Midwinter

The winter has become official today, although we have been up to our necks in snow already with temperatures upto -15°C. High time for me to take my traditional winterbreak from blogging. I know you can take awsome pictures at this kind of year, but I am just not that kind of person. When it is this cold I rather stay near the fire with a hot drink. So I wish you all a Merry Chrismas and a very happy and prosperous new year and you will hear from me again as soon as spring announces itself.

Mice or mouse

There were signs of mice in our shed so we set a trap in which we now find a cute little mouse every morning and every morning we set him free somewhere outside the garden. So little by little the suspicion is growing that we catch the very same mouse every night. Of course they look very much alike all of them but I would not be amazed if this clever little being is willing to sacrifice a few hours of his freedom on a regular basis in exchange for a nice fat chunk of cheese.

Sunday Stills challenge: Pets

As I have already posted some pics of the dog recently and my cat goes into hiding as soon as he spots the camera I will have to make do with some shots of my tank inmates for this challenge. Not that I consider fish to be real pets as they are not really ‘pettable’ but they are creatures I look after and enjoy watching.

november flower

Though it is already late november there are still a few brave flowers around, shivering in the heavy rain.

wintermacro’s

Last week I wrote that I had stacked my macrolens away for the winter. That resulted in some protests from Ed and Marleen and they were right. There are still lots of subjects around for that lens, especially on a sunny day like these dried blossoms and even a ladybird that had woken up form its hibernation.

Infrared

A couple of weeks ago I have been playing around with an infrared filter. I used an old Nikon D50 I had still laying around together with the old non-vr 18-55 kitlens and a cheap infrared filter from ebay. The test shots below are the only ones I ever took. Though it was quite fun you need bright sunshine for infraredphotography and in that kind of wheather I rather pursue bugs or flowers then that I shoot gloomy landscapes. But now seeing the pics again I think I may give it another try sometime.

Birds

Now that I have stacked my macrolens away for the winter I try to focus on the birds on the garden, though I am not really patient enough for that. Moreover the light is often so bad that most of the time I can’t get the shutterspeed I need. Still every now and then I manage to get a decent shot.

Sunday Stills – Fins, Feathers and Fur

The fins bit should have been relatively easy for me as we have a fish tank in the house, but it still took an awfull lot of patience as even the most boring of fish becomes a nervous swimmer the moment you point a camera at it. But I finally managed to get a few in focus:

These are our feathers. A couple of hens that have great fun together but refuse to lay eggs an a regular basis, thus endangering their own lives. I already showed them my book with chicken recipes but they were nog impressed. Insulent creatures!

Finally, as my regular visitors already know, my favourite bit of fur:

Mushrooms

I feel obliged to make at least one mushroom post each fall and as it is already the 10th of november today it is about time for this years version:

Accident

Can’t remember taking this picture. I must have pressed the shutter by accident while I was sitting in the grass trying to shoot something else. Still I kind of like it so it gets a place on my blog.