Interesting – Page 9 – Neil Baldwin's blog : Warning contains walking, technology, photography, holidays.

Little Bittern and Mutant Ninja Turtle at Stockers Lake

A Little Bittern has been reported at Stockers Lake near Rickmansworth since last weekend. Reports suggest quite easy to see, so I thought I would pop down there see if I could get a view. I have never seen a Little Bittern, so I don’t know what to expect, probably a bittern looking bird but smaller than the run of the mill Minsmere type Bittern.

I got off the M25 at junction 17 and parked up down a lane called Springwell Lane where there is a car park. Birdguides had reports and I get the OS grid ref from there and printed out a map from Bing. I orientated my self using the map in the car park, helped by a couple who pointed me in the direction of a crowd of twitchers.

Little Bittern at Stockers lake near Rickmansworth.

On the way I spotted two Turtles sun bathing on a log by the edge of the water, they were close enough for the Canon 100-400mm. I took a few shots then moved on round the lake.

It was obvious where the bird was as there was about 30 people standing around the footpath getting the way of the Sunday morning joggers. It was apparently about 30m away hiding in the reeds and stinging nettles. I stood around with them and waited for a view.

After about 30 minutes we got some fleeting views as it walked behind the reeds, then about 10 minutes later it popped up about 10m down stream, we all moved and I lost my front row, and was relegated to the back, I was still able to get a look it was out in front of the reeds. It is as the name suggests a small version of a Bittern. In fact I would say a quarter to a third the size of a Minsmere Bittern. All the cameras were clicking away, then the bird was spooked and moved further up stream.

I walked down with some others and was lucky to get a spot right down on the bank of the river perhaps only 20m from the bird. I got some shots then sat down to get some even better ones, from a low angle. My Karrimat material insulating mat came in very hand as I sat there with cracking views, and got a load of shots off in good light. Eventually it flew a bit further down the river.

I called it a day at 11:49 and headed back to the car, then back home, to the hum drumb of domestic chores I trimmed the Laurel hedge in the back garden, and cut the lawn.

Cragside on a rainy day

We were not up early the weather forecast was rain so we took our time and had a cooked breakfast. We left the house just after 11:30 destination Cragside National trust property, originally owned by the Armstrong family. Armstrong seemed to have invented hydraulics, the house was the first to be fitted with electricity, and many things to do with water for example fire hydrants.

The house is also impressive built in to the steep hillside. The whole world had the same idea as us and were visiting the house, when it rained the house became even more packed. The tour of the house was full of the usual victorian paraphernalia, paintings, shell collections etc.

After the house we had a look at the engineering bits in the power house which is a bit of a trek up and down hill, we saw a Bullfinch pair on the way. The formal gardens seemed to be a work in progress or were between seasonal display.

Later in the day the sun came out and I managed a few pictures. We stopped off at the tea room the Buttery lemon cake was great accompanied by a cappuccino.

The women went to look round the shop whilst N and I went to look at the pump house and iron bridge, then see if we could join up to the NT as with the discount on offer we only needed to make one for property visit to be in pocket. We regretted not joining on the Farnes as there was an extra 10 quid on offer. We spent the refund at Lidl on the way home.

Mad dogs, field mice, cuckoos, and Bucks folk go out in the mid days sun.

Up not too early, had breakfast and watched a bit of Sunday morning TV. Helen spotted a field mouse that lives in the stone wall making dashes out to pick leaves, I failed to get a photo.

We took plenty of water when we left the house at 09:45, as it looked like another scorcher, sun block factor 30 was slapped on and Helen even wore a white sun hat. The plan was to walk the tops of the hills over to the sea at Ravenglass then get the train back to the hut.
The path the hut is on leads towards a river but we took a right to take us high over Muncaster Fell with views of both Eskdale and the River Esk valley on the other.

The climb was tough but once up top it was rolling but no shade meant it was quite tough walking. We saw lots of birds, Yellowhammers, Skylarks, and Pipits. We also heard several Cuckoos, then when we stopped for a break at some rare shade we got great views of a close by Cuckoo being harassed (or is that the other way round) by a smaller Lark/Pipit. Eventually thje smaller bird chased the Cuckoo off. Further on we saw another or the same one again in another tree.

We stopped for a break, water and fruits bars, near a cairn over looking the sea view, Sellafield could be seen, as could an Inviting looking lake. Next stop would be the lake then Muncaster Castle for lunch/ice cream. We found the castle entrance, stopped for a comfort break at the car park toilets, and then had ice cream and lemonade, at the World Owl Trust cafe, the girl there also refilled our water containers.

We opted to not pay to see the castle as it was too hot and they wanted £12! We followed the public footpath through the grounds and “accidently” got lost and ended up on a better public footpath that closely follows the river, spotted Treecreeper, Woodpecker, Heron and Merganser.

Another rest for another snack bar and liquids was taken in the last shady spot, at the edge of the woods. Then it was off for the final leg past the lighthouse, Roman bath house and fort before Ravenglass.

We got a bit lost as the footpath was not well sign posted, we were not sure if we had followed the path or not. We had a look round the Roman bath house, there was not much of it left.

We arrived in Ravenglass at about 14:40 just in time to catch the 14:50 train. We had planned to look round the seaside but it was hot and we were tired. The train is quite swift and 20 minutes later we were at Irton Road Station literally 100 yards from the hut.

We had not had any lunch so we had an early tea of my pasta sauce and garlic bread, and settle in for an evening watching telly and an early night. We had a lovely day even though it was hot and hard work.

Panorama service resumed

If you have been reading my blog you will know that I have battling with php and the javascript created by PtGui but finally I have a script that will display panorama’s that I can store on the site. See the example below example, I took it when we were away at New Year, near Snape Marsh, in Suffolk.

A productive if wet weekend at home

Luton Airport Monday 07:50 it must be EZY181 to Belfast, and just because it has become a tradition here is a blog post.

The weekend was a real wash out, but we did manage to get some stuff done round the house.

We went to the pictures on Friday to see Salmon fishing in the Yemen, which was not a cinematic great but an excellent film with a great story line, well worth watching. On the way home we went to Tesco for the ingredients for a Korma curry paste.

On Saturday I was up early and gave the kitchen a quick wipe, then once helen was up I put up two roller blinds, one at top of stairs the other in the back bedroom. Two more windows and we will be 100% blinds.

Then it was off to Wendover for me to get a haircut and Helen some shopping therapy. Luckily for the bank balance there was no queue at the barbers so Helen’s spend time was kept to a minimum. It was still lashing down with rain.

Once home I got out my laptop with the aim of finding a way to present my panorama tours on the web. The method needed to have an HTML5 option as I want it to work on ipads and iphones. I found a project on google code called Bigshot http://code.google.com/p/bigshot/ it looked promising. It used the Microsoft deepzoom format, but also came with a wrapper that allowed the directory structure to be stored in a single file with a php script to serve the images out on demand. It was interesting to see such an approach.

Tried as I might I could not get the thing to work, my javascript knowledge is just not good enough, I did however learn a lot about debugging js using chrome and firefox, so the hours were not wasted. In the end I have reverted back to using the utility that comes with ptgui http://www.ptgui.com/which produces a set of images and page with html5 and flash options, it is also gyro scope aware which means you can move around with a device and the panorama moves with you. My plan is to develop a php script to display a panorama directory based on parameters passed to it. As for Bigshot I might have to revisit it someday.

Helen made the most of the day by putting the stuff in the garage that belonged in the dining room back where it belonged, and sorting out a couple of the kitchen draws that have become draws of small stuff we can’t be bothered to put away in the right place. Later in the after noon I made the curry paste, a massive two large Bonne Maman jam jars full. I got the recipe from Jamie Olivers website but used it as a guide. So in summary despite the continuous torrential rain we got quite a lot done.

We watched a film whilst eating home made Pizza, which this time we left to rise rolled out for a more puffed up base, it was called The Ides of March staring George Clooney. We were not very impressed, the story was a bit difficult to follow and I think you needed to have an interest in American politics.

On Sunday we had booked up for dawn chorus walk at Dancersend NR, but the organiser phoned up the Saturday evening and cancelled, the reason was weather and the slight risk of falling branches, but the main thing was that we would not really be able to hear anything with the appalling weather.

I dropped Helen and Gladys off at church then continued with the panorama project. The rest of the day was spent at home relaxing, and making tea for a couple of visitors. Abida (arriving with an excellent homemade banana cake)reported that there were trees down all over the place as she tried to get to Tring station but ended up at Berkhamsted.

Later I made a vegetable korma with the paste I made the night before. I used Cauliflower and baby aubergines as a base, and included green beans and peas at the end. It turned out really well which is good because of the amount of paste I now have! I made enough for 4 portions to be frozen.

One swallow does not a summer make…unless!

No plans for this weekend, so when Neil spotted that there were several ring ouzels at Ivinghoe Beacon (thanks to Lee Evans’s excellent bird blog) off we went on Saturday morning. Headed up the path to the right of the Beacon itself, and counted 8 ring ouzels and two wheatear, which we watched for some time whilst the skylarks trilled away enthusiastically above us. We then strolled up to the top of the Beacon, then on the descent I found a rather nice piece of worked flint. Not much about in the woods so we headed back to the car and off to the H cafe for coffee.

On Sunday Neil had heard that there was a grasshopper warbler at Startops reservoir so we had to see if we could find it. No luck but we saw lots of other fellas, including our first swallow. Three squabbling common terns, a yellow and various pied wagtails, linnets, little ringed plover?,goldfinch and marvellous views of a chiff chaff.

Improbable research – The Ig Nobels London 2012

A welcome day off began with ticking off some chores. Neil had a haircut and Helen made a Herman. Neils birthday watch arrived and we booked tickets for Highclere castle for a family jaunt. Leaving a cinnamon scented house we headed towards Wendover station before realising we would miss the 12:43pm train so diverted to Amersham for the tube. We did see the main line train en route but it beat us. A very helpful LU employer helped us get tickets and then onto the Metropolitan line. An Independent and a Metro later (1hr 15) we arrived at Baker Street. We were hungry and luck would hjave it there was a Pizza Express just over the road, although despite complaining of hunger pains, a fag break was necessary. The service in Pizza Express was as usual swift and the pizzas up to the usual standard.

Suitably refreshed we headed to the Natural History museum to have a wander round a temporary exhibition about Scott, of Antarctic fame. The exhibition cost £9 and I felt that it was well done and worth the money.

We had a coupe of hours to spare so we went to the Science museum. I can always fritter away time there as there are so many interesting and ever changing exhibits. My favourite bit on this occasion was the opportunity to have my head 3D scanned then being give the opportunity to view the results on a computer. We also saw the Chilean miners rescue capsule. I will try to post a video we took of it. We finished off the visit with a quick coffee and cake before heading over to Imperial college.

We arrived a good time and hung around the entrance to the hall. The doors were advertised as opening at 17:30 but did not open until about 17:50, by that time there was quite a crowd hanging about. We had manoeuvred ourselves to the front of the queue so when the doors opened we had the pick of the seats. The show started a few minutes after 6.

The Ig Nobel presentation show London 2012

Mark Abraham the founder of the Ig Nobels started proceedings by explaining what they were all about and introduced each of the winners before handing over to 5 presenters who one by one would deliver a speech about their work in less that 5 minutes. The whole things was very enjoyable. You can get more details here http://www.improbable.com/ig/

Panoramas will now feature

I have been creating some panoramas recently, here is one. Click once to activate then you can double click to go full screen and ESC to exit full screen)

[pano file=”http://neilbaldwin.net/qtvr/Aston-Clinton-Centre.mov” preview=”http://neilbaldwin.net/qtvr/Aston-Clinton-Centre-Preview.jpg” width=”600″ height=”450″ button=”on”]

Don McCullin at the Imperial War Museum

Up early it was cold outside, -1, frost everywhere. The plan was a trip to London, not for christmas shopping, but for a cultural visit taking two photography exhibitions, and possibly the Leonardo exhibition at the National Gallery. We felt smug as Christmas shopping was all but done, if not wrapped. The roads to Berkhamsted were icy but the temperature was now a balmy +2. We nabbed the last parking space near the station, and jumped on the 0900 train to Euston.

I remembered that I had seen a photo of a Lego Christmas tree at St Pancras, so we agreed to swing by. It turned to be not as impressive as I imagined it might be. It was big, green and covered in lights and baubles tree, and 100÷ Lego. I took a few pictures while Helen resisted the lure of the champagne bar, then headed out to get the 59 back to Euston and on to the Imperial War Museum. It had started to rain.

We had booked up to see the Don McCullin exhibition the night before. Don McCullin is a famous war photographer, I am sure you will have see his work in the sunday supplements between the 60’s and 90’s. The most famous one is the close up of shell shocked soldier with the thousand yard stare. The exhibition was good with plenty of articles that McCullin had donated, including the Nikon with the AK47 bullet hole. The was an interesting interview video of McCullin and his stories of how he got into with anecdotes of war, and his subsequent shift away from war photography and into Landscape photography. We thought about lunch at IWM but decide that something on the Southbank near our next port of call might offer a better choice than the cafe.

We jumped back on the 59 bus and got off at Southbank, on Waterloo Bridge. The regular Slow Food market was on by the Haymarket, but although tempting it was too cold for al fresco eating. We even fore went buying some nice bread because we were travelling light and did not want any luggage.

Helen spotted a Pizza Express so we popped in for some fast food. It was the same one we took the took the Australians to some years, it might even have made it on to the blog, just.

Suitably replete we headed to The National Theatre to take a look at the Landscape photographer of the year exhibition, and it was brilliant, all the photos where printed and well lit, a real inspiration to any photographer. A sign of the times hardly any of the pictures were taken on film. Many used the Canon 10-22mm EFS lens that I like own and like so much. We headed out and took some pictures and video of the north bank of the Thames which was looking glorious in the winter sun.

Out final destination was the National Gallery se we jumped on the 159 over to Trafalgar Square. We asked at the desk they had tickets for 2030! Apparently people queue up at 0700 3 hours before the pace opens just to get tickets. We popped into Waterstones (waste of time) then jumped back on the 59 to Euston, where a fast train was waiting to take us back to Berkhamsted.

Some friendly French people sat in the seats near us, and after exchanging a few word in French they started asking me French grammar questions. is it Londonien or Londonienne? How should I know. We were back home by 17:00 for some left over soup from yesterday. All in all a great day out if a little cold.

The Video

Fenton or Benton who cares the mashups are great

You will all have seen the Fenton Benton video doing the rounds on all the new websites if you haven’t I have included it below. Basically ASloaneRanger was videoing the deer in Richmond park when a man calling a dog Fenton or Benton crashes through the scene chasing and calling for his dog. The best ones are the mashups just do a search for Fenton Benton on youtube to find the, I have also included a few below.

The Fenton Benton original by JAGGL113

Then the Bambi Mashup