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It's been a long time since I posted anything but for a good reason - honest! Work has been manic the past couple of weeks and I've been putting in more hours than normal leaving me wanting to just sit around and vegetate at the weekend. The end of this week calmed down a bit so I managed to leave on time Thursday and Friday therefore this weekend I figured I'd use my 'perkyness' to take my camera out into the local area.

I ended up walking along the 'Three Brooks Walkway' and the 'Forest of Avon Community Path' along with some other random areas that I thought looked interesting as I walked along.

While walking through the 'community forest' I heard the sound of falling water and so headed off into the undergrowth to see whether the 'waterfall' would be of a decent size to photograph. Amazingly, although not a niagra falls, it was more than a trickle over some bricks so I scrambled down the bank into the pool area of the falls. There was enough of a dry area at the bottom to enable me to safely stand without getting my feet wet so I set the triod down in the pool and set up the camera.

Mini Waterfall: A small waterfall in Bradley Brook, Bristol.

he brook is covered by the overhanging trees so the atmosphere was quite grotto-like. Added to this, the banks of the brook had a seam of greenish turquise coloured 'rock' which intrigued me enough to scrabble around to break some off and examine some of it. It turned out be quite compacted and hard but still broke apart under pressure. I thought it might be some sort of clay substance but the green threw me. I shall have to ask my brother, the geologist of the family, about it when I next see him.

Continuing through the woods you eventually come out onto a bridleway. From here you can climb a large hill and look out over the M4 (very picturesque) and on the way down the other side you find a small lake with ducks and swans. It was quite a windy day the windchill was making it quite cold but down near the lake it was more protected so it was a nice spot to hang around for a while and take some photos of the birds. They were quite co-operative, swimming quite close to the banks mostly although they were often distracted away from me by the lure of new spectators and the possibility of some thrown bread. I got what I think are some good shots which are laid out below.

Male Mallard: A male Mallard. Taken in Bradley Stoke.	Female Mallard: A female mallard. Taken in Bradley Stoke.	Coot Landing: A coot landing.
Mute Swan: A Mute Swan.	Mute Swan Head Close-up: A close-up of the head of a Mute Swan.

As the sun started to get lower in the sky I began to head back. I grabbed the picture below as I was heading back through the forest path. Although not an amazing picture, it seems to work well as a desktop wallpaper (it's now my current wallpaper) as it's interesting enough to put on the screen but bland enough that you can still clearly read all the icons on the desktop. I've uploaded a 1600px wide version but it's slightly under 1200px in height. I just let Windows stretch it to fit and it still looks OK.

Contrail at Dusk: A contrail highlighted by the setting sun against a foreground of trees.

The evening was spent eating Chinese, opening up my tripod to get the last of the water inside it dried out, copying all my photos to my computer and playing a bit more with panoramic shots with my camera.

A good day, all in all.