A PHOTO A DAY HELPS ……

On 8th April 2020, during the Coronvirus crisis and lockdown, I started posting one or more of my photos each day, selected from the past at random and usually for no particular reason except that I liked them and hoped that others would also enjoy them. Then, from the fourth week, I decided to choose a theme for each week. Please scroll down below the list of themes to see all the photos I have posted this year, starting with the most recent. There is more text in the actual Posts – click on UPDATES if you want to access the originals. (To see the photos enlarged, click on one in each section and then scroll through them using the arrows on each side.)

The themes have been:

Weeks 1, 2 & 3: 8th – 25th April – Random photos
Week 4: 26th April – 2nd May – Birds of the world
Week 5: 3rd – 9th May – Landscapes (world)
Week 6: 10th – 16th May – Children of the world
Week 7: 17th-23rd May – Butterflies of UK and Europe
Week 8: 24th – 30th May – Uganda (mixed)
Week 9: 31st May-6th June – Wild flowers of UK
Week 10: 7th – 13th June – Norway
Week 11: 14th – 20th June – Reflections
Week 12: 21st -27th June – Lemurs of Madagascar
Week 13: 28th June – 4th July – Mosses and Lichens, Fungi and Ferns
Week 14: 5th – 11th July – Ruins
Week 15: 12th – 18th July – Yellow
Week 16: 19th – 25th July – Domesticated Animals
Week 17: 26th July – 1st August – Bridges
Week 18: 2nd – 8th August – Birds of Bempton Cliffs
Week 19: 9th – 15th August – Between Sunset and Sunrise
Week 20: 16th – 22nd August – Iron and Metalwork
Week 21: 23rd – 29th August – A Week in Pembrokeshire
Week 22: 30th Aug – 5th Sept – Wild Mammals in the UK
Week 23: 6th – 12th Sept – Rocks and Boulders, Stones and Pebbles
Week 24: 13th – 19th Sept – Photography day at Pitsford Water Nature Reserve
Week 25: 20th – 26th Sept – Dead Wood

Please scroll down if you want to look at a particular theme. The most recent are first.

Week 25: 20th – 26th Sept – Dead Wood

Week 23: 6th – 12th Sept 2020 – Photography day at Pitsford Water Nature Reserve

: Pitsford Reservoir, Northamptonshire

: Vapourer (Rusty Tussock) moth caterpillar. risking its life on a road

: A pair of Migrant Hawkers mating

: Common Blue Damselfly

: Common Darter

: Common Darter

: Small Copper

: Red Admiral

: Large Yellow Underwing

: Burnished Brass

: Cranefly species – aka Daddy Longlegs

: White-lipped Banded Snail

: Roesel’s Bush-Cricket (not a beetle!)

Week 24: 13th – 19th Sept 2020 – Rocks and Boulders, Stones and Pebbles

: I used softer stones to draw on other pebbles all found on a beach in Pembrokeshire.

: Brimham Rocks, North Yorkshire

: Some of my COVID Lockdown creations with pebbles

: Over the years, I have collected pebbles with holes ….

: …. and have ‘threaded’ them onto iron rods in my garden

: Ausevik, Norway

: Ausevik, Norway

: Teso, Uganda

: Teso, Uganda

Week 22: 30th Aug – 5th Sept 2020 – Wild Mammals in the UK

: Fallow Deer

: Badger

: Badger drinking from our pond

: Fox drinking from our pond

: Grey Squirrel

: Red Squirrel

: Rabbit

: Hedgehog

: Sika Deer

: Pine Marten

: Otter

: Grey Seals

Week 21: 23rd – 29th August 2020 – A Week in Pembrokeshire, Wales

We spent a week in Pembrokeshire with some of our family from 15th-22nd August so I posted photos from the holiday the following week.

: Cobweb covered with drops of mist and drizzle

: Coming down to Aber Pwll

: Aber Pwll

: View north, beyond Whitesands Bay

: Some of the many colours and patterns in the rocks

: View from Porthselau northwards and beyond Whitesands

: Porthclais harbour looking out to sea

: Porthclais harbour looking inland

: Marloes Sands

: Marloes Sands

: Marloes Sands

: Marloes Sands

: Common Blue butterfly (male)

: The family going out to body-board

: Cave in cliffs between Little Haven and Broad Haven

: Broad Haven

: I built this after several attempts at balancing pebbles

: Another of my attempts at balancing pebbles!

: Broad Haven beach on two different days ….

: Broad Haven beach with very different weather conditions from our visit two days earlier!

: Abereiddy

: Abereiddy and the Blue Lagoon

: The Coast Path between Caerfai and Porthclais

: Marloes Sands

: Marloes Sands

Week 20: 16th – 22nd August – Iron and Metalwork

This was one of my weekly themes – and the rustier, the better! “Strange”, you may say. Perhaps – but I think rusty iron relics are very photogenic and somehow evocative reminders of a bygone age. And they are so often near the sea, where the salty air makes iron rust more quickly.

: An old winch for hauling in fishing boats, Wales

: Freiburg: Commemorative manhole covers

: Münster, Germany

: Trondheim, Norway

: Trondheim

: Bergen

: An old anchor in Kristiansand, Norway

: This fence post keeps the wires tight and is >130 years old (Wales)

: Glimpse of a courtyard in Lütjenburg in Northern Germany

: A steel barge on the Neckar (Germany) carrying new cars and scrap metal

Week 19: 9th – 15th August 2020 – Between Sunset and Sunrise

No one can fail to be deeply moved and enthralled by the colours of sunsets and sunrises – as well as by the moon in between. It’s not surprising that they also have significance in spirituality and various traditions as they mark the passing of time, new beginnings and endings in such a beautiful way. The light doesn’t only transform the sky and clouds, but also the sea or landscapes around – nothing is untouched.

: I love the way the sunset colours …..

: ….. are picked up in the colours of the beach huts

: Sunset on Radipole Lake, Weymouth, UK

: Sunset in Yorkshire

: Yorkshire, UK

: Indian Bay near Kingstown, St Vincent

: Indian Bay near Kingstown, St Vincent

: Indian Bay near Kingstown, St Vincent

: Castara, Tobago

: The sun setting on the Summer Solstice as we crossed on the ferry from Norway to Denmark

: Sunset from the south coast of the Isle of Wight, UK

: Sunset from the south coast of the Isle of Wight, UK

And now for “in between” – the night time.

: The moon behind a small baobab tree in Madagascar

: 4th December 2016

: A Blue Moon (the 2nd moon to occur in a calendar month)

: The Aurora Borealis (Northern Lights) in Norway make up for the long winter nights in the polar regions.

The waxing and waning of a Supermoon I saw in Nepal in November 2016.

: 11th November

: 12th

: 14th – full supermoon

: 14th – supermoon rising behind the Himalayas taken from a plane

: 14th – the snowy Himalayas are just visible

: 16th

: 17th

: 18th

: 19th

Sunrises

: Abdim’s Storks setting out at sunrise in Murchison Falls NP, Uganda

: Sunrise at 3.00am in the Jotunheimen mountains, Norway

: The next four sunrises are all taken from our house in Winter

Week 18: 2nd – 8th August 2020 – Birds of Bempton Cliffs

: My campervan on the right with sheep in the next field.

: View south from my van – Flamborough lighthouse is just visible right of centre

: There was a strong, cold NW wind all the time ….

: …. which blew in waves over fields of barley

: View from the steep path down to Thornwick Bay

: Thornwick Bay

: Thousands of Gannets nest on the cliffs

: Gannets

: Any guesses as to what the long white line is?!

: Gannets have an almost two metre wingspan

: Carrying home some nesting material

: Coming into land on a tiny ledge …..

: ….. requires amazing skill and judgement.

: “Life is so good, with blue sky above to fly in and the blue ocean below to fish in. What more could I want?”

: “What a beautiful ball of white fluff my chick is.”

: Preening is essential for seabirds

: It’s good to be shown how to do it …..

Week 17: 26th July – 1st August 2020 – Bridges

: A footbridge over the River Swale between Keld and Muker in North Yorkshire (UK)

: In the Trough of Bowland, Lancashire, England

: Over the Monmouthshire and Brecon Canal in Wales

: England: Three Shires Head

: Bridge over another of the streams at Three Shires Head in the Peak District in the middle of England

: Peru: Old Inca rope bridge

: Norway: Footbridge

: Road bridge crossing Låtefossen on the Storelvi river

: We have driven over this bridge at Brønnøysund …..

: …. and seen it from the Hurtigruten ferry boat

: Norway

: Norway: Some of the bridges to ……

: …… Runde Island

: Belgium: Bridge over the Zwin, gateway into Bruges

: Bruges

: Bridge in a French village

: Bridge by old cotton and wool mill on the River Ure at Aysgarth, North Yorkshire

: Bridge at Avignon which doesn’t reach the other side

: England: Rail bridge over Soar and flooding

: England: Chirk Canal Aqueduct alongside rail bridge

: This aqueduct is for a very different purpose. It carries the Monmouthshire and Brecon Canal over the River Usk in Wales

: A train on the viaduct over the Marne-Rhône Canal near Strasbourg, France

: England: Unusual bridge over Leeds-Liverpool canal

: Wales: Lifting bridge over the Llangollen Canal

: Lifting bridge over the Llangollen Canal

: Another lifting bridge on the Mon: and Brec: Canal, Wales

: England: Bridge over Great Union Canal

: Madagascar

: Madagascar

: This bridge in eastern central Madagascar, built entirely of wood with no side barriers, felt quite precarious!

Suspension bridge in Norway

Week 16: 19th – 25th July 2020 – Domesticated Animals

: Madagascar: A great variety of homemade carts are used by people to carry everything imaginable.

: Madagascar

: A sledge-like implement is pulled by oxen to prepare paddy fields for planting rice, their staple food.

: This harbour is too shallow for boats to moor up, so ox carts are used to ferry people and goods out to the boats.

: Uganda: Oxen are used for ploughing

: Ox-drawn carts are very unusual in Uganda.

: After scattering millet seeds, cattle are used to trample it into the soil.

: Costa Rica: Even the yokes (hanging up) are beautifully decorated.

: Uganda: Poultry

: Turkeys

: Muscovy ducks originate in South America

: Turkeys being taken to market on the back of a bicylce

: Sometimes baskets are hung under the eaves of their round grass-thatched houses where they are safe

: A family resting together

: I have never seen chicks on the back of hens before

: These appear to be hybrid hens

: Hens often lay their eggs and sit in some unusual places around the homestead!

: Young boy in Karamoja herding cattle along the road, Uganda

: Robert milking his cow in Teso, Uganda

: Time for Robert’s calf to have a drink

: In Teso, Uganda

: Wales: By the Monmouth and Brecon Canal

: Lake District, England

: Black Forest, Germany

: In the Voges Mountains, France

: Uganda: Becky on her 20th birthday with Robert and her presents

: Adam (her brother) and Rob (now her fiancé) watching “Harriet”

: Spoiling “Harriet” with treats from home ….

: …. such as Ritz savoury biscuits!

: “Harriet” with her first kid

: The goats sleep in this shelter at night

: A more recent kid

: All the goats belong to Becky!

: More of “Harriet’s” progeny

: Another kid has delusions of grandeur!

: Uganda: Original goat was given by TESS sonsorship programme

: Another TESS goat given to a sponsored girl

: England: Me milking Heidi, my first goat

: Our family with Heidi and her first three kids in 1982

: Fleur and Maysie, my Golden Guernseys in 2002

: Fleur with her newborn kid, Bramble

: The next year, Maysie produced twins

: Adam with Bramble

: Sam, Becky and Suzie with Bramble. The grandhildren loved the goats and watched the kids being born

: Adam learning how to milk Maysie

: Becky milking Maysie

: Becky and Maysie

: Falkland Islands: I went on a sheep Gather

: England: The biggest ram I have ever seen!

: Sheep up Ashes Hollow, Long Mynd, Shropshire

: Lamb and ewe on the top of the Long Mynd, Shropshire

: Most sheep run away from people they don’t know, but these Lake Dsitrict sheep were all over us, pushing and licking us!

: England: A fine ram

: This sheep, given to one of our TESS sponsored boys in Uganda many years ago is still producing lambs.

: England: Dartmoor ponies

: England: New Forest pony

: A horse’s eye ….

: …. and a horse’s muzzle

Week 15: 12th – 18th July 2020 – YELLOW

A variety of photos this week which all show something yellow!

Hats for sale in Madagascar

Yellows in Norway

: Harstad

: Bodø in March

: The shadow is yellow because of the orange lights

: Moorings in Bodø

: Sogndalstrand village

: Old fishermen’s houses in Trondheim

From around the world, a perfect combination: yellow and butterflies.

Week 14: 5th – 11th July 2020 – RUINS

: Rhuddlan Castle, North Wales

: Byland Abbey, North Yorkshire

: Byland Abbey

We have a lovely picture in our bedroom of Rochester Castle done around 1878. It was painted by one of my ancestors, John Hornby Maw, who was a close friend of William Hunt and J.M.W. Turner. The three of them often painted together. There are very similar paintings of the interior of Maw’s living room in Hastings done by them.

We visited Rochester a couple of years ago to see if we could identify where Maw sat to make the painting and compare it with how it looks now. We found the spot, near the Cathedral, but it was tricky to photograph because of a busy road, a car park and the sun straight in front of me! But we found it fascinating to see how little had really changed with the castle itself.