C2C: Billy's Charity Challenge

       

We have conquered the coast to coast challenge, and managed to raise £500 for charity (Brinsley Animal Rescue and BornFree) Thank you to everyone who has donated!

Within the first half hour of setting off from Whitehaven, we had a puncture! However, we were carrying all the necessary equipment with us, and we had a puncture kit and a spare inner tube. Within 5 minutes we were back on the bike! This wasn't the only problem we had...

The tracks and paths which we were cycling along were well signposted, and they passed through some stunning areas such as the woodland below! After we went through the wood below, we entered the most amazing silver birch wood!

 As we were on a tandem bike and I was on the back, I had the opportunity to take photos and videos as we were cycling. I had never been to the lake district before, and I was surprised by the stunning views of the mountains and lakes. 

The photo below was taken whilst we were on a giant wooden bridge crossing the river. We spent 30 minuted crossing the meanders of this river. It was one of the most enjoyable parts of the whole trip!

We were now moving into the north pennines, and the tops of the mountains were covered in a bright pink kind of heather. Many types of heather can be found in the lake district including bell heather, crowberry and bearberry.

The signposts were almost perfect the whole way. However, it was harder to navigate on the roads. As you can see below, we had a map which helped us on the more complex areas.

We were really lucky with the weather! The only time it rained was as we were heading towards Penrith. This clouds (shown in the picture below) were heading our way, and we soon were surrounded by them. There was some magnificent rainbows though!

Until now, we hadn't had any "Killer Hills" but just as we thought this, we approached HARTSIDE SUMMIT! A 1903 feet mountain which was extremely hard to climb on a tandem. I think the only thing that kept us going was that we knew there was a cafe at the top! Eventually, after around an hour, we reached the summit, and had a flapjack and a hot chocolate.

The views from the summit!

We were now well over half way, and entering County Durham!

Here are some close up shots of the pink heather! Its amazing how such little flowers can completely transform the landscape.

109 miles down, 27 to go! 

Nearly there! We were approaching Sunderland. We passed under the stadium of light, as we cycled parallel to the River Wear.

And we arrived in Sunderland! We dipped out wheel in the North Sea, and had a well deserved sit down! 

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Species I saw along the way:

• Redstart
• Buzzard
• Hare
• Rabbit
• Deer (too far away to identify)
• Red Grouse
• Pheasant 
• Lapwing
• Kestrel
• Carrion Crow
• Swan and Canada Geese
• Common Gull
• Pigeon and Collard dove
• Goldfinch
• Sand Martin
• Swallow
• House Martin
• Starling
• Magpie
• Moorhen
• Pied Wagtail

I probably would have seen more, but I was concentrating on cycling!

Statuesque Swans!

We often see Swans and Cygnets gliding around their aquatic estates in a very graceful manner. I wanted to portray these beautiful creatures in a heavenly way and I thought the best way of doing so would be to do some photoshop editing, playing around with contrast and brightness. I took these photos at Melbourne lake today with my Grandparents whilst on a walk with my dog, Pippin.

I decided that the best way to portray the birds as "godly" was to contrast the black tones with the white tones as this would emphasise the swan. The photo above is effective as it gives the impression that the Swan is in a heavenly place as the white background could symbolise clouds. 

The photo above gives an angelic impression in a different way, by making the swan's outline crystal clear against the harsh, black background. This contrast, along with the reflection on the water and the symmetry of the wings makes a really nice photo!

There is nothing more heavenly than a blurred picture of water shimmering in the wind! The amount of different colour tones in this photo is incredible. There is turquoise, navy, blacks, greys, sky blues and even some greens in the top left of the picture.

The main defined features are the beak and the eye. The feathers blur into the white background which I really like. I also like the reflection of the blue skies and the trees in the bird's eye. I realise that this almost sounded like an English lesson with all the symbolism and stuff, but I hope you enjoyed looking at these pictures!

Rutland BirdFair 2014!

It took some seriously fast editing and typing to get this blog uploaded before I have to go to bed!

It has been an amazing day at the annual Bird Fair today at Rutland waters. I met loads of great wildlife filmmakers and presenters such as Chris Packham, Bill Oddie, Simon King and Kate Mcrae! They were all extremely friendly and encouraging about my passion about wildlife and photography. I managed to give them my details so hopefully they will see my blog (they may even be reading this post now!) Kate Mcrae (WildlifeKate) was brilliant to talk to, and she even suggested that I came to visit her patch which I'm really excited about! Some other things I did today included buying some new HandyKam equipment to improve my bird boxes for next spring, went to watch Chris Packhams lecture 'The Beautiful and the Dammed', and met some very kind, like-minded people.

Here are just a few photos from today:

This was my first time at Bird Fair, and I was extremely surprised about how many people went! It was amazing to see so many people interested in the natural world, like me.

One of the many hides around Rutland Waters!

I did some quick experiments on photoshop, using a few pictures of a grey heron which I took in the Mallard hide above.

Ringing Demo

Kate Mcrae (WildlifeKate)

Bill Oddie

Simon King

That's the end of day one! I returned to Bird Fair on the saturday and embarked on another day of purchasing, education and meeting others. I went to a lecture by Matthew Gordon (one of the producers of programs such as "Spy in the huddle" and "Earth flight." It was very interesting to learn about the remote controlled spy-cams!

At the BTO bird ringing stand, I got to release one of their newly ringed captures! It was brilliant to be able to hold such a delicate bird. You can do a course in bird ringing and get a qualification at the end allowing you to study birds up-close  and help study their populations.

Chris Packham was one of the main attractions at this Bird Fair! Here is the queue we had to wait in to listen to one of his lectures… 

It was very worthwhile though!

Bird Fair was such a great, unique experience! I will definitely be back next year!!!

An amazing discovery!

When I first made my wildlife pond, I went down to the local river and collected a few fish. I put them in my pond to see if they would survive and breed, as this would show how suitable my pond was for wildlife. Up until now I haven't used a net to pond dip, but today I tried it out. It was astonishing what I found!

All within a few swipes of the net, I collected 4 larger fish (I think they were stickleback), and 27 smaller fish which I haven't identifies yet. Has anyone got any ideas? Please email me at wildlifeonfilm@gmail.com if you know.

As I said, I'm pretty sure that they were stickleback as I looked them up on the internet and found a really interesting article by the guardian. 

The fish seemed to be living at the bottom of the pond, within the rocks and the decaying material. I was thinking about installing a webcam in a waterproof box in the pond to further investigate these little creatures...