WHAT I DID IN THE LAST FEW DAYS!

Now you have to compare this post to the last one for what was the whole of July.

Not only was this over just a few days and in a great many different locations but I am also ... re-familiarising myself with .. DRIVING!

I have not driven for a number of years so it has been not only strange but I am in a rather big car. As I was a good driver and worked within the car industry in the past, including Land Rover, it has always been a habit of mine to take things slow with any new car I drive until I familiarise myself with it, its handling and other things.

Due to the time since I last drove I have expanded this so that it is about 6 weeks. Soo .. the further afield, ahem field, trips will come later.

A shame that this has occurred now as it is very lat in the year. Many butterflies have long since finished or at their very taty ends.

We are mere weeks away from Autumn but I even have a plan for that period and .. another blog that I have that has been .. somewhat neglected.

Due to the fact I have so many blogs on so many subjects I have to start planning .. to get the most out of any trips I make.

However to achieve this I will require my next lot of .. items that should be acquired over the next week .. if I can shake this very silly psychological issue, or block, that I seem to have developed? I have to .. well .. force myself presently. Lol.

Very bizarrely in one car park I bumped into an old friend who used to work with animals but is a Policeman these days. As I was about to figure out why my GPS had taken me to the wrong car park upon getting back to my car I heard someone shout "What are you here for?!" and I turned to answer only to see this old friend smiling back at me, with his head on upside down. Long beard and no hair if you did not pick up on that, lol.

He used to own a Land Rover and he spotted mine and we chatted about the roman history of the woods, the wildlife and of course . Land Rovers.

Here are some photos and videos of the last few days ...

Videos ..

WHAT I DID IN JULY

Well .. I have been doing .. stuff.

Argh .. it is such a pain. I have been up to several things and waiting around for some things to occur so that I could then improve on everything that I do.

Well .. that is the plan and this has already occurred.

Now then .. I was going through some photos and videos for a post, now my next post, when I realised I had already acquired a number of things from some trips that I forgot to post.

I have this memory .. issue, you see?

Anyhoo now I have to process and reduce the pictures for my blog.

These two .. posts may well be the last of this kind before they are .. improved .. somewhat .. yeeaaah that will be an understatement.

I have also developed these really silly and quite unexpected .. psychological issues due to the number of changes about to take place and the fact that it is somewhat .. overwhelming in different ways. Largely due to memory issues I think?

Anyway here are some pictures of wildlife I have managed to get in July ...

And here are some videos ..

THE LONG PAUSE

I have had a serious issue going on for seven months now.

It should have not gone on this long but it did.

There was delay after delay and I am not even sure why, with most if not all of them.

As I stated on my corruption blog .. it will mean some big changes when it occurs and will mean that I can buy a shed load of things that are for professionals, like camera equipment.

But before I could buy anything else I needed something that would help me acquire these other tools, of which there is a long list.

Of course one of the other issues I have had is that I use my mountain bike for a lot of work and .. well the weather has been dreadful for me and my health condition. My condition does not like it when it is hot and humid and it was exactly that of late.

Well .. that is until it turned to rain and last night I could heard this horrendous and loud noise and I thought 'That sounds like really, really heavy rain but that kind of rain I have not witnessed before!'

I got up and looked out my window and I think many local Indian people could be forgiven for thinking they had been teleported back to India in he middle of a monsoon!

Anyway yeah so I needed the bike and as has been the case for years now .. if it is really hot, raining or even just a wind stronger than 10mph then getting anything done wildlife wise, or anything else for that matter .. is impossible!

But ..

.. not anymore!

As I stated previously .. many tools to come! Lol!!

Now what you can expect .. now I have sorted out a very key item in my myriad of plans, is to expect a number of videos of the tools I have alluded to over the next .. month.

Then after that around the end of August a very big change will come. Though this could be sooner.

Also another .. event I was involved in has come back around and that is all around the middle of August .. but things could be divulged sooner. Or at least the 'dead giveaway' to what it is concerning may well come sooner?

THE ELUSIVE CHIFFCHAFF

Well the weather has not been great and if it is not turning or feeling cold it has been bloody too windy, often both.

Along with a health scare followed by a car accident that then seemed to aggravate another health condition that then fired off a series of .. distracting symptoms and pain things have been a little busy.

Plus and several weeks back now I placed myself on a course to start my own business and this will tie in, when over on around 4 weeks, with something else occurring.

Something else that will vastly improve both my photography and videos in everything.

So I managed to get out with my camera and  decided that absolutely everything would now be done in manual only for the next couple of weeks. To re-familiarise myself with all the manual settings as well as any new ones.

So I did not really leave the house with the intention of really doing a wildlife shoot ... except on th way back I saw an opportunity to finally film and photograph a Chiffchaff!

Yes they are commonly heard and yes they are not much to look at ... but their shyness along with the fact that they are normally always high up in the leafiest trees has presented me with a challenge that has been going on a couple of years now.

Yeeeah ... I also need to be more patient and get used to setting myself up in ideal spots and staying there.

Yeeaah there is also going to be a swathe of new equipment and not just in photography either.

I know EXACTLY what I want to buy and it involved around half a dozen to a dozen items but I am not going to name brands or models, I do normally like Nikon, as I do not want to tempt fate. I am funny like that. Long years of tempting fate for me personally has never ended well. Normally due to someone else but it has never ended well, almost never.

Chiffchaff ...

Video of Chiffchaff Singing

A TRIP TO AMWELL

Well this was a mostly wasted journey.

I ended up late due to finding out some stuff ... with something I have ... or my family have going on and ended up messaging a lot and on the phone so got out two hours later than planned.

Not that it made much difference as I was aiming to get to a dragonfly sanctuary and ... it turned out to be close until the end of the month! Damn it!!

Loads of Orange Tip Butterflies ... pictures of none!

Head some out of the ordinary bird calls, had hoped to get shots and videos of Reed Buntings and not sure if it was their calls or not.

Anyway I did get a few shots and videos while I was there ...

Shoveler Duck

Great Crested Grebe Hunting

Great Crested Grebe Diving

Great Crested Grebe catching ... RESULT! Not for the fish, mind you!

Great Crested Grebe in Spring Sunshine

Gradually going green..

 A Dunnock, there were three or four of them ...

Until I saw this picture on my PC monitor I had no idea there was a Little Egret at the lake! Flying past the Cormorants ...

A few videos ...

Cormorants

Dunnocks

Shoveler Up Ending

Poachard

Oystercatcher ..

Gulls bathing ...

Great Crested Grebe

Gadwalls ..

THE RETURN OF THE WANDERING MAN

After a somewhat lengthy hiatus ... I am back.

I can only apologise for my absence in this areas as I was more of less attacked by a couple of evil publis services throughout last year. The details of which are really for my corruption blog, are referred to in posts there and will be revealed in a few months time.

I will also state that I am almost back to full fitness, for doing these things and getting these things as I have to be able to cycle around 25 miles each time I go out.

I first lost a great deal of weight and then without realising it and as I had fought back from the brink of somewhere dark I then put a load of weight on without realising it.

I then ended up in hospital, or a couple of hospitals even, last year and then a couple of times this year, in no thanks to these evil public services in the UK. It turns out that one of said hospitals made a serious mistake in February, just gone, according to another hospital as I was taken into A&E and seen three times like bloody lightning, having loads tests and my blood pressure testing quite high.

As I pointed out to a very nice A&E Doctor there who was worried about my diastolic blood pressure being at 110, it was 121 before I left the house and I can tell you this ...

If the heart palpitations and chest pains were indeed down to my blood pressure then it has been a damned site higher than the 197/121 that I tested before leaving to go to A&E! Several times too!

Anyway ...

Not only am I back ... again but I am going to have a very good 12 months starting from today ... as I am already back out filming had to get mountain bike repaired too another fiasco. Not only am I back out filming but I also have two major things that have been going on. Well .. I mean other than the damned health issues I have two major things.

Two good things.

Both of these will mean vast increases in videos and photographs in ALL subjects, including some blogs that have been somewhat ... neglected but are close to my heart. No I am not talking about palpitations again! Lol.

There will be a vast increase in tools acquired and I cannot emphasise how vast this is.

Added to this there will be vast increases in frequency, quality and quantity and my range will vastly increases and soon enough to ranges that will surprise a lot of people.

These will take place throughout the rest of 2017 starting in about a month or so's time and continue throughout 2018 too and sky is the limit from then on in.

Although both things are inevitable, there is no one that can disappear and/or stab me in the back this time as took place a year ago.

So here are a few things I recently filmed while out ...

Some English Primroses at Forty Hall ..

An uncommon video of a Heron Preening, probably just after it ate a dozen of my mates, the frogs lol.. Hook Marsh Scrape ... if I have the name in the right order? Lol

A Young Greylag that had me stumped ... well it was very far away, lol ...

Good old Gadwalls ..

Three videos of Teal and a few others .. at Marsh Scrape Hooks

Some Shoveler Ducks.. at Hooks Scrape Marsh lol