I spent today at the inaugural London Wild Bird Watch, at the London Wetlands Centre, Barnes. To start things off, I enjoyed listening to Simon King talk about the live webcams on two Peregrine Falcons in West London.
As birds were meant to be the focus for the day, here's a Goldcrest (Regulus regulus), showing clearly where its name comes from (click to zoom in):
I also wanted to try to photograph a water vole (Arvicola amphibius) - a mammal I remember seeing as a kid, but not one I've ever been able to photograph. Despite some pretty heavy rain later on in the afternoon, I managed to take a few photographs I am relatively happy with, given the conditions (click on photos to see larger).
I've just come back from a wonderful week in the Spanish island of Tenerife in the Canaries - and it's shattered any preconceptions that I had about it being full of 'Brits abroad resorts'.
We spent the majority of our time well above the cloud-line, in the UNESCO World Heritage Site of Tiede National Park. It's a stunning 'lunar landscape' of strange volcanic formations, all centred around the twin peaks of Tiede (3718m) and Vieje (3135m), the latter which we managed to hike up.
The landscape is evidently a great set for filming - a production company were making a promotional film for the (I think?) 2013 Mercedes Benz SL 63 V8 Biturbo AMG and 65 V12 Biturbo AMG - I managed to get some sneaky shots:
I'm yet to process many of my photos, but to give an idea of the variety, here is a photo of Tiede National Park:
... and another of a Short-finned Pilot Whales, taken between Tenerife and Gomera:
Canon have launched a couple of wide-angle prime lenses, with image stabilisation (up to four stops), the EF 24mm f/2.8 IS USM and the EF 28mm f/2.8 IS USM:
This morning, I got up very early to do some timelapse photography of St. Paul's Cathedral and the Millennium Bridge, on the South Bank, in London, UK. As the tide was on its way out, I was able to go down to the shoreline.
I found a compact camera, caked in mud, which had presumably been revealed by the tide going out that morning. It looked a little something like:
It's a Canon PowerShot SX230 HS, and was inside a 'Go Canada' red bag. Neither were water/mud proof, I'm afraid.
After a bit of a clean-up, I was able to open the memory card holder and load-up the photos (well done Sandisk!!), in the hope of identifying the owner. And success - it seems clear this is who it belongs to:
He also has another shot, helpfully showing him holding-up his Boarding Pass to the camera, so I also know his name: REID JANNSEN. And that he came in on an Air Canada flight from Toronto on 8th Jan. From the photos, as the last one is of him near the Millennium Bridge, I can only assume he dropped it there a couple of days ago.
I would be amazed if the camera works again (it's drying out at the moment before I try it), but would be delighted to return it, with the memory card to Reid if we can track him down!
I will e-mail Air Canada to see if they can help out, but otherwise it's over to the power of social media to try and track him down!!!
***UPDATE 1*** - Air Canada have tracked him down and e-mailed, so there's a chance for a reunion...
***UPDATE 2*** - It turns out the photos of Reid were taken by the camera owner, his Aunt. She kindly e-mailed me once Air Canada tracked her down and passed my details on. This evening, I was then able to drop the camera off at their hotel... and have just had an e-mail confirming that they've got the camera back!
