Waterfowl on the canal
Just a quick one with some pics from a stroll down the Middleton stretch of the Rochdale canal, starting with a nice shot of a male Mallard snaffling some bread.
Wandering around with camera in hand
Thought I’d take advantage of the Spring sunshine which has been on show, so with batteries charged, lenses cleaned and memory cards formatted, I set off for a local beauty spot near to where I live called Tandle Hills.
First up as I walked along the approach road to my destination was this Gull imitating the sound of rain upon the grass to bring Worms to the surface for a tasty snack!
A Fox with an annoying itch
I was out on a jaunt the other day with my trusty 350d and as I came to the end of my stretch, which coincided with arriving at the main gates of a local beauty spot and its tarmac tongue, I spotted something from the corner of my eye in an isolated valley to one side of the road.
A sprinkling of vividness begins to rise
The early Spring sprouting of flowers has begun after the big freeze of early 2010: a little bit of sun warming up the soil and the bulbs have begun to dance, their petals rising skywards with vibrant splashes of colour to brighten up our days.
An incited crowd call out loud “The Kings were dead, Long live the Kings”,
as the multi-coloured Crowns rise all around and their chromatic
hues begin to sing;
A symptom of the cold…
Had a long hike to a forgotten little corner of a woodland local to my house just the other day, for hidden within its moss-draped Oak trees and bramble-rife undergrowth, lies an ancient Badgers’ sett. As I approached the hillock – which now has more then ten entrances into its warren system – I spotted something from the corner of my eye to one side; bleach white and out of place, entangled in the brown curled-and-furled Ferns, lay the skeleton of a Badger.
Obviously it had succumb to the extreme cold snap we’ve just experienced across the UK and its still and silent form was now ringed by a halo of grey fur, silhouetting the poor animal’s last lying place:
“And there the Badger lies, bones entwined,
on a knoll far away from our prying gaze;
an unchanging, alabaster guardian
for the future generations that arrive.”
Long-Tailed Tit snaps
A couple of quickly-grabbed shots of a Long-Tailed Tit as its flock passed through some bare, late-Winter trees next to me and my trusty Canon 350d.
Slip-sliding along an icy canal towpath
What with having to attend that novel thing called a job during this iced-up week, my return journey back home gave me an excuse to walk back – and I use the term “walk” in the loosest sense – along a stretch of my local canal and take some pictures. So, here are the results of my slip-sliding drudgery in the quest of getting some interesting pictures, of course with plenty of Ducks thrown in for good measure!
A sneaked walk between the snowfall
Managed to get out and about during a lull between the pretty horrendous winter weather we’ve had in the UK, particularly up my end in north Manchester and timed a photo-walk to perfection so I just had a little snowfall to contend with. Anyway, got some pictures of the “out & about”, so hope you enjoy them.
Start of a wonderful thing
Hello.
Stretch the Horizon 
