Half Term Visit to Linton Zoo

We took all of the grandchildren except Barnie to Linton Zoo today.  Linton Zoo is set up primarily as a conservation and breeding centre for endangered species, rather than an entertainment.

For photographic purposes the big cats are always attractive and the Lions obliged whilst enjoying and after lunch rest.  To lose the inevitable mesh between the camera and the cat, I opened the lens wide and focused manually on the cat, but the lions insisted on posing in front of the distant fence. The Amur Tiger was more obliging in her chosen rest spot. On the cuteness scale, the Crowned Lemur and the cotton-topped Tamarind took a lot of beating

The senior male lion sunbathing - one of his wives behind

 Up comes his son...

 A gentle reminder of wh is boss...

The Amur Tigress (endangered species) the largest remaining tiger species living in Northern China, North Korea and Russia

Autumn's coming!

I visited Brandon Woods this morning in search of Fungi.  When I arrived I saw that they are advertising guided fungus foraging tomorrow, so I set out optimistic that there would be lots to see.  Although I found some, there were nowhere near as many as I have seen in previous years, so I hope that those paying £25 each tomorrow have better luck!  However there was enough to keep me busy for a few hours and I was pleased to eventually find some fly agaric emerging under an enormous beech tree.  It is interesting to see how their white "warty" spots develop from a white skin covering the whole fungus which is split into spots as it grows.  I shall return to Brandon next week to observe changes.  I think that I should be hoping for rain?

  

And now those Fly Agarics...

 

There were lots of other signs of autumn to be seen:

 

Cricket: Wilbrahams v Linton - 11 August 2018

I caught most of the Linton Innings yesterday and here are a selection of Wilbraham bowlers and celebrations.  Congratulations to the Wilbrahams side on a great victory!  It was great to see that the South Stand was full as well as the Pavilion Stand.  Players - your efforts  are appreciated!

CCC visits the Cambridge University Sidgwick Site

A small group of us from Cambridge Camera Club spent an hour and a half exploring the architecture of the Sidgwick Site where several Cambridge University faculties and Departments are housed. We then moved on to the Backs to catch Kings in the evening light.

First, a couple of shots for my friends who love concrete!

I can't resist a closed rectangle! According to the University Map, this is the Raised Faculty Building; not a very inspiring name I thought;

I took along my fisheye lens as I no longer have a 'normal' wide angle lens.  Most of the time I have corrected the fisheye distortion, but sometimes I like the distortion.  This is "Antony Gormley Confronting History"

This is the History Faculty Building which was also taken with the fisheye lens and then I removed the distortion in post processing (though the sky is still somewhat surreal)

The Norman Foster designed Law Building is a great piece of design, though we were told that it's not so clever to work in it. Either very hot or very cold and every sound carries through the entire building!

The School of Divinity and its context behind the History Faculty

"Divinity in a Spin" - a spot of intentional camera movement for effect.  Thank you Charles for your inspiration!

Finally some classic 'Kings in the gloaming' shots.  Although its been done zillions of times and by much better photographers than me, it never fails to inspire