Melisseus

By Melisseus

Starting Over

Photo P1000001. The first picture with my new camera; a shameless stress test. Taken from my back door on full optical zoom (30x), 4.30pm in overcast conditions and failing light; what sunlight was getting through the cloud is coming from behind the subject. Given that this is a phone-sized sensor in a camera costing less than £400, I'm pretty pleased with this. This time next week, we expect to be staying with blipper Teshnish, looking for subjects a bit more unusual than a jackdaw

This is the top of a chimney, 100 metres away and maybe 4 stories high - it's the chimney of the Grade II listed brewery I live next door to, built-in 1901 and (the chimney itself) extensively rebuilt a few years ago on safety grounds. The brewery buildings will feature in future blips, for sure, but I have tried to avoid the most obvious local subject until now

The brewery has a 7-storey tower and uses gravity to take beer from floor to floor during the brewing process. The jackdaws love the tower, which offers roofs and parapets and window ledges at multiple heights and angles. I was slightly spooked by them when we first came here: the call that sounds almost mechanical, the bright black eye, the sense that they watch us as much as we watch them, and don't find us all that impressive. Jackdaws are intensely loyal to their mate and spend as much time as possible together: they perch together, feed together, fly together, even within larger flocks, and all this is obvious if you watch them. I've grown to love them, and see them a bit like ravens in the London tower, guarantors of the stability of the realm.

I guess the ravens are still there? Anybody?!

Comments
Sign in or get an account to comment.