This heron was hanging around a coot’s nest in Verulamium Park on the River Ver.

I suspect he was looking for dinner

Technical notes: Nikon D90 with Nikkor 50mm f/1.8 AF. ISO 200, 1/60 at f/4.0.

Technical notes: Nikon D90 with Nikkor 50mm f/1.8 AF. ISO 200, 1/50 at f/1.8. Model: Phoebe.  Consumables: Chicken and cheese!

Technical notes: Nikon D90 with Nikkor 50mm f/1.8 AF. ISO 200, 1/1050 at f/3.5.  Lots of fiddling with levels in Lightroom to get the Abbey visible without the sun blown out in the sky.

Street performer, Covent Garden.

Technical notes: Nikon D90 with Nikkor 50mm f/1.8 AF. ISO 200, 1/1250 at f/2.8

Broad Street, Covent Garden.  K2 phone boxes.

Technical notes: Nikon D90 with Nikkor 50mm f/1.8 AF. ISO 200, 1/2000 at f/1.8

Blackfriars National Rail station is being largely rebuilt and extended across the river for 2011; until then the Underground station is closed.  There is a lot of work going on above and below ground; this is one of the cranes involved.

It’s a mess at the moment, but 12 carriage trains will make it worthwhile, I’m sure!

Technical notes: Nikon D90 with Nikkor 50mm f/1.8 AF. ISO 200, 1/320 at f/11.0

My lovely wife has been baking again.   These delicious blueberry muffins come from this book:

Rachel’s Favourite Food at Home

Anyway, last year he arranged a worldwide photo walk to celebrate the launch of his Digital Photography Book Volume 2. This year he organised a second one, co-incidentally at the time of the launch of his The Digital Photography Book Volume 3. I signed up for the London South Bank walk, ably led by Dave Newton of EOS Network.  We started at 5:30pm at the London Eye and wandered for around two hours along to the Millennium Bridge, taking in the skate park and other photo opportunities on the South Bank.   The scheduled proceedings having finished, we repaired to the Anchor pub and commandeered a corner of their balcony – well, we got a small corner which soon became a big corner once we scared off the natives by talking of ISO, f-stops and lens choices, along with a lot of rivalry between Canon and Nikon users who only called a truce when piling in on the lone Olympus user!  After a supper of fish and chips (and mushy peas – yay!) we headed back out for the sunset and the following twilight.

A slideshow of my photos (just push play, or click through here for the full set):

And our merry band (photo courtesy of Dave Newton):

I’m not a dab hand at using the video option yet, which means there is a little blurring in the middle, but I thought you might all like to see the one I shot.  This is ‘Tiny’ washing his paws.  It’s just like our Phoebe – but forty-five times heavier.

Little Big Cats – Lions from Richard Gillin on Vimeo.

Whilst I’m at it, a video of Mum & Dad’s cat visitor from when we were down there a few weeks back.

"Thomas" from Richard Gillin on Vimeo.