Showing posts with label Chesterfield canal. Show all posts

03 June 2020

Towards the end of May

May the Twenty Third

Sparrow feeding offspring

Sparrows are by far the commonest visitors to my garden feeders. I have seen up to two dozen at a time swinging about in the bush at the gate and on the fatball containers. When I chuck seed onto the footpath the sparrow telegraph works exceptionally well and within a couple of minutes there are ten or twelve squabbling about.

May the Twenty Fourth

Starlings in a row

The second by number are starlings, a traditionally and actually quarrelsome and noisy breed who thankfully don't stay for long.

Sunday 10th of November

After the rain

Tenth of November 2019

I walked up the canal to the top pound to see what the rain had done up there.
A round trip of about nine miles

Après le déluge
Blue skies

Canal west of Worksop

Muscovy at Wood End

A tad prettier than 'our' muscovy.

Female?

(I like muscovies)

The rail bridge at Doefield Dun Lock:

Panorama of Shireoaks Woodland from Doefield Dun Lock.

(I like panoramas)

Lichen

(I like lichen)

Ivy fruit is great food for birds, especially blackbirds, when other sources have gone.

(I like ivy)

Ivy also provides a sunbathing nest for larger animals.

(I like cats)

Fungus - is it dead man's fingers?

(I like fungi)

Bramble flowers

(I like out of season flowers)

Many spotted ladybird

(I like insects)

I think that I shall never see

A poem lovely as a tree.

Feeder Lock on the Chesterfield Canal

Isn't that beautiful?

Robin at Turnerwood

(Who doesn't like robins?)

Sunlight with midges

So difficult to photograph

Never before seen the overflow so violent

Pudding Dyke leaves the canal

I have walked across here dryshod in the Summer

This is Pudding Dyke entering the canal

Normally it flows in below the level of the canal's water.

After leaving the canal, Pudding Dyke goes on to feed lakes at Lindrick Dale and join Anston Brook to form the Ryton which flows through Worksop and on to join the Idle, the Trent and ultimately the Humber estuary into the North Sea.

Woody nightshade flaunts its toxic berries in the undergrowth.

The top pound is a must see on the Chesterfield Canal

Autumn might be my favourite season.

Trees across the canal just above Cinderhill.

(I like trees - especially in Autumn)

A tree in the canalside hedgerow picked out by the sun

A kingfisher glimpsed momentarily across the canal
(I love kingfishers)

Panorama of a newly ploughed field at four o' the afternoon.
(I like panoramas)

Pondorama
(I really like panoramas)

And so home.

09 April 2020

2 to 4 Jan 2020

Second of January

Tufties on the pond.

A few years ago there were very few, if any, tufted ducks on the pond, then a few started to overwinter. Now they're outnumbering the mallards.

Lichen has for a long time been a fascination of mine. This 'blob' has moss growing in and around it - or is it growing in and around the moss. I keep reminding myself to do a little bit of reading and educate myself about lichens, fungi, and other denizens of the undergrowth but idleness takes over.

This bullfinch was between pond and canal just above Morse Lock.

I don't see 'em very often.

Third of Jan

Up above the North side of the pond someone's taken to hanging nets of peanuts and coconut halves full of birdy goodies in the willows. I've joined in. There's blue and great tits feeding most times, often together.
I subsequently found out who that was - more later.

Saturday the Fourth of Jan

A few of the zillions of blackthorn on the North of the pond are blooming early - very early - remember these pics were taken at the beginning of January.

Lichen will grow (almost) anywhere here it's on the plastic connectors of a wire fence.

I've been playing with shutter speed a bit; here's Stret Lock (above) and Deep Lock (below) bywashes in spate at fast and slow speeds

The lock gate paddles are raised and lowered using windlasses on rather splendid mechanisms mounted on the gates. At the 'upstream' end of the lock they're somewhat different.

The view from Morse Lock's bridge over to Saint Anne's Church across fields and houses.

Ivy fruits provide food for birds and small mammals throughout winter months.

Whenever there's a decent Moon I try to get a picture of it

That's a few more days done, I hope to speed up from now but it's taken me a while to get into making the pics and words look how I want 'em to. Publishing at Midnight Wed/Thur

02 October 2011

Thorpe Top Treble & Back

Walked up to Thorpe Top Treble & back.

Boats

Nb Little Mester I've seen before.
Nb Elizabeth Anne: first time I've seen it out of its mooring on Canal Road.
Nb De Nada going up to moor at Albert's Dock.
Nb (James) passing through Shireoaks top.
Nb Wineberry on Shireoaks pound.
Nb Siloam at the Lockkeeper.

Don't know if I'm gonna be able to post any pics but here goes: Computers are a pain in the parts that other pains don't reach!
Had to delete/reinstall F-Spot; the 2Tb drive works when it feels like it; Flickr packed up on the uploading after about 10 pics. GRRRRRRRR!

Gingernuts has fallen out with me: flea powder! I wouldn't mind, but he's scrattin' all the time. The one where you're supposed to drop it on the back of his neck is a no-no; he will not let you do it - and I've the scars to prove it.

well, the reinstalled F-Spot seems to be working. So I might be able to post some pics.

Little Mester leaving Haggonfields Lock

Elizabeth Anne at the Lock Keeper

Siloam at the Lock Keeper

"James" approaching Shireoaks Top lock

De Nada in Thorpe flight

Wineberry moored outside the marina

I got some pics for t'other site, which I shall be adding forthwith, …or not.

22 June 2011

Mittwoch

Mittwoch: German for Wednesday (literally: "mid-week"), replaced the former name Wodanstag ("Wodan's day") in the tenth century.
Worksop Chesterfield canal
Didn't stir yesterday, tummy still rumbling, but now am OK.

Went to town (pond & canal). Before going I looked at the weather and deliberately left my waterproof top (it rolls up into a little ball and sits in a side pocket of my backpack) at home.

Nothing doing on the pond, swans being bloody photogenic, mallards displaying new broods of young and grebes dithering about all over.
Flickr pics


Swans being photogenic

Mallard showing off new family

Grebe ditherin' about

On the canal towpath was a tiny egg


Nb Dunrushin moored behind the cricket club. (Worksop can look quite attractive from some angles.)

I probably should have said something: they'd left the side door
^{(there's probably a proper name for it but I've no idea what it might be)}
open, with a handbag just inside: not a good idea in Worksop, or many places in this benighted country.

They had the flag of Kernow flying at the stern.

Obviously, having discarded my waterproof, it was going to rain.

and boy, did it rain!
(that's tarmac)

Home,
... never wears a mac
In the pouring rain ...
Very strange.

^{Private Eye came this a.m. so I've the crossword to do, should keep me quiet for an hour.}
Apologies for the colour scheme: Playing about with CSS

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