London Buses

It's often been said you wait ages for a London bus and then two come along together. That's how it is with this blog at the moment, but I will probably have to take a rest tomorrow!

Rose fancied a trip out to Higher Hyde Heath on Saturday to do some more work on her macro technique. It's an avenue that only opened up on our recent trip to France, but has now resulted in her commandeering my macro lens. I had a cunning plan that would enable me to also take part, but reckoned without the intervention of Parcelforce. The result was trying to wield the 100 - 400 zoom or the 300 f/2.8. This image was captured late in the day with the latter lens.

I'm happy to say that the dreaded Parcelforce finally made the delivery today, a mere four days late. I've had an apology after I Tweeted about the situation, but unsurprisingly no explanation.

Saddened to read today that some misguided individuals felt it necessary to break into the North hide at Radipole Lake and cause a lot of damage. I guess it's too much to expect that they'll be caught.

Getting Back to Normal

Unfortunately posting to the blog has had to take a back seat over the past few weeks for a variety of reasons. Aside from the trip to France and the need to catch up when we got back, there have also been family issues to deal with and putting the final touches to the 2015 safari.

Happily we now seem to be turning the corner and I managed a trip down to Lorton Meadows one evening last week. Even so, it was a far cry from last Summer when it seemed we were down there most evenings in search of that elusive barn owl shot. It was quiet again when I got there, but I soon spotted this young Kestrel perched on a power line and managed to track him for around 30 minutes or so before he got fed up with me and flew away.

Since then we have managed a macro shoot at Higher Hyde Heath, despite Parcelforce's best efforts to scupper it. The order I placed with WEX last Thursday on next day delivery has still not arrived and rather than 24 hrs, by the next delivery tomorrow it will have been 120 hrs. Currently the tracking still shows it in London, where it has been since the early hours on Saturday! All credit to WEX though as they had refunded my postage by teatime Friday.

Don't forget full details are now available for the Big 5 safari which promises to be a great opportunity to capture images at close quarters to a big variety of African animals and birds.

Big 5 Photo Safari 2015

At last we are able to announce our 2015 photographic safari to South Africa. 

The trip will commence at Hoedspruit Eastgate airport on Monday 14th September and visit three private game reserves within the area of the world famous Greater Kruger Park. In addition, there will be two nights in a boutique guest house where birding walks can be undertaken. 

Our safari group is limited to just 4 guests and at each of the lodges there will be a vehicle with an African guide exclusively for the use of our group. There will be a total of 18 game drives and the group size will ensure an outside seat is available to all photographers, with room to store extra equipment. There will be a mid-trip day where local sightseeing will be on offer as well as some processing time using Photoshop and Lightroom. The trip will end at Eastgate mid morning on Friday 25th September.

Cost will be £2500 pp based on two sharing, excluding flights.

To register an interest or for more detailed information, drop us an email from the link on this blog.

Dreamliner

This is not the sort stuff we usually take and neither of us are into aircraft spotting. But this one flew over Vic-en-Bigorre, France while we were out taking pictures of Red Kites following a combine harvester. It just looked like another passenger aircraft until a spot of research was carried out.

It turns out that this is the third of five A350 XWB (extra wide body) test aircraft that Airbus are currently evaluating. This one was on its way to Al Ain in the United Arab Emirates to carry out hot weather testing. As a rival to the Boeing 787 Dreamliner, Airbus already have orders for 742 aircraft from 38 different airlines. The first of these is due for delivery to Qatar Airways in the final quarter of this year.