5 days to the end of the world, go for a walk?

5 days to the end of the world.  That's my excuse for not buying any Christmas presents. 

"I'm sorry, but how was I to to know the Mayans were wrong.  They were right with everything else.

"Alright I can't actually think of anything that the Mayans got right, but I'm sure they did or it wouldn't be all over the papers, would it?"

Anyway, a winter afternoon trip to Market Weighton for money and fuel and a stop for a bit of a walk on the way back.  The sunset in my rear-view mirror was interesting and trading a safe place to pull off (the verges are in a terrible state and I didn't want to make them worse) with the view in the mirrors is an perhaps not the best way to navigate a car.

Found a spot (aided by 4WD), and a view back towards Londesborough.

 

 

When the sun is as bright as this there is only so much you can put in a photo before you lose everything.

 

A walk along the road with an eye over the shoulder on the sun as it moved lower...

Back towards Nunburnholme Wold...

There was not a single big bird in the sky.  The other day there were 9 Red Kites circling...

Hiding in the shadow of a tree allowed enough contrast to show the details of the road behind us.

By now some may be thinking "Why didn't you point the camera the other way?"  The answer was that the weak winter light offered so little of interest that it never even crossed my mind that I hadn't until writing this.

A face on a post at a cottage along the way...

The sun started setting quite quickly behind the trees...

It's beginning to look a lot like sunset...

By the way, if the EXIF data is available the camera clock has been let slip and is 1hr 4min fast (see previous posts - I promise to try harder).  So don't judge sunset times by that.

This is the re-growth of the site that was David Hockney's "Trees Near Warter".  It was felled to great and very public complaint just before Hockney was to paint the third of a quartet of studies.  It is now growing back quite nicely and the nations favourite smoker only needs to wait another 80-90 years to complete the set.   At 60 a day, I make that just over one and three-quarter million butts in the ash tray till it's ready to paint.

  Now BBC's Kathy Killick listen carefully, I will say this very slowly.  This is not the same place or painting as "Bigger Trees Near Warter" which is at Dalton Gates Cottage, SE895502 (the trees, not the painting, which is quite peripatetic)..  Just saying they were chopped down over and over doesn't make it true.  Incidentally, I met the owner of Dalton Gates Cottage on a walk and he told me that he was phoned at work by the BBC who asked him how he felt about the trees being cut down, and he replied that he was quite surprised because they were still there in the morning, and they still broadcast the story.

OK, rant over.

The walk back revealed the same but with the sun setting behind clouds and the ISO in the camera turned up to "Are you sure?"

I suppose that at a quick glance these pictures seem a lot the same, but I thought they each had something to offer as a flavour of a winter walk.  Click on the pictures for a click-through slide show.

To return to the end of the world stuff, there were plenty of omens in the sky...

Have you noticed that this tree is a completely different shape to the last one?  Anyone wants to offer an identification before next spring when I go back and check the leaves. (Note: the strange smoke signal cloud is in the background).

By the way, if this tree looks very like the first one in size and shape, there might be a reason...

Baa Baa etc.

Baa Baa etc. 
Part of  Yorkshire Wildlife Trust's "Flying Flock"  scrub-munching at Kiplingcotes...

Hips...

 

Haws...

 

A bit of springtime in December, or perhaps the green shoots of recovery...

 

 

It looks like a river runs through it but it is, in fact, a normally bone-dry piece of valley that extends across the road and along to South Dalton

A  bit of foreground for interest and re-sized on the "Golden Ratio"...

 

 

It should look like this - taken in May 2005 with a previous camera...

 

 

 

Meanwhile the shed got a christmas makeover...

 

 

 

 





Frosty Farberry and Pretty Puddles

A frosty morning at Farberry Garth.

Thd day had started with the big jets (I'd guess at Typhoons by the racket) flying around.   I think they were playing Noughts and Crosses...

The puddles were frozen, and I started to notice the different patterns in them.  Thinking of  the way that rock freezes in different shapes as igneous lava sets (think Staffa), this is a short collection...

 

 

Delicate lacing...

Smooth curves...

 

 

Jagged spikes...

It must be something to do with the variables, depth of puddle, rate of freezing, air flow, sunlight, adsorption of the soil (or is that absorption?), whether it has been smashed to buggery by a tractor, etc.

Birds on a wire (starlings).  One would expect that as I got closer they would be off as a flock, but in fact they left a few at a time in different directions until there were two left.  Looking side to side, it seemed that they were playing a game of "chicken" (or "sparrow" as they probably call it).  Moments after the loser left the other counted to five and shot off.

 

 

 

There appeared to be fog in the distance towards Kiplingcotes

No apologies for another woodland shot...

Finally a frozen fungus...

I've just found out this thing costs money!

I could have been a Ring Ouzel...

 

 

But instead these white bits finished up on the back of my neck.

 

Maybe when we get to the next full moon...

 

 

At this point Google deleted my uploads and demanded money.  This space is for sale...








Anyway, the floods passed us by(thankfully) but the standing water can be seen from the scarp...

Meanwhile a couple of regulars in the garden...

Must get the focus sharper when the light is better.

Beech balls, Berries and Bambi (almost)

A foggy start, and a walk on the usual beat, up Warter Road..

Beech balls...

Everybody go "groan".  Actually a curious fungus, quite unlike the birch bracket fungus.

Lots of little balls...

I think this one is trying to say "Hello"...

Just above the fog, the surveillance continues, more subtle (or perhaps a very bad picture)......

More strange fruit, this time fieldfares but it is a real challenge getting close enough to do them justice.  On the odd times you see them close up they are really striking birds, not the Hitchcock sinister shapes in the middle distance...

 Berries.  Just by the car, in a patch of replanted hedgerow, was this crop of berries.  Not the usual, they looked like Gogi? (sorry, I've eaten them but I can't spell them) berries...

And Bambi?  Sorry that was a tease, but the was evidence of his passing...

Sunday and the sun came out.

Don't know quite where this picture was taken, it's hard to tell...

It was a frosty start to the day, and the puddles were still showing it...

The colours were quite striking...

I really don't know whether this next picture (peeking over a hedge) is quite good, or really, unspeakably, awful.  Put it on full screen and look for a short while.  It is a bit like a still life (in the modern style - that is random rubbish- and a bit of landscape.  Let me know,  No, on second thoughts don't.

The leaves have almost gone...

They're still up there...

The first of two woodland shots..

Meanwhile Mrs D spotted a white pheasant, waiting for winter to give it a natural advantage

This second, similar to the first, has been carefully framed to the golden ratio, phi, which is supposed to make it irresistible to medieval maidens (or something).  I think given the widescreen, modern view, it should be a bit more letter-box.

...