Pictures

Here are the second batch of pictures from yesterday. If you are looking at this at just the wrong moment they may look like the first batch but give me a minute or two and it will all make sense.

First we have the Eagle Owl. Yes everybody else had a more interesting camera. Still you can see his amazing ear tufts (nothing to do with ears) and his wicked looking beak. He was very much driven by food, I just wish I had been close enough to see him eating.

Then came the falcon. Sorry but I was right, I didn't get any good pictures of him in flight he was just too fast and unpredictable. I suspect with practice I might manage it, but not on my first try. Here he is still wearing his hood, and it really was the only time to get a picture. Once the hood is off he is very lively and everything is interesting. Apparently as a hand reared bird he has only ever hunted one live animal. That was actually during a show when an magpie strayed into the arena. Don't look like dinner when he is around.

After these two great fliers we got to see something land based, though still pretty quick. Apparently it is related to ostrich and emu. It runs very much like an ostrich (and maybe an emu, I've never seen those run). It can jump remarkably high but is not keen on flying. It only flies to escape danger or to roost overnight. When it finds a snake it picks it up and slams it into the ground repeatedly. She is a keen hunter and as well as the more obvious prey she likes painted toenails. Yes, they do warn ladies not to let her see painted toes, strange huh.

After the falconry display we went and played in the Yew maze. It was interesting, and I will go back when I have more time. Having got to the center we went down into the underground grotto. In the first cavern there is this amazing face. It does look a bit bland in the picture, which I think is due to it being very dark down there and having to use a flash. This is one of the images I think will end up as a quilt. Maybe not entirely in this form, but it just has so much potential and has given me a lot of ideas.


Finally at the cost I took several pictures of the surfers with kites and this one of a 'proper' windsurfer. I am quite disappointed as on the camera I thought I had go the whole board in. On the other hand I still like it in general. I like that you can see how sunny it was and the wake of his board looks great. I know that shooting into the Sun is generally considered a fault but I wanted to get silhouettes of the men. this one is almost exactly what I was looking for. I am certain I will have quilts with elements of this picture in.