Monday, 23 July 2012
Monday, 16 July 2012
Venus Passing The Sun 06.06.12
Venus Passing The Sun
6th June 2012
Suddenly I woke up. Sunlight was
hitting the bedroom window. I had almost forgotten. I certainly forgot to set
the alarm. I expected rain and a grey start, instead by the time I’d wiped my eyes I could just see some blue sky
peeping through fast moving low cloud. I ran down stairs, grabbed the tripod,
clipped on the camera, ran to the front door and then realized I had nothing on
! Bugger, so ran back up stairs, grabbed some cloths, back down again and
quickly shot out of the front door, still half dressed. I apologies to any birds
that may have seen my dress code ! Then above the roof tops, watching the clock
tick by, a large block of dark grey cloud made its way across the sky just in
time to block out any sign of the sun. Well, it is Great Britain and summer time after
all. The sun crept above the roof tops of Cheltenham
behind low cloud. No need for fancy filters then. I got some pictures of light
creeping around the clouds. Almost giving up any thoughts of seeing this
amazing event, then I realized I might need sunglasses if the sun did show, so
ran back in doors quickly to get some. By now it was just coming up to 5.37am
and with a sudden dazzling burst of light that lasted for what seemed like a
blink in time, I fired off several shots, more in hope than anything. Still
dazed from broken sleep and that sudden if not very short burst of sunlight, I
went back in doors to see the sun was still trying to break through the clouds
properly. I decided to go back to bed until the next wake up call, which was
for the Severn Bore’s arrival later that morning, when I would make my way over
to Maisemore Weir. When I got up, I downloaded my Sun pictures and
to my delight I actually managed to get 3 frames of Venus passing the face of
the sun. Each shot was taken at 5000th of a second, so it really was
a close call as the next frame in sequence was into cloud cover again, phew.
Andy Sharpe
Sunday, 10 June 2012
8th May 2012 An Early Lesson The Hard Way For Baby Dunnock
An Early Lesson The
Hard Way For Baby Dunnock
8th May 2012
Watching the news on TV I
suddenly caught site of a fast moving object out of the corner of my eye coming
towards the patio door. Thud, a little bird hit the floor and wriggled about,
oh no I thought, it’s dead. I jumped up and ran outside to see in fact it was
not but struggling to cling on to life. My next thought was to try and get it
off the floor and to some sort of cover for safety. The Dunnock had this
already planted in its defence system it seemed as it hopped straight towards
some ivy under a tree. I went over to see it collapsed and flopped over on its
side. I feared the worst, I quickly picked it up and tried to stroke some life
back into it, well that was my thought anyway. Come on, come on I kept saying
as if some spoken words would make a difference. It was limp, slowly but slowly
though its little eyes started to open and a look of normality started to
resume, I could feel its little heart beat was steady and it felt warm, it gave
a few kicks and its little claws started to pull against my hand, so with a
long phew I stroked it a bit more, carefully opened my hand and it took off
into the evening sky. What a result !
Photograph was taken using my
other hand, tricky but doable using an old Nikon D50 camera and Nikon 50mm 1.8D
lens
Andy Sharpe.
Thursday, 7 June 2012
London 2012 Olympic Torch Relay 23rd May Cheltenham Crowds Bath Road
London 2012 Olympic
Torch Relay Cheltenham
23rd May 2012
Many years in the making; finally the Olympic year is upon
us.
Its not about the torch!
Thousands of happy faces go a
long way in times of austerity - Cheltenham is
united. The tribal drum rhythm, thud, thud, thud, fueled the atmosphere,
whilst carnival dancers held the gaze of many. On a balmy hot sunny day,
car-less streets brought the party to Regency Cheltenham as I cycled from Bath
Road through an endless sea of people as far as Boots corner, having never seen
so many before. I stopped to take pictures of folk for that “where you were the
day the Olympic Torch came to Cheltenham back
in 2012 ”
After all that, I never got to
see the torch but my neighbour said he saw it from inside Bath Road Co Op as it
went by…..
Andy Sharpe
Monday, 21 May 2012
Blue Tits Nest Removed From Nesting Box 21.05.12
Blue Tits Nesting 07.04.12 – 20.05.12
Its early April 2012 and at last we have Blue Tits visiting the
nesting box I made and put up over a
year ago. I followed the recommendation with size specification and added a
better quality roof using Green Mineral felt, polyester backed with a 10 year
guarantee for good measure! I sighted the box not far from the kitchen window
for easy observation, consequently most pictures were taken through the double
glazing and just intended as a diary of events when passing .
It all got off to a good start I
thought, lots of coming and going with nesting material by both birds, so my
optimism was high.
During the previous winter I had
a peep in the box and could see that it was empty which was odd because the
last time I looked I had seen the makings of a really nice nest from the
previous year that did not come to a conclusion, so this was an interesting
development.
Every now and again I had a look
through the window with the camera and took some pictures, mostly on dull days
or after rain. This year we had one of the wettest April's on record. On the odd
sunny day I managed to get some shots of the 2 birds bringing food to the box,
so by now felt assured that we had young in the nest. One thing that did bother
me though, was the frequency of visits to the box, they often seemed to be very
spaced out I thought but I am no expert on these things, as long as 15 minutes
between feeds seemed odd to me anyway.
After not hearing any sound from
the box one day I did take a peep to see 6 very small mouths pointing up at me,
so thought things must be moving along but slowly. I also managed to get a 1 x
picture of the mother sitting on the nest undisturbed. Then a few days after,
visits to the box suddenly stopped. I watched patiently for about 2 hours and
saw no activity, so feared the worst. Sadly my fears were reality. I lifted the
roof on the box to see 1 x dead chick and one cold egg, a sad day.
My feeling is that maybe this
nesting pair are first timers to raising a brood or second year adults that did
not manage to find enough natural food so did not put enough effort in. Each
time I saw the adults with food in their beak it was either fat pellets from my
feeder or the odd spider. I only saw caterpillars a couple of times and maybe
this was a sign of poor food source which could be a result of the wet April
delaying things.
After the shock of finding things
had come to an end, which I was not expecting, I thought it was worth taking
some more pictures of the nest, dead chick and egg as they looked so
beautifully formed.
I have now put the box back up
and left the nest inside in the hope that maybe it will attract another
breeding pair.
Up date 04.06.12
After consulting an expert i have now removed the old nest and
cleaned out the nesting box. Re-sighted it and fingers crossed another pair
will take to it.
I have decided to
frame the nest in a clear box as its so beautifully made, I cannot bear to just
throw it away.
To be continued ……………
Friday, 18 May 2012
Rosehill Street Explosion Garden Shed Incredibly Survives 18.05.12
18th May 2012
After Structural Engineers were
called in to assess the damage. Making safe surrounding property is priority. The
demolition and clearing of the site is now under way. In passing I had a quick chat with the Chief of works who
said that people who live in the street had taken things pretty well
considering, but for those personally affected it would be the things that
could not be replaced and memories that mattered most. All other things should
be covered by insurance. 3 Properties will be replaced. Remedial work
will be carried out to reinstate surrounding properties including some damage to roofs.
Andy Sharpe
Monday, 14 May 2012
Rosehill Street Explosion P3 13.05.12
Rosehill Street Explosion 10th May 2012
13th May 2012
13th May 2012
Local residents who live in Rosehill Street Cheltenham had a lucky escape on Thursday night, when at approx
7.30pm a large explosion destroyed one house, and damaged surrounding
properties. The explosion was so powerful it blew out windows and spread debris
across the street. An 81 year old lady is now recovering from her
injuries after incredibly she managed to survive her ordeal.
A close friend of mine who lives in Battledown approx ¾ mile
away was relaxing in his lounge when he said. “Although much worse than thunder, I naively thought it was thunder.
Looked out of window and saw dark cloud, so ignored it!”
Andy Sharpe
Sunday, 13 May 2012
Friday, 11 May 2012
Friday, 13 April 2012
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