Sunday Morning Walk

Yellow

(Panasonic Lumix TZ10)
Here are three photos from this mornings walk with the dog. We walked along the old railway line past Birchall Playing Fields in Leek through to and along the Leek Branch of the Caldon Canal and back again. It was a cold but cloudless and pleasant morning.

Sunday Morning Football, Birchall Playing Fields

(Panasonic Lumix TZ10)

Brown -leaved Oak  by the Caldon Canal

(Panasonic Lumix TZ10)
The above photo is a vertical panorama of three photos stitched in the excellent Microsoft Image Composite Editor ("ICE") program.

Wolseley Centre and Doxey Marshes

Autumn colours at The Wolseley Centre

(Canon EOS 60D, Sigma 17-70mm @ 17mm, 1/250s @ f/5.6)
Today was a beautifully sunny autumn day so Lyn and I went birdwatching to the Staffordshire Wildlife Trust's Wolseley Centre and their Doxey Marsh reserve near Stafford. There are still magnificent autumn colours on the trees. The photo above shows the vivid orange of a Beech tree and the yellower shades of a Birch (and a few Mallards!)

Speeding male Shoveller at Doxey Marsh

(Canon EOS 60D,Canon EF-S 55-250mm @ 250mm, 1/800s @ f/8.0)

We saw a good selection of birds at Doxey Marsh including Black-headed and Herring Gulls, Lapwings, Mute Swans, Canada and Greylag Geese, Mallard, Teal, Tufted and Shoveller (above) ducks, Coot, Moorhen, Kingfishers, Goosander, Snipe, Blackbirds, Starlings and Crows along with several of the smaller songbirds. A very enjoyable day out.

Sunset over the Peak

Sunset over the Peak District Park

(Panasonic Lumix TZ10, HDR of 3 photos tone mapped in Photomatix))
After several miserable days this afternoon was pleasant but cold. This photo was taken just inside the Peak District National Park near Onecote. The Millstone is the symbol of the Park and is to be found where roads cross the boundary. One of the predominant rocks in the area is Millstone Grit which was used, as the name says, to produce millstones in the past.