WembleyStadium.jpg
GiantFernLeaf.jpg
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I went up Barnhill again to get a new shot of Wembley Stadium as the arch is currently being raised. It's only half way up but already it looks rather impressive, and dominates the landscape.
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WembleyStadium.jpg |
GiantFernLeaf.jpg |
| Wembley Stadium. | A huge fern leaf passed on the way back down the hill. |
Cute ickle ducklings speeding past on the Barnhill pond made it hard to get a good focus, plus more various Stockley Park and Kenton closeups.
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 TinyPurpleFlower.jpg |
 RedFlower.jpg |
 PansyCloseup.jpg |
 Fly.jpg |
 Flower.jpg |
| A train of ducklings speeding past. | 2-3mm flower. | 1cm flower. | Super closeup of the centre of a Pansy. | Fly | Flower |
 Bumblebee.jpg |
 GarlicMustard.jpg |
 TinyBeetle.jpg |
 Daisies.jpg |
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| Bumblebee feeding on a dandelion. | Garlic Mustard plants. | Tiny 1-2mm beetle. | Daisies. | Tiny 5-10mm hopper. | Hoverfly. |
 Bumblebee.jpg |
 Flowers1.jpg |
 Flowers2.jpg |
| Bumblebee and ant on bean flower. | Purple flower columns. | |
A few more closeups from Stockley Park on the 7th, including the closest I have ever got to a Ladybird. This was achieved by using manual focus, and setting the focal distance to the smallest possible distance of 5cm. To get any closer I need to use my closeup filter. So on the 11th (pictures 4 - 7) and 13th (pictures 8 - 10) that is exactly what I did.
 Ladybird.jpg |
 LargeDaisy.jpg |
 PurpleFlower.jpg |
 HollyFlowers.jpg |
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| My closest ever shot of a Ladybird. | Large 4-5cm daisy. The centre is so much more complex than the 2cm ones. | Yet another flower - also 4-5cm across. | Holly flowers. | Spider on its web. |
 InsectAndSpider.jpg |
 BlueFlower.jpg |
 LadyBird.jpg |
 Insect.jpg |
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| Insect having just been caught by a spider. | Super-closeup of a 1cm blue flower. | Another super-closeup of a ladybird. | Insect. | 1cm spider. | Signets. |
I went into Central London in the afternoon with two cousins. It had been raining all day but the rain stopped and the sun came out just as we hopped aboard the London eye. That was lucky! Then after the Eye we went for a wander along the South Bank to the Millenium Bridge before returning home again, passing the Eye again on the way out.
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| Arriving at the London Eye. | Just climbed aboard and starting to climb up the north side of the Eye. Itai is really enjoying himself. | |||||
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| Looking down from half way up. | Charing Cross station. | Waterloo station. | Buckingham Palace. | The view Northeast from the top of the wheel. |
 LondonEyePanorama.jpg |
| A panorama taken from the top of the London eye. Unfortunately I had a number of problems stitching it together as you can see, but despite this it is still a great panorama of Central London. |
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| The Foreign Office. | The Houses of Parliament and Big Ben. | The British Telecom tower. | The Wembley Stadium cranes are just barely visible. | The impressive brand new building that looks like a gurkin. |
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| A look back down at the avenue in front of the Eye. | County Hall. | Westminster bridge. | The view South. | The transmitter at Crystal Palace. | Starting to descend the South side of the Eye. |
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| St. Thomas' hospital. | Looking at Hungerford bridge through the wheel. | A boat passing under Westminster bridge. | Back on the ground, we spotted this mime artist on the South Bank. |
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| Looking West, East, South and North from the middle of the Millenium bridge. I must comment this bridge seems much more boring now they have solved the wobbling issue. :o) | |||
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| Looking East - Tower bridge behind Southwark bridge. | Itai and me on the Millenium bridge. | On the way back I took one more picture of the Eye. And boy did it come out well! The sun silhouetted the wheel just enough to make it a rather arty pic. |
I went for a wander around Barnhill before lunch and the Grand Prix. Most of the walk was out in the fields surrounding the wooded hill. But the most notable part of the walk was seeing the carpets of bluebells in the woods. The pictures don't show it, but they almost seemed to glow in the shadow of the trees.
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 Clearing1.jpg |
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| Bluebells lining a path through the woods. | A clearing lined by tall trees. Looking right then left. | More bluebells and white equivalents. | The largest patch of bluebells I have ever seen. The 1st picture is zoomed in. The 2nd picture shows the whole patch. It was like a carpet from a distance. | ||
 ViewNortheast.jpg |
 BarnhillPondPanorama.jpg |
 WembleyCranes.jpg |
 WembleyStadium.jpg |
 YellowFlowers.jpg |
| A hazy view northeast from near the top of the hill. | Panorama south to east from northeast bank. Last time I took a panorama of this lake it was half frozen. What a difference 3 months makes. | A view of the Wembley Stadium cranes from the hilltop lake. | Wembley Stadium. | Closeup of a part of a large carpet of yellow 2cm flowers. |
 TinyWhiteFlowers.jpg |
 RopeSwing.jpg |
 Bluebells4.jpg |
 Bluebells5.jpg |
 MossLog.jpg |
| Closeup of tiny (~5mm) white flowers. | Looks like some kids were here first. | More bluebells. | A closeup of the moss on the log in Bluebells5.jpg. | |
 Clearing3.jpg |
 TheWayDown.jpg |
 GreatOak.jpg |
| Another small clearing on my way down the hill. | The path leading down the hill and out of the woods. | Looking up the trunk of a huge ancient oak tree guarding one entrance to the woods. |
More images of spring.
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 Blossom1.jpg |
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 TinyFlower.jpg |
 Mushroom.jpg |
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| More spring blossom. The blossom this year is very impressive. | Tiny (2-3mm) flowers. | Small(1cm head) mushroom. | My closest shot yet of a ladybird. | Bluebells seen from underneath. | ||
Back to Stockley Park. Just managed to take a few more experimental flower pics before the camera batteries died and a thunderstorm moved in. Then later on a tiny spider posed for me around sunset.
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 RedTulip2.jpg |
 YellowTulip.jpg |
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 Whitebells.jpg |
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| Two overhead tulip shots. Plus a view of the red one from underneath thanks to the twisty flipout screen. | Bluebells also as seen from underneath. | Whitebells? | A tiny (4mm) spider on my window, seen from underneath. | |||
As the weather was gorgeous I stopped off at Horsendon Hill near Greenford on the way home just to see what was there. The results were excellent. The place was huge, with plenty of great views and miles of common land to walk around. I headed straight for the hill top, a couple of miles from where I parked the car, before returning through the woods and grass fields bordered by tall walls of blossoming bushes. These bushes also hosted lots of Peacock Butterflies fighting it out for mates, as well as some Commas and the odd Brimstone and White butterfly.
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 HillTopViewNortheast.jpg |
 Woods1.jpg |
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 Bluebells.jpg |
| In the distance you can see where I parked the car (next to the shopping centre. | The Wembley Stadium cranes | Descending through the woods down the South side of the hill. The 3rd picture looks back up the hill. As a glider pilot I note that those thermal clouds are atleast 6000 feet high! | Bluebells starting to flower in the undergrowth. | ||
 CanalsidePath.jpg |
 ViewFromBridge1.jpg |
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| The Grand Union Canal is just to my left (Southwest). | View back up the hill to the northeast from a bridge over the canal. | View of the path to the west back to the car. |
Too many flowers. But the smaller weedy flowers can be surprisingly pretty when viewed closeup.
 DandelionSeedPod.jpg |
 Dandelion.jpg |
 StingingNettles.jpg |
 TinyFlowers.jpg |
 Blossom.jpg |
 BlossomCloseup.jpg |
| Dandelion Seed Pod. | Dandelion. | These flowers look remarkably like orchids closeup. | Tiny (1-2mm) flowers. I think this plant is a touch-me-not but not sure. | Yet more blossom pictures. | |
 TinyBlueFlowers.jpg |
 Crow.jpg |
 Daisy.jpg |
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| The same type of flower as seen on 23rd April 2003 (~5mm) now seen even closer. | My best shot yet of a crow. | A standard 2cm garden daisy as you've never seen it before. The dark patch at the bottom is my shadow. | About time we got some more duck pictures. |
Found a Bee Fly sitting on the job.
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 BeeFlySide.jpg |
| A Bee Fly resting. Focus was very difficult because of the wind blowing the branch everywhere. | |
Opportunistic shot of a bird. Plus evidence of spring.
 Bird.jpg |
 Crocus.jpg |
 Catkins.jpg |
 Nettles.jpg |
 Ladybird.jpg |
 TinyFlowers.jpg |
| This bird kept wagging it's tail. Preparing for mating season perhaps? | Yellow Crocus popping up out of the grass. | More evidence of spring emerging. | A rapidly growing bed of nettles. | A ladybird exploring the nettles. | Closeup of tiny flowers (less than 1cm across). |
I went to a concert this evening. I had also got asked to take some pictures, so for the first time I tried taking pictures at a heavy metal gig. The conditions were very challenging as the camera doesn't handle the dark very well, especially with the rapidly changing stage lights. I also couldn't get anything useful below ISO 200, so the pics were a little grainy too. Despite that I had a good vantage point at the top of the stairs above the main floor, and some interesting pics emerged. Unfortunately fewer Dragonforce pics were salvageable than Heavenly pics for some reason. Read the review in the gigs section for full details. But judge the pics for yourselves:
 PreTest.jpg |
 Heavenly1.jpg |
 Heavenly2.jpg |
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| One of the test shots taken before the start. The room was packed! | The support band was called Heavenly. | Slow exposure with no flash. Turned out surprisingly psychadelic. | A dark closeup of the lead singer. | ||
 Heavenly6.jpg |
 Heavenly7.jpg |
 Dragonforce1.jpg |
 Dragonforce2.jpg |
 Dragonforce3.jpg |
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| Heavenly about to leave the stage. | Dragonforce burst on at full speed. | The beginnings of a stage invasion at the end. | ||||
At approximately 5pm on 28th a thundery cold front swept down rapidly from the arctic and dumped a couple of centimetres of snow in just an hour. It started off as heavy rain. 5 minutes later it was a howling blizzard and everything outside got plastered. However this snowstorm was not as bad or as heavy as 30th January last year. After it cleared the slush on the roads and pavements promptly froze, turning everything into an icerink. So unable to get to work on the 29th I worked from home. At lunchtime I swapped my normal walk around Stockley Park for a walk up the local hill - Barn Hill - which has a wooded area and ponds at the top.
There are more pictures in the weather gallery too, including a couple of panoramas.
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 Midnight.jpg |
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 SnowTable.jpg |
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| This is what greeted me when I left the office. The bright dots are large snowflakes reflecting the flash. | Just after midnight this 15 second exposure reveals the view northwards from my window as an eerie orange-white landscape under the streetlights. | The view out of the back door the morning after. | My car was clear, but the Cavalier wasn't! | ||
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 BarnHillApproach2.jpg |
 Woods1.jpg |
 Woods2.jpg |
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| Looking up and down the trail as I crossed from the Jubilee line to the woods. | Walking through the woods up to the top of the hill. | Looking back down the hill. I wish I had a sled! | |||||
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 Pond2.jpg |
 Pond3.jpg |
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| The half frozen pond at the top of the hill from opposite sides. | Those Wembley Stadium cranes as seen from Barn Hill. | Bird Tracks. | On my way back down the hill. | |||
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| A row of brambles. | A zoom-in on the brambles reveals hoar frost on the snow. | Crow | Magpie | |||
More Stockley Park pictures.
 Wembley.jpg |
 YellowFlowers.jpg |
| The cranes building the new Wembley Stadium, as seen from Stockley Park. | Blimey a flowering plant in January... |