more rabbity, or a bit less in my face. I lapped him up, his crimsons and golds, his feathery coat, his cock sure command of the world. We are what we are.

The rabbit in the headlights moment has mercifully passed, I have a subject for this week's blog and I didn't even have to lie out in a wet field to capture the photos.





More golden colour in the Autumn Gallery here

Their creations

This morning there is a smorgasbord of administration awaiting me at my desk.

Sipping my last drops of coffee, one foot in the world of strategy and one in a forest of spider's webs, the sparkly raindrops win the toss and the wellies are on.

Galaxies of web threads and universes of morning dewdrops blanket everything. It's only on these moist misty mornings that they are visible. Billions of tiny insects, spiders, crawlies, spreading out from the gorse on the hill to the chair outside the kitchen door. Lattices and spirals of precious mesh.

This time of the year the tree spiders and cellar spiders are each looking for a mate. Inside the house they run out from their usual dark cover, disoriented but determined. Do they have to crawl over everything? Even over me?

Outside I feel more tolerant. Sometimes one scuttles into view, magnified by the lens and I jump a little. Less and less as it happens. They are starting to win me over.

Their clever work, their harmony with the environment, their secret presence. Do they have consciousness of the beauty they create? That's my question as I reluctantly head back to that cluttered desk.....

Sweet nothings

He gathers windfalls and leaves them on the white washed gate post. I used to think it was an invitation to help yourself. Now I know it's a stash he's keeps for the horses.

As the evening sun sparkles on the lake, he takes a few in his pocket and wanders down towards the waterside field. I was there tonight and heard him talk horse.

"There there girl, that's a good girl, ..........."

She pricks up her ears and walks towards him.......

"Do you want an apple? Sure you do, you do, you'd love an apple. What have I got? Have got one for you, have I have......."

She nuzzles, sniffles at his hand.......

"Who's a good girl, O here's himself now, (laughter......as the other horse approaches) would you want an apple too now sir......you would sir, you would......O you would indeed......."


Sweet nothings, coaxings, words of love.