Category Archives: photography

memes, natural history, personal, photography

[9/52] Forsythia


[9/52] Forsythia, originally uploaded by kcm76.

Week 9 entry for 52 weeks challenge.

The Forsythia in our hedge has been in flower for several days now, although there isn’t much of it as the hedge gets too regularly trimmed. This piece is in the hedge archway over our front gate, so will hopefully delight passers by. This is a bit early as it really shouldn’t be in flower for another couple of weeks. Our Fuji Cherry (Prunus incisa ‘Kojo-no-mai’; the picture below is not our tree) has it’s first few flowers open as well, and that is also early. So despite that the weather has turned cold again, it looks as if Spring might well be on the way. Yipee!!

medical, photography, pleasures, science

Pussy Porn


The Sleep of the Just, originally uploaded by kcm76.

Another for all you pussy fans out there …

Harry the cat sleeping the sleep of the just on my desk this afternoon, under my desk lamp – again! And who should blame him when it is throwing it down with rain outside. He was spark out; he didn’t twitch a whisker at having the camera stuck 4 inches from his nose clicking away.

As Garfield once remarked: “Eat and sleep. Eat and sleep. There must be more to life but I do hope not.”

memes, natural history, personal, photography

[7/52] Crocuses


[7/52] Crocuses, originally uploaded by kcm76.

Week 7 entry for 52 weeks challenge.

Our lawn and fruit border are full of crocuses, mostly in shades of purple. I know we’ve planted some, but they must be spreading as I’m sure (like these in the fruit border) they’re in places we wouldn’t have planted them. And they seem to be doing well despite the waterlogged clay soil of the lawn.

memes, personal, photography

[6/52] Hospital Cruise?


[6/52] Hospital Cruise?, originally uploaded by kcm76.

Week 6 entry for 52 weeks challenge.

These sails are “decoration” in the atrium waiting area at our local BMI (private) hospital (Clementine Churchill Hospital, Harrow). I’ve been meaning to photograph them for years and remembered to take my camera today! I suspect they’re a fancy way to try to provide some share for the reception desk which is underneath them and right below what is a huge “conservatory” roof. They must need some shade because it is over-heated in there at the best of times and unbearable in the summer.

memes, personal, photography

[2/28] Calendar Photo-Mosaic

Thing-a-Day Day 2.  Today I started making a photo-mosaic calendar using appropriate photos form Flickr.  I don’t intend to post this every day, although I will keep it up to date.  The intention is for it to provide a quick fallback for Thing-a-Day contribution on days when something more original is difficult (like maybe tomorrow when I’ll be at the hospital a lot of the day).

memes, personal, photography

[1/28] Stupidest Self Portrait in the History of Ever

OK, so here’s my first contribution for this year’s Thing-a-Day challenge.  Being day one I thought I should start with a photo self-portrait – actually I’ve not done a self-portrait in ages.  So I’ve made the Stupidest Self-Portrait in the History of Ever.

If this works correctly this should get posted to my Posterous, the TaD Posterous feed, my Zen Mischief weblog, my Flickr photostream and my Facebook stream.

Most of what I contribute to Thing-a-Day over the next month will be photographic, but hopefully I’ll manage a few other things as well.

medical, natural history, photography, science

Swoose


Swoose, Wool (Dorset), 24-Oct-10, originally uploaded by Dave Appleton.
Swoose? No I’d never heard the word either until today. But then I saw birder Dave Appleton’s superb image (reproduced above) and followed the link to his website where he describes a bird which is a hybrid of a swan and a goose … hence a “swoose”. In fact he is describing this bird; publishing several sets of photographs of it; and documenting its history.

Now I didn’t know either that swans could cross-breed with geese. (That’s two things I’ve learnt today!) But, although it is extremely rare, apparently swans and geese can interbreed. As Dave explains the offspring don’t usually survive to adulthood. However the bird pictured is known to have hatched in 2003 and was photographed by Dave last October, possibly having successfully bred itself.

Following the story on Dave’s website, it seems that the parentage of this bird is pretty well authenticated short of someone managing to get samples and do the DNA profiling. I hope that it is possible to get the DNA profiling done; the results would be extremely interesting to those interested in birds but also, I imagine, to academic zoologists. And it would be interesting too to see if the bird’s proposed parentage is correct. If nothing else this is an interesting puzzle and I’d like to say “thanks” to Dave for making all this information available.

Of course, there’s another rather interesting and deeper legal puzzle here. All Mute Swans (our native, resident British species) belong to the Queen and are as such protected. Geese however appear to be protected only during the closed season (February through August) and are thus treated as game birds like duck). But what is a Swoose? Is it a swan or a goose? Were these birds to become common and a pest (very unlikely, I know) I feel sure this would be a most interesting legal debate. Just don’t anyone dare go and shoot the bird in the meantime because …

Whatever the bird actually turns out to be it is a most handsome and interesting creature which deserves a lifetime of quiet observation and protection.