Wednesday, February 18, 2009

Park Life

I'm getting towards the end of my time here in sunny Buttonwood Bay - I leave in just over 5 weeks - so I'm taking every opportunity to get out and about in the sunshine while I can.

I feel there might not be too many similar days even at the height of the summer in Leeds !!

There is plenty to see here, although most of the photogenic activity takes place around the edge of the lake or along the canal path that leads from it.

This is a pet friendly place and given the companionship that pets bring to anyone, and especially oldies, you can imagine the number of pets we see. Dogs are by far the most popular and I think I read somewhere that there are over 300 Rovers and Pixies here. It gets very confusing when they're all out together !


This fine creature was being walked along the canal path yesterday when I was out on the golf cart. I was mainly taking some video footage (for another post) but thankfully had the Canon dSLR with me. Talk about a happy doggie and what's not to be happy about for a dog here. All the sunshine and fresh air you want and an owner who, although maybe not in the first flush of youth, will give you enough treats to get you to forget those long lost days of frisbee catching.

The canal channel leading from the lake (Lake Josephine) is always a great area for seeing wildlife as I've shown in many previous posts. Yesterday for some reason, the lake and the canal were busy with boaters out trying to catch those elusive fish.



These 'two men in a boat' fishermen were mostly puzzled as to why I was taking photos of them in the first place. When asked, I just said because they were there. I'm not sure they got the point of that and said it would've been better if they'd actually caught a fish. I agreed but I really didn't care. A boat on a stretch of water is nearly always better than no boat at all. I could always photoshop in a fish if I was that bothered !

I've posted so many photos of the birds that gather beside or ON the canal fishing boats that I'm reluctant to put up another one.....but this little fella posed so nicely that I just can't let him down. I think he was about to start the hokey cokey.


It's the little chicken legs that always make me laugh. Almost cartoon like in appearance, it's hard to believe they can support the body weight at all and I know there are much larger birds with similar gawky legs. It's clear why Disney was the master at exaggerating things so that these birds will always be imprinted on my mind as having even longer and thinner legs than they really have.

As I was leaving the area, a couple of birds put on an aerial display in a  "look what we can do and you can't"  sort of way. Bloody show offs. When one flew overhead, I took this photo and although I'm not very good with action shots of birds, I like the way it stands out from the clear blue sky and I decided not to remove the out of focus tree branches for the same reason.


I will admit to removing an annoying white lamp post which was in the photo as I was tracking the bird and didn't notice the post until it was too late. I love photoshop.

Speaking of posts, I'll get off now and edit the video footage. Or maybe I'll save that for a rainy day.

5 comments:

Daphne said...

Aaaw - - I like the Cartoon Bird best, he's great. There seem to be a lot of blue skies in these photos - - bring them back with you, will you?

Jan said...

Beutiful photographs. You certainly won't be seeing skies like that back in Leeds.

Unknown said...

Great piccies and that is one funny looking bird alright!!

rhymeswithplague said...

You take good photographs! Especially of birds and of old codgers fishing even though they don't catch any fish.

rhymeswithplague said...

Oh, and dogs.

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