Winchester is a busy city with plenty going on. It is also commutable to London, so it has an urban feel to it. However, Hampshire is a county that has a lot of countryside which is farmed. Consequently, there are a lot of agricultural vehicles on the roads of the area. It is not unusual for me to be heading north in the morning on the dual carriageway and come upon a tractor. At the end of summer, as harvest was well underway, we would get lots of tractors pulling loads through the town. As I walked down to the station, I had a pair of tractors pulling full trailers come past me and, a minute later, a second pair came. This time I grabbed a shot of them. Modern tractors are so much more powerful and fast. When I was a kid, a tractor would crawl along the roads. These things are real beasts!
Tag Archives: Winchester
Let’s Try the Sun at a Different Time
After the solar eclipse was over and I had spent a couple of days reflecting on the experience, I had a thought that really should have occurred to me at any point in the last few years. A solar filter is just as handy when wanting to photograph the sun without an eclipse as with. I therefore decided to have a go at taking some sun shots. Of course, as soon as I thought of this, it got cloudy. That didn’t last too long, though, so I was able to experiment with varying exposure to get some images.
The first thing I liked was the clarity of the sunspots. They really had some definition to them. This was a nice quick win. Then I saw some texture in the other parts of the sun. Going with under and overexposure allowed me to see if this made a difference in how well things showed up. It might not be easy to see in these images but hopefully there is something you can make out.
I Guess This Eclipse Didn’t Quite Go to Plan
The partial solar eclipse was going to put our home under the path of significant sun cover. I was aware it wouldn’t be as dramatic as a total eclipse having experienced both, but I still was keen to see it. I had some ideas of shots that I wanted to take and where to take them from. I was hoping to get away from work a bit early to get home and set up for when it all started. Sadly, my plans went awry.
My afternoon meetings ran long, I got a train an hour later than planned, it left late, it got delayed for a medical emergency at an intermediate station so, but the time I got home, it was about ten minutes until maximum obscuration. All plans were scuppered so, instead, I just grabbed the longest lens and my solar filters and headed outside the house to some open ground. There were a bunch of neighbours there and this was the thing that saved it for me.
I was able to let them use my filters to see what was going on and they really appreciated it. I also just got to talk to them which was really good fun. I did take some images, though. Even these didn’t go so well. Initially I was seeing some internal reflections. I moved the filter closer to the end of the lens and that seemed to address that. However, this was partly caused by my second issue which was overexposure. Everything was washed out and, when I remembered to bring the exposure down, things got a lot better. We were already on the way out of the eclipse at this point. Having said that, a shot of a partial eclipse is a shot of a partial eclipse. It really doesn’t matter how much. Therefore, this shot is a bit meh!
Swift Fledgling
When the weather has been really hot at home, we have had windows open all over the house. I was out of the office having lunch with Nancy in the back of the house and I could hear a bird tweeting that sounded very close but didn’t really pay much attention to it. However, when I went back into my office after lunch, I saw a bird sitting on the window frame. At first, I stopped dead and called Nancy to have a look before it flew off if we startled it.
This was not a problem. The bird seemed totally uninterested in my presence. I am not a specialist on birds, but I think it was a swift and that it was recently fledged. Every once in a while, it would start tweeting which may well have been because the parents were nearby. Then it would go very quiet again. I took some photos and footage of it before returning to work. I figured it would fly off in due course.
This wasn’t the case. By the end of the workday, it was still sitting there. I did wonder at this point whether the open window meant parents couldn’t see where it was. Maybe staying there wasn’t going to be good for it and I would need to close the window at night. I decided to try moving it across the road to a fence post, so it was elevated but also visible. I got some gardening gloves to pick it up. At first, it seemed uninterested in moving but then suddenly it took off and flew across the road, over the fence and into the fields. Later in the evening, our neighbours saw it sitting on the spoke of the wheel of their vehicle. I guess it liked the warmth. However, we didn’t see it again. No idea whether it did okay or not.
Poppies in the Neighbourhood
There was a time earlier in the year when it seemed like, wherever I went, there were poppies in bloom. That included in the area around our house. There were poppies on the earth piled up by the construction crews as well as alongside the paths and roads. They are a bit tricky to photograph because, with their long stalks, they are flexible and, unless it is absolutely still, they are constantly moving. Besides that, I did manage to get a few images. I do wonder whether the red of the petals is one that digital sensors struggle with as they seem to be look more muted than they felt in person.
Wild Flowers Take Over Barton Meadows
The herd of cattle that used to be found grazing in Barton Meadows Wildlife Refuge have moved on – presumably not in a great way for them! With nothing grazing the fields, they have taken on quite a wild look. As I was walking around one morning, I was quite taken by the number of wildflowers that had become established. Wild growth is a big thing in the UK now and I really love it. Hopefully so does all of the wildlife that gets to live within it.
Very Large Moth Comes to Visit
One afternoon I headed out to the garage to sort something out on my bike. As I went to open the garage door, I saw something on the brick next to the door. It was one of the larger moths that I have come across in my life – apparently an eyed hawk-moth. It was huge compared to what we normally see. I assumed it would rapidly be scared off but, no, not only did it not seem to care about me opening and closing the garage door, but it was still there a couple of hours later when I came out. The camouflage looks really good if you are in leaves or on a tree trunk, but I don’t think brink is the perfect background for this species.
How Will I Know the Type?
The airlines have adopted the practice of writing their name on the underside of their planes. I am not sure if it was Emirates that started it but that was who I first noticed doing it and now others have followed suit. I haven’t seen the type written on the underside of the plane before, though. This bizjet flew over home on approach to Southampton. I can safely say I would have known what it was but apparently the owner wants to make sure no one is in any doubt about what type they are operating.
Cattle Scratching an Itch
It had been a while since I had last taken a walk around Barton Meadows and, with all of the things I had needed to do on a Sunday done, I didn’t want to just doze off on what was a lovely day. I thought a couple of miles around the nature reserve would be a good finish to the afternoon. I wasn’t going to go without the camera, though. There was some wildlife to be seen but most things were a bit distant. The cattle were in the field though. Some of them were up at the gate at the top of one of the fields and using it to scratch themselves. I find this very amusing for some reason so switched to video to capture them looking like they were really enjoying themselves. Not quite Baloo in Jungle Book but similar!
St Cross
Head south out of Winchester and you come to an impressive church. It is part of the hospital and alms houses of St Cross and, while it looks like a cathedral, it is just a normal church. Not only does it look good, but it is also situated in a lovely valley alongside the river. We took a walk down by St Catherine’s Hill and then crossed the valley to return up the river. This gave us both a good view across the valley then close up to the church. Here are some shots to show it off. It must be considered picturesque because it is used as the cover photo for the Ordnance Survey map of the area!











