Nice pics indeed.
Here we usually bring our boats on land during winters.

The last few days here on the island have been notable for freezing fog.

At first there does not appear to be much to take pictures of

For instance, this is two cormorants taken from the sea wall.




You have to look close.

Then as I walked along the hedgerow near the estuary I notice this.



The freezing fog had deposited ice on the dead flower heads



Quite beautiful.

Then last night it was still foggy I just liked the way the only streetlight was framed by the trees.



So far I have not found a day when there is nothing to take a picture of.

last night it was still foggy I just liked the way the only streetlight was framed by the trees.

Nice and spooky.

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The mind is a weird and mysterious place

Wow! The freezing fog is spectacular!
Here everything is covered in ice, but the wind broke it off the trees.

Steve

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Warning, addicted to SETI crunching!
Crunching as a member of GPU Users Group.
GPUUG Website

So some pictures but also a little backstory.

As I may have mentioned I have volunteered to help the Red Squirrel Trust here on the island. One of the thing the volunteers do is twice yearly monitoring.

This entails walking a pre-planned route and stopping every 100m for 5 minutes and recording any observed squirrels, and where they were, type of tree etc.

So yesterday I had a training session with another volunteer who showed me "my walk" which is in the woods behind Fort Victoria near my dads.

It was very interesting but still quite foggy so I decided to walk on my own today as there were a few things I wanted to see on a clear day

He gave me a list of "stopping points" that were about 100m apart, things like "behind first house" and "junction of footpaths and refreshment sign"

However it was number 6 that caught my attention it said "Man on bench", when I pointed out that the "man" may have gone the volunteer just laughed and this is why.



There at the side of the path with no explanation a "man on a bench"!!

And just above was this.



A nesting box? seems to be lacking on holes, however I was directed to look right at the back where there was a small slot. It is a bat box, for of course roosting bats.

A little further along the land drops steeply to the beach and a way down this path was this.



Once again no explanation, just a rather scary bird, perhaps an owl.

Finally just before my last "stopping point" in this view.



Hurst castle and lighthouse across the Solent on the mainland.

Still misty but better than yesterday.

It was at this point I went to check my trusty pedometer to see how far I had walked, only to discover it was no longer clipped to my trouser pocket!!

Now whilst pedometers are not expensive I like to keep a record of the steps and miles I have walked and this one has a 7 day memory and I was due to note down the readings today!!

I remembered I had checked the reading earlier on and to do that I had to un-clip it so I probably didn't clip it back securely, so I decided to see if I could find it.

So I retraced my steps.

Here is a map of the area



I had started my walk at number 1 in the top right, walked to the sea at number 2 to take my daily pictures, turned right and walked along the sea wall to 3 where I turned inland and walked back to 1

Points 1 to 4 is my squirrel observation walk, point 4 being where I knew I had lost my pedometer, I did in fact find it. Any guesses as to where.

Well on the grass about halfway between number 2 and Verdi's, about an hour after I must have dropped it!! There are so few people about no one had been past!!

While you may wonder if a noisy human has any chance of seeing a squirrel, I did in fact see one yesterday, doesn't count however as the monitoring has to be done end of Feb beginning of March, this is the time the squirrels are most active.

So we will see.

The island planetarium is intriguing. Is it nice?

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The mind is a weird and mysterious place

As usual, Bernie, great photos. Well done.

As for Fort victoria...
We went in there and into the other exhibitions and a model railway, all at Fort Victoria last year. Most were quite interesting, the planetarium at that time was more of a video display about space and telescopes etc, but still interestingmind you they had a lot of UFO-centric and close-encounters type stuff as well, most of which I was somewhat sceptical about.

All-in -all worth a visit, but do get the full day accress ticket to enter all attractions, as the separate ones will sell you single entrances unless you ask for the combined ticket...

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Happy Crunching,

Graham

Thank you, Bernie, for continuing to post such interesting pictures.

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~Sue~

Thank you every one for the wonderful photos!

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I am glad some of you have enjoyed my pictures.

However due to personal animosity spilling across to these forums I will withdraw from posting any more pictures.

My pictures are important to me and I don't wish people to post them elsewhere unless they ask first.

Hopefully you will understand.

Hmmmm.........
The kitties don't see any mousities running around here.

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"Time is simply the mechanism that keeps everything from happening all at once."

Nice pic.
I also see an elephant like my GF has:)

I am glad some of you have enjoyed my pictures.

However due to personal animosity spilling across to these forums I will withdraw from posting any more pictures.

My pictures are important to me and I don't wish people to post them elsewhere unless they ask first.

Hopefully you will understand.

Well I for one thoroughly enjoy them. Just remind people that you hold the copyright.

Those ceramic elephants were all the rage in the UK some years ago. An importer obviously had a job lot to get rid of and they sold them by the shed load at silly money. But the novelty wore off and most have now been chucked out in the garden !!

Novelty?

Event Name : Nawam Maha Perahera 2017
Venue : Colombo
Start Date : Thursday, 09-Feb-2017
End Date : Monday, 20-Feb-2017

But please do not feed birds like magpies and pigeons.

I am glad some of you have enjoyed my pictures.

However due to personal animosity spilling across to these forums I will withdraw from posting any more pictures.

My pictures are important to me and I don't wish people to post them elsewhere unless they ask first.

Hopefully you will understand.

That's very unfortunate. I'm sorry this happened to you. I will miss your pictures very much. I hope
others will post so that we can keep the group alive. Pictures don't have to be professional quality.
They only have to be yours. The idea of the group is just to share pictures, not to see who is good
at photography and who is not.

And while I'm on that subject, for future reference:

Please keep negative opinions of anyone's photos to yourself. If someone posts something you think
is questionable, please send me a private message and let me deal with it.

To the person who reposted Bernie's photo(s), please refrain from reposting any of these photos in
the future. If I find out that you're reposting and I find out who you are, I will ban you from the
group, if that's possible.

(Is that possible?)

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~Sue~

Where's the Magnolia? Do I see it just below that tall evergreen fir tree in the back? You also appear to have some tropical sort of trees back there.

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The mind is a weird and mysterious place

Interesting seeing your garden trees shots Chris. It is very hard to tell what bird will occupy that nest, but I think its one of the larger ones, not a "LBJ", but maybe a blackbird or something of that size.
Seeing your tree in bud certainly shows what a warm winter some places have had - not even the snowdrops are poking out around here (only a hundred miles or so North of where Chris lives)



(LBJ = Little Brown Job = any small unidentified bird)

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Bob Smith
Member of Seti PIPPS (Pluto is a Planet Protest Society)
Somewhere in the (un)known Universe?

@Gordon - The Magnolia is the three trunk tree in the foreground, with the pollarded RH trunk. It's all twigs and buds at present, but when I post a pic in a few weeks, with it in full bloom you will soon recognise it!

Many moons ago, we had a Magnolia in our front yard, but I don't remember it being deciduous. It had big glossy green leaves, and huge white flowers. The branches came all the way to the ground, and it had one big massive trunk. Winter was not it's favorite season, and we eventually had it cut down to take it out of it's misery.

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The mind is a weird and mysterious place

You may have a star magnolia which is sometimes called a "Tulip Tree" which is deciduous. also those may be squirrels' nests up in your tree.

Absolutely gorgeous!

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~Sue~