A slightly enigmatic shot taken while clearing the Cellarium at Fountain’s Abbey after a concert.
And that’s it. Becky’s NovemberShadows are over. It’s been fun, at least for the participants, and I’ve ‘met’ new bloggers in almost every continent. Thanks, Becky, for being Queen of Squares.
For Becky’s NovemberShadows. And. Dead cheeky here. Jude’s Bench Challenge. Those first three. They look like a bench? Just … maybe?
To begin a month of Shadows for Becky’s Month of Squares, I bring you a photo from Studley Royal, where the rutting stags vie for attention with the autumn colours.
Thank Becky, for being Queen of Squares once more.
Walking through the orchard at Fountains Abbey early yesterday, I came upon this heron, not 10 feet away. He was unconcerned about me, and spent his time alert for a breakfast meal. He found three courses during the time I watched him – about 20 minutes. This video shows him enjoying just one of them.
It’s my last (and first) video of the month. My last shot of the month is also one of the heron, and is my featured photo. I was quite fed up that I only had my bargain-basement phone with me, rather than my camera. Never mind.
For Brian’s Last on the Card
… and IJK’s Bird of the Week.
Near Fountains Hall, the early Jacobean house in the grounds of Fountains Abbey, a new garden has recently been opened. The Quiet Garden. It is indeed a peaceful haven. My favourite feature is this bench, made from the wood of now-fallen trees in Studley Royal’s deer park.
And in case you’ve not seen it before, here is Fountains Hall.
For Jude’s Bench Challenge.
This wasn’t the post I intended to make. But an accident turned into an opportunity..
Yesterday morning saw me with a friend, completing our tour of duty as volunteer Roaming Rangers in the Deer Park at Studley Royal. This involves doing a low-key census of the deer, looking out for noteworthy wildlife, answering questions from the public, and occasionally asking dog-owners to put their pets on a short lead, especially now, when female deer are busy giving birth. And I took my camera. Accidentally, I left it on black and white setting. But I find I don’t mind. I’ll share some of my images with you.
The featured photo shows the first scene we saw: red deer stags all sitting resting beneath the trees. This is their languid time of year, when they eat and rest, building up their strength for the autumn rut.
And here’s a stag; a young calf; and a hind with her calf.
We’re just about to change terminology, because we’re leaving red deer behind, and joining the fallow deer. The male is a buck, the female is a doe, and the youngster a fawn.
As we spotted fallow deer ahead of us, we all but walked into the youngest of young fawns, left sleeping by its mum far too near an – admittedly little-used – path. I snatched this photo, but we hurried away, not wanting to cause distress to the little creature’s mother.
Then we had a wonderful twenty minutes or so, staring across a deep dry valley much loved by the deer because of its relative inaccessibility, and watching a young fawn gambolling through the long grass, dashing back from time to time to see its mum.
And here are two typical does: one looks ‘normal’, but the white one is too. She’s not albino, but leucistic: she has reduced pigentation in her coat: it’s a pretty common variation – as is melanistic, where the opposite is true, and over-production of melanin leads to a black coat.
But I’ll leave you with a further set of silhouettes from those utterly relaxed stags.
For Leanne’s Monochrome Madness …
… and Jo’s Monday Walk
Even though over the last few days the weather has reverted to winter chill with a vengeance, I think it’s definitely the week that Spring has Sprung. The daffodils have suddenly burst forth into golden glory. The grass is lusher. Dandelion and daisies crowd the verges. Spring announces itself in an explosion of colour, in contast to the muted browns and greys of winter with its dull skies and overabundance of mud.
So is there even any point in ‘doing’ spring in monochrome? I thought I’d find out, and chose four images where it’s not just spring flowers telling the story, because they’re complementing the buildings they grow near.
Part of my own difficulty is that I don’t enjoy tinkering with photos. What comes out of the camera either works, or it doesn’t, and then I’ll junk it. At most I’ll level the picture up, maybe lightly crop it, even – slightly – fiddle with brightness. So my translations into monochrome are crude at best. If I want monochrome – and I’m increasingly choosing it over colour – I’ll shoot in black and white. And perhaps follow up with a further version in colour. I admire those photographers who use editing tools with discretion, so what we see is the original shot – just enhanced in subtle ways. I’m less keen on dramatic editing. But in a diary that is already over-full, I guess I don’t feel like giving this particular skill the time it needs to learn to do it well.
I’ll finish with Fountains Abbey as it is now, its grounds carpeted in daffodils. Black and white as my featured photo, and – my much preferred version here – in the above-mentioned Glorious Technicolor.
For Leanne’s Monochrome Madness
This week’s Monochrome Madness theme is proposed by Aletta of nowathome: and she’s chosen Steps or Stairs. It’s an interesting idea, and one where I could have chosen the grand and elegant staircases gracing the finest palaces and country houses of the rich, titled or famous.
Instead I’ve chosen the steps trodden by ordinary folk on their daily round in Barcelona (featured photo), Newcastle and Sitges; or by monks engaged in their spiritual duties at Fountains Abbey; or by a hiker, needing to nip over a few drystone walls on her several mile journey from A to B.
Or there’s the worker helping construct la Sagrada Familia in Barcelona. It might be one of the most famous buildings in Europe, but shinning about its heights looking for footholds is just part of his 9 – 5, every working day.
And I’ll leave you with one little treat. A harpist at Jervaulx Abbey this summer, playing at the wedding of some good friends of ours. She was working, even if the rest of us weren’t.
On Friday afternoon, I was back on duty in the deer park at Studley Royal. This time as a sheep dog. Two of my colleagues were leading interested members of the public on a walk round Studley Royal at a time of day when deer tend to be more active. I was there to make sure nobody got left behind: and to enjoy this particularly lovely autumn afternoon.
Red deer are rutting. The stags are collecting themselves a harem so they can breed the next generation. They roar loudly to attract females, and to deter other males from seducing ‘their’ does. If necessary they’ll fight – noisily – with those heavy antlers. We saw harems, which included a few males who, though they had antlers, were too young and inexperienced to have a hope of breeding ths year. It’s a hard life being Top Stag.
We saw a stag chasing females on whom it had Breeding Ideas. Mainly, they lost the race, but a couple of does succumbed – briefly and reluctantly – to being impregnated. The act is so brief – no pictures. Anyway, who wants to be a voyeur?
Sika deer, originally from China, are not even thinking about the rut yet. They’re handsome creatures, with simpler antlers than the red deer. We spotted them in smallish groups, but here are a couple of stags.
Fallow deer – living on this site since the 1600s -are only just beginning to think about the rutting season. We saw two young bucks practising: heads down, their antlers clacked and clattered noisily together. No harm done. They’ve no chace of a harem this year.
But our walk was’t just about the deer. We enjoyed the trees, just now decking themselves in autumn finery. We relished the afternoon shadows, striping the fields: and enjoyed seeing long-legged versions of ouselves as we deer-stalked. And sky too, streaked with evening colours as the sun began to set.
As we finished our walk, and dusk was indeed beginning to fall, the moon was rising between the trees. A fitting finish.
A few last images. The quality isn’t great, because my camera was on Zoom on a high setting. But they record memories of a happy autumn afternoon.
For Jo’s Monday Walk
Come back on Monday to stroll with me round the deer park at Studley Royal late one glorious autumn afernoon.
For Debbie’s Six Word Saturday.
On Tuesday morning, I was quietly dreading my shift as volunteer Roaming Ranger in Studley Royal Deer Park. ‘Raining’ was an understatement. As I was driving over, the wipers sliced savagely across the windscreen, ineffectually sweeping away the rivers of rainwater cascading over the car. Signing in, we volunteers on various parts of the estate commiserated wanly with each other, and went our separate ways.
But outside, the rain had suddenly and unexpectedly decided to stop. Instead, familiar trees, now turning autumn gold and russset could just be perceived through the mist. A familiar autumn scene, especially here where we have three rivers in town to add to the general miasma of an October or November day.
Much later in the morning, as I was completing my shift in a much cheerier frame of mind, autumn’s third and best mood showed itself. Omnipresent autumn colour in the form of leaves cascaded to my feet to be eagerly shuffled and crunched through as I willingly connected with my inner child.
I offer a selection of photos to illustrate these different moods. I didn’t take my camera with me on Tuesday. The weather and the forecast were so very poor I just didn’t dare expose the poor thing to the elements. More fool me, to believe the weather forecast.
My featured photo is looking through our kitchen window on Tuesday morning. There’s more of the same on the way …
For Ann-Christine’s Lens-Artists Challenge #319: Setting a Mood
From Pyrenees to Pennines 
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