Watercolours

Water seems to revel in the chance to become a canvas, painted by the world above it: the clouds, the sky, the trees, buildings and daily life which surround it. Here’s some bird life whose watery home reflects the world beyond.

And here are ripples to baffle the eye:

and I’m not sure that this sandy scene counts as a watery shot. But it couldn’t have been achieved without the sea so recently washing over it…

Let’s finish in holiday mood, with the reflections of pleasure-seeking boats at the port in Alicante.

Beth hosts this week’s Lens-Artists Photo Challenge: On the Water.

Birds in the Water

Looking for Birds Beginning with P last week, I came upon other birds, which didn’t. What many of them did have was their being water birds. The pair in the header shot are godwits. Here are a few others:

Flamingos at Slimbridge

A heron, a juvenile herring gull, and four cormorants.

They’re for Leanne’s Monochrome Madness. And, why not? also for Beth’s Lens-Artists Photo Challenge: On the Water – more later, in colour!

Posing as Passerines

Monochrome Madness? Possibly. This week, Sarah’s calling for things beginning with P. I’ve picked birds. Birds beginning with P.

I need to confess that not one of the birds featured below is a passerine, though this order of birds accounts for about half of all bird species. Peacocks, puffins, parakeets, pigeons, pelicans, pheasants – none of them fits the bill. The raven in my featured photo is a passerine however. Though he doesn’t begin with P …

A perfectly posh peacock.
Parading puffins.
Pious parakeet.
Paddling pigeons.
Prying pelicans.
Pair of pheasants.

For Leanne’s Monochrome Madness, hosted today by Sarah of Travel with Me.

A Monday Portrait of Joey

Here’s who we found on a visit to Thorp Perrow yesterday. A mother wallaby and her frisky and curious joey. He didn’t get out of the pouch while we were there, but we knew he was skittish, because when he was nowhere to be seen, his mum’s pouch rippled energetically as he rushed around within.

Good morning joey!
This is who s/he will grow up to look like.

Monday Portrait.

This post is dedicated to Brian of Bushboy’s World, because he has wallabies frollicking around in his back garden. Lucky Brian!

Those Lucky Shots

You know the sort of day. When things just go right. When, perhaps unexpectedly, you have your camera with you just when one of the flighty, nervy Neighbourhood Squirrels is posing nicely, as ours was one day last week.

When, camera in hand, you manage to point-and-shoot at just the right moment. These images come from a long-past day in the Farne Islands when the Arctic Terns, frantic to protect their young, wheeled and dive-bombed overhead, giving chance after chance for action-packed shots even to a strictly amateur type like me. We had no idea where their nests and babies were and certainly weren’t going to go looking.

There were those red squirrels in Málaga, who managed to forget me for just long enough for me to whip my camera out …

Or that heron in Córdoba. It wasn’t so much the heron I was afraid of losing, as this collage of evening light.

Sofia, of Photographias fame wants us to showcase those moments for this week’s Lens Artists Challenge: Lucky Shot. Thanks Sofia, for helping us remember those joyful lucky seconds.