Herb Riddle's photos with the keyword: Our-Garden

Too much media attention for these animals. After the recent demonstrations here in Bristol and London, these foxes decided to follow suit. They found the statue of a human in my garden and toppled it over. Good job it was not near the sea or they would have dragged it there before throwing it in. (all from my garden, yesterday - do you recognise my bird bath?) pip Enjoy.

On a very rare clear night for me, I have at last a chance to try this in my back garden. Astro photographers will recognise it with ease but for my viewers who are not initiated here is what you are seeing: This is 83 separate exposures, taken with my 11mm Tokina DX (similar to 16mm on fx or 35mm camera’s), each set at a shutter release time of 40 secs, f4.5 , iso 640, with just a gap of 5 secs between each shot. All the shots were then ‘stacked’ together using a program called StarStax. I am pointing my lens roughly towards our North star Polaris. Now because of the long exposure and gap between each shot, around 90 minutes had elapsed between the first and last shot. This then showed the movement, not really of the stars but the earth revolving on its polar axis which is lined up with Polaris hence the star here in the centre of the ‘wheel’ is Polaris and all the others have revolved around it some distance. Each white line is a blurred star’s travel over those 90 minutes and 83 exposures. A more complete unbroken series of circles can be obtained with more exposures over a longer time, ideally over three hours and 300 exposures or more. As the wind was gusting, our trees were tossing around and over the 90 minute period a bank of cloud had flown by. Normally my home, being inside the light polluted conurbation of Greater Manchester, is much too bright to capture such things but a new moon (no moon) and a new anti-pollution glass filter has made things better here. A lot of patience, a sturdy tripod and an electronic camera timer trigger helps here :) Enjoy full screen on black. Ps my last attempt at such a thing was in Cyprus just 14 months ago. (PiP)

Another look at one of our garden bird visitors. This time taking a drink from the newly waterproofed dry fountain bowl in our garden. This one I am quite sure is an adult male. Scientific name: Chloris chloris. ~ The fountain - a relic from our last house which had a fish pond with this working wedding present fountain, the centre of attraction. We had Koi and such-like as well as a visiting heron :) Enjoy full screen.

Another shot in our garden to the bird bath within our dry-fountain. In practice, we have two robins here in the garden and I believe this one has a nest within the ivy, honysuckle and clematis trellis, shared with a blackbirds nest too. Technically this is a 'European Robin' with the scientific name: Erithacus rubecula Nice full screen

Another look at our garden house sparrows (Passer domesticus) enjoying themselves sat on the rim of our bird-bath. Filled with water they can bathe or drink as they like. The old fountain is no longer connected up to a water source so I have to manually fill the reservoir every few days. See Pip over left bird for another view. Nice full screen