Illuminating Music
Last week Knyghtryders were playing at the Chequers Inn at Ash near Canterbury.
We joined in the ’sing-a-round’ where we played Jigs, Reels and Hornpipes. This was our first ‘outing’ as a group and we received some encouraging comments.
There was a bit of a problem though. It is an old Pub and the lighting was not too good. A couple of the other players had lights on their music stands:
Music stand LED Light
What an excellent idea!
They come from here.
Should anyone be looking for something to get some-one who has ‘everything’ this is one thing that he probably hasn’t got – but would find really, really useful.
Filed under Knyghtryders | Comments (3)If it Flies . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . .I’ll photograph it!
Out in the garden yesterday with my camera and no birds showing themselves I heard and then saw this helicopter.
Helicopter flying overhead
It just goes to show how sad I am when it comes to having something to photograph – anything that moves or otherwise!!
This morning (Sunday) in a lull between the rain, hail and wind I saw our Robin in the garden.
Robin on feeder tray -1
I took this from our Patio double-glazed doors. They were not that clean! The Robin must have seen me as it perched on the edge of the feeder tray and looked in my direction.
Robin looking in my direction
It then moved to a nearby tree and took a closer look.
Robin takes closer look in my direction
I told Mae that I was going out to clean the glass. She was not impressed when I only cleaned the little area of glass I was looking through! – but why clean more?
Filed under Birds, Photography | Comment (0)The ‘Red Nose’ Sparrow
There was a lot of activity in our garden this morning. I first looked out at 8am and there were 5-6 Feral Pigeons, two Squirrels, one Jay, a Magpie, Blue Tits and our Robin all taking turns on the feeder tray or bobbing around the garden. No Camera but I enjoyed watching them.
Later on I looked out and saw a little flock of Sparrows in the trees enjoying the sun. I hastily set up my camera and waited for them to settle down after I had opened the window.
This little fellow was ideally placed to photograph:
Sparrow next to Hawthorn Berry
I think he was ‘having a laugh’ when he posed like this:
Sparrow with a 'red nose'
There were other Sparrows in amongst the branches but this one moved into the open:
Sparrow in an advantageous position to photograph
After a while the Feral Pigeons returned. I saw the Pigeon that was chased into our house by the black cat (See earlier post). I was pleased to see it looking okay:
Feral Pigeon showing signs of the injury that is now healing well
The feathers on the back of it’s neck look ruffled but there is no sign of the nasty cut the cat inflicted.
I saw another Pigeon harassing this pigeon and wanted to go over and tell it to stop but I realized it would have been a futile effort as they both would have flown away. Even so, having rescued this Pigeon, I feel I have an obligation to keep an eye on it’s welfare and I trust it appreciates that.
I am sure it looked at me in a friendly way and I like to think it was saying ‘thank you’ which I thought was nice!
Filed under Birds, Photography | Comment (0)Pfizer Wind Orchestra Concert – this Saturday
A timely reminder for the Pfizer Wind Orchestra’s Concert this Saturday 28th November 2009 at 7pm which is being held at St. Peter’s Methodist Church, St. Peters Street, Canterbury.
Car Parking in Canterbury, while being plentiful, is not close to the venue. A short walk really.
Location of Car Parks in Canterbury
Tickets can be purchased on-line at: http://www.sndwindorchestra.org.uk/?Shop or on the door.
An evening of good music is guaranteed as the venue lends itself to the rousing music we will be playing like; Beethoven’s 5th; Mars from the Holst Planet Suite; Carmina Burana; Kozhevnikov Symphony #3 (2nd and 1st movement); Hungarian Dance and many more.
I hope to see you there.
I will be easy to spot – I’m the fellow blowing his heart out on the Piccolo!!
Knyghtryders go www
Knyghtryders, the traditional folk group I play with, have now got a website:
http://www.knyghtryders.co.uk
It is ‘under construction’ at the moment but the site can be viewed by following or clicking on the above link.
We have had a photographic session for images to put on the site:
Knyghtryders Traditional Folk Group
Engagements are gradually filling up the calender. We will be playing at the Age Concern Christmas Lunch at the Guildhall, Sandwich and maybe at the Festival of Trees at St Peter’s Church.
Our first engagement of 2010 is at the Folk ‘Ale and Wassail’ Festival at the Chequers Inn, Ash on Saturday 2nd January 2010. We have a twenty minute slot at 12 noon. This should be a good day and gives the group a chance to be seen and heard by the other ‘Folkies’.
Keep an eye on the Website for more information on the Knyghtryders.
Filed under Knyghtryders | Comment (1)Fourtyfive minutes there but Seventy back!
On Saturday we went to Leeds Castle in Kent to look round the Festive Fair that was being held in a big marquee. We met Sharon and Callum and enjoyed looking round the stalls that were full of Festive items and such like.
Afterwards we had a walk round the grounds.
Leeds Castle on an Autumns Day
The trees were full of colour (those that still had leaves on them after the high winds of the last few days).
Trees in their Autumn colours in the grounds of Leeds Castle
I like Leeds Castle and now we have a ticket that lasts a year we can get into most events free so we can go as often as we want to.
It only takes 45 minutes from our house to the Castle unless you get stuck behind a queue of cars following one car doing 30 miles an hour along the country lanes with no chance of overtaking then it will take 1 hour and 10 minutes!!
Filed under Family, Photography | Comment (0)Jay in the Garden
We have our breakfast in our dining room overlooking the rear garden. We can sit and watch the (relatively) early morning activity. The Pigeons are there most days and the Blue tits can sometimes be seen flitting to the feeder and back into the safety of the trees. The black cat had not been seen.
Mae spotted it first (I think I was buttering my toast) and I was pleasantly surprised to see it myself. What was it?
A Jay
Jay in rear garden
I did leave the table to photograph this bird as it is an unusual visitor. Because they are a bit skittish and will fly off at the least noise I photographed it through the double glazed back door so I was pleased to get this photograph.
The black cat did visit as it usually does and we had a face to face ’stare-off’ before it sauntered into next door’s garden.
Just an aside. During the week I was working on the laptop when I heard an awful racket by the back door. I opened it to be greeted by a pigeon being chased by the aforementioned black cat. The pigeon literally pushed past me into the house while the black cat scarpered. I had to throw a tea towel over the pigeon to calm it down. It had suffered a cut to the back of it’s neck but appeared okay otherwise. I returned it to a safe place in the garden. Unfortunately I haven’t seen it since!
An Evening of ‘Fuzzies’
Last night was SEKAS (South East Kent Astronomy Society) observing session at Monkton Observatory.
The evening did not look too promising before I left home. I kept an eye on the weather as clouds and rain was forecast. It was a toss-up between ‘Children in Need’ on TV or a ‘Night with the Stars’. The latter were appearing in the sky so Astronomy won. And I am pleased it did! What an excellent observing session we had.
I keep an Observing Log on all my star gazing session.
I have a little ‘app’ on my ITouch and record everything on it.
ITouch and Observing Log
This ‘app’ also shows the night sky with all the Deep Sky Objects shown. I record all the DSO’s we observe and later transfer them into my paper log.
This what we saw:
1955hrs – Double Cluster in Persius
2000hrs – Plieades Cluster
2010hrs – M1 Crab Nebula (very faint but still a pleasing sight)
2015hrs – M26 Open Cluster (a nice clear view)
2020hrs – M37 Cluster
2025hrs – M38 Cluster (the shape of a cross made by the stars in this cluster could be clearly seen)
2030hrs – M31 Andomeda Spiral galaxy (always a pleasing object to observe)
2035hrs – NGC205 Galaxy
2040hrs – NGC185 Galaxy
2050hrs – M15 Globular Cluster in Pegasus – I missed observing this as cloud came over and obscured my view.
2115hrs – M57 Ring Nebula in Lyre
2130hrs – M71 Globular Cluster
2150hrs – Session ended due to excessive cloud cover (not thick cloud but the light wispy stuff – still enough to spoil the view)
A good evening’s viewing session I think you will agree.
Why do we call them ‘fuzzies’? – because they are that distant from us they look ‘fuzzy’!
I got home in time to see the second part of Children in Need. And that was also a good evenings viewing!
Filed under Astronomy | Comment (0)Early Birds
I was out in the garden early this morning (early enough for us anyway – 8.30ish!) as I had seen our Robin on the feeder tray and wanted to replenish the bird food so that he would get the best of the food. I noticed that there was a lot of bird activity in a garden but one down from us.
A little flock of birds were busy hunting amongst the bushes and trees for something to eat. As it was the most bird activity I have seen in a while breakfast was put on hold while I got my camera set up and tried to capture some images of them.
This is the best one:
Female Tree Sparrow - I think!
I think this is a female tree sparrow but I am not sure.
It was a grey, hazy morning and the light was poor and I was balancing on a low wall with the monopod supporting my Canon 350D and 600mm Mirror Lens wedged between my knees for extra stability – not that I was that stable anyway!
The flock didn’t stay long. They were in the tree that is level with our bedroom window for a short while but the look on Mae’s face when I suggested I might try my luck in the bedroom (to photograph the birds!) made me reconsider this and so I could only watch them from our dining room over breakfast.
This has gone through a bit of enhancement to bring out the colour and some cropping.
Thank goodness for photoshop!!
More Flowers From Yesterday
I took lots of photographs yesterday of flowers from the vases of flowers Mae had arranged. I showed some yesterday but here are some more:
Carnation stem
I then moved the flower closer to the camera. This where the Plamp is brilliant. In the past I would have had to move the camera and re-set everything. Now a quick adjust of the flexible arm and I am ready to go again.
Carnation close-up
Chrysanthemums provide a variety of colours and last a long time as cut flowers:
Chrysanthemum Flowers
A close-up of a Chrysanthemum
Close-up of a chrysanthemum flower
And my final flower is also a chrysanthemum but a different colour:
Yellow Chrysanthemum
I have also been experimenting with the size of the images I put in my posts. The images today are full size. Yesterday they were medium size. On a Laptop the full size images can look too big but on a Computer screen the medium size images look too small.
What do you think?
Large?
Medium?
Small?
or not at all!!!!!!