JennyOwen

By JennyOwen

Steel Henge

'Steel Henge'... where else but in Sheffield.
Steel Henge (2nd extra) sits within the Centenary Riverside Park, just outside Rotherham. This former steel industry land is now a small nature reserve beside the River Don, managed by Sheffield and Rotherham Wildlife Trust.  I found out about it recently from some photography friends.
Normally we'd have Luca with us today, but Josh and Ruth have a rare day off work together, and have taken the boys to visit some friends in Manchester. So I took the opportunity of a free morning, and a gap between showers, to go and find this little nature reserve. As well as being a wildlife haven, it functions as part of a flood plain, protecting Rotherham from the River Don's expansion during very rainy periods.
What a pleasure this was. Just as I walked into the reserve, I glimpsed what I thought was a kestrel, hovering a little way off. In fact it proved to be a sparrowhawk, carrying a chick of some kind that it had evidently just caught. After a while a second sparrowhawk started to harass the first one, looking keen to grab the prey.
I wasn't ready for this, and had the shutter speed set a bit too slow. So the main 'action' images weren't sharp enough. I've edited one as a silhouette, just as a record shot. The main is from a later moment, when I'd pushed the shutter speed higher. The second extra shows the 'Steel Henge' itself, hinting at the site's history.

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