Deer by sunlight

It is becoming increasingly difficult to get a nice sunny day in London these days. So we were very happy when one such rare day came upon a Sunday in April. We had wanted to go to Richmond Park for some time so we packed a picnic lunch and picked up Kia (our friend Savanthi's daughter) and headed out there. We went by car but the increase in number of vechicles on the road because of the sunny day and the numerous roadworks on the way, made the journey long, hot and tiring. But once we got to the park, it was a perfect day to laze around in the sunshine and watch the deer who had come out in numbers. I got to play around with my flashes with a couple of the models around :)

Model #1

Model #2

The deer we came to see

Lovely sunny day

Someone was flying a kite .... literally!

Graceful gliding

Photo Walk - UK South East POTN group

It has been awhile since our last blog entry - not due to the lack of activities but due to an excess of them. We have both been quite busy the last couple of months - Mich is very busy with a new project at work and I am keeping myself busy with my 365 photo project :) Hopefully, we should be able to get this back on track and keep updating regularly. 

There are several photography sites that I am a member of (very useful learning tools) and one of them is the POTN site. Some of the members from the South East (London and thereabouts) have a very lively, funny and interesting thread there. They regularly organise group photo walks and we were able to join them on the 19th of April to gander around Hyde Park. It was good to meet them and put faces to usernames from the forum .... and we got a few shots in as well :) 

Unfortunately, I don't follow that thread as much as I used to due to the above mentioned "busy-ness" but I do drop in from time to time for a laugh. 

Speakers corner was very funny - lots of interesting characters and lots of debate going on. 

One World .... and only he should be in it

Making a point 

This guy looked very interesting with the feather in his hair. Was dressed up like a gypsy and had a very intruiging smile.

 

Some of the nature stuff we saw

The shot of the day

Deformity in all its glory

And a non nature one :)

Horsenden 'Mountain' hunting

Another unpredictable sunny day and another ‘mountain’ to climb.

The ever dependable friend promised a Mount Everest this time. With little hope and much despair – at his promise to bring the picnic lunch - we set off to climb Mount Everest in Wembley with our ‘Las Las’ guiding us.

The man did bring some lunch as promised. It was good thing there were no rabbits around as they would have surely snatched it from us.  The thought "will pizza hut deliver here?" did occur to the wife but "how do we tell them exactly where we are?" overruled it.

The best thing was that we saw the most gorgeous woodpecker but not close enough to identify or get a good shot, which resulted in our photographer's face looking very similar to the cow dung which we had to avoid on our way up through the grazing patch.

This time it was a lovely walk among a thick growth of trees.  Oh almost forgot, the mountain ? We just assumed that it must be hidden under the trees because we never saw one.

 

The Pro  at work 

A parrot - no its not that obvious !

the hopefuls (for mountains) ...

miss gorgeous (peacock - nachis io) 

Home made humus !!.

Making mountains out of molehills

You can categorise your friends - some cheer you up, some are easy to talk to, some are ‘just there’ and some are so annoying because they make mountains out of mole hills.  

Yes there is one and we have had many trials with him. He once recommended a movie very highly - a movie you would never tell anyone you ‘bought tickets’ to watch. We have learnt the hard way that the Las recommendation = disappointment!

But as we are in dreary old London where it is a race against time to catch the mild rays of the sun, we jumped at the idea of climbing, what he called a ‘MOUNTAIN’, one early spring morning in March.

With the experience of climbing Siripada - Adams Peak   (the second highest mountain in Sri Lanka at 7341 feet above the sea-level) and a few other high climbs, we braced ourselves with lightweight sweaters, climbing shoes, lots of energy food and plenty of liquid.

Off we went to tackle our friend's ‘Mountain’ with new found energy and a positive outlook towards London, the one place on earth which seems to offer everything (including mountains) within city limits. 

In short, the "mountain" turned out to be the Northala Fields - a small man made bump in the grass, which we climbed right to the top in less than 5 minutes. The great mountain  our great friend wanted to show us remains a mystery … 

London Zoo

After a long hibernation, both of us decided to venture out on what was called a ‘relatively warm day with sunny intervals’ by our ever reliable Met department. Our destination - the London Zoo. It was a bold move as every single person we had met while in London said that it was just not the place to go to.

Our desperation to see any form of wildlife, after a period of over 6 months with not even a worm in sight, gave us the confidence to face this challenge.

As animal lovers, who have seen the worst of the worst, we must say that the zoo was not as bad as it was said to be. Here is the evidence.

No it's not a brick wall - it's a fish tank with this sea anemone

A green mamba attempting suicide?

Mr Gorgeous

Bali Starling - can you believe there are only 8 more in the wild

The shot - A blue Morpho

The cuties - White-Eyes

The sunny intervals never came and we had to spend over 2 hours standing next to the gorilla enclosure looking very much like two wet crows waiting to grab some of their food. Unfortunately Mr forgot to take any of shots of ‘us’ - the humans ...