What was May 2010 like? Some rain, a lot of sunshine, but also very cold. All pictures, photos and videos, were taken within 15 minutes cycling distance from my home.

Green Frog

As you will see in this video and in the other posts in the Pictures of the Months series I am fascinated by nature.
If you want me to take pictures on other topics in my hometown Ostend, just leave a comment.

Pictures for May 2010:

• birds (what did you expect)
• flowers
• Ostend at Anchor, a maritime event
• froggery

To create this slide-show I used the following hardware and software:

Hardware:

• Canon Powershot S3 IS and the Conversion Lens Adapter LA-DC58E with the Canon Teleconverter TC-DC58B 1.5x for long distance shots and the Canon Close-up Lens 500D for close-ups.
• Canon Legria FS20
• Manfrotto tripod

Software

• iPhoto ’09
• iMovie ’09

Below you will find two videos: the first one is with English subtitles and the second with Dutch subtitles.

May 2010 in Pictures (English)

Mei 2010 in Beeld (Nederlands)

What do you think? Is 4-5 topics per slide-show enough or too much? I intend to keep the duration of the slide-shows below 5 minutes, or is this already too long? Do you have any suggestions for other topics? Leave a comment.

In my previous post I wrote that this series needed a change. Well, the concept is still the same, pictures I have taken during the past month, but I have created a different interface. I have organized the photos on topic and made a slide show with the movie editing software iMovie ’09 and posted it on YouTube. Previous slide shows were uploaded to Flickr and displayed with the Flash-plugin Pictobrowser.

Northern Lapwing

April 2010 is the first month of 2010 that my condition, I have the chronic illness ME/CFS, has slightly improved. I am no longer bound to my neighborhood, but the outskirts of my hometown are still out of reach for me. Still, any progress is still better than no progress at all.

Pictures of April 2010:

• birds (what did you expect)
• village of Leffinge (Middelkerke), where I spend 4 days housesitting
• village of Stene (Oostende), renowned for its many restaurants and cafes, the small, picturesque church and less renowned for its bat sanctuaries
• the Himmunitas Foundation, a ME/CFS clinic near Brussels

All photos were taken with my Canon Powershot S3 IS. For the long distance shots I used the Canon Teleconverter TC-DC58B 1.5x with the Conversion Lens Adapter LA-DC58E.

The video was made using iMovie ’09 and is the first video I ever created and posted on YouTube.

Below you will find two videos: the first one is with English subtitles and the second with Dutch subtitles.

April 2010 in Pictures (English)

April 2010 in Beeld (Nederlands)

As this is my first video ever, let me know what you think of it. Did you get enough time to see the individual photos and read the texts?

This just won’t do. The intention for this series was to show how I expand my horizons; from being city-bound by a debilitating disease to slowly being able to visit neighboring cities, towns and nature reserves on my own. Alas, subsequent infections in March left me nearly neighborhood-bound.

Hedge Accentor

I intend to continue this series for at least the remainder of 2010, but maybe I should change the formula. Instead of just taking some photos of landscapes and birds, maybe I should try to look at Ostend from a tourist’s point of view, of someone who has never seen Ostend before. Maybe I should include some movies instead of just a slide show with photos.
Let’s see what April brings. But for now back to March.

In my previous article February 2010 in Pictures I complained that there was still no sign of Spring. Well, the Black-Tailed Godwits have arrived, 3 weeks late, and birds have started singing, so I guess Spring has finally arrived.

The photos taken in March will bring you some more birds and pictures from the motorway into and out of Ostend. The motorway was very quiet as it was already close to 4.30 pm. Could this be an indicator for the state of the economy in Ostend?
The last photo is from roadworks near my home. They have been at it for a year now and it’s about time they start wrapping it up. It will be an improvement for cyclists.

I must confess that I have been outside of Ostend in March; my father drove me to Neder-Over Heembeek near Brussels to a clinic for tests. On all occasions I forgot to take my camera with me. In April I will go house-sitting in a neighboring town for 4 days and I will try not to forget my camera.

All photos were taken with my Canon Powershot S3 IS. For the long distance shots I used the Canon Teleconverter TC-DC58B 1.5x with the Conversion Lens Adapter LA-DC58E.

Again I wasn’t able to expand my roaming range due to the weather. We had another 2 cold spells with snow and temperatures below freezing, and a lot of dark, cloudy, windy, rainy days. Again not a lot of good photo opportunities, but I managed to take some good bird pictures.

Red Knot (l) and Dunlin (r)

This Winter is one of the most severe ones in Belgium for years. We had more days with temperatures below freezing than previous years. How many more will probably be announced when the Winter is officially over. However, it wasn’t a really bad Winter, but the mild Winters of the past years even decade left us unprepared for a real one.

There is plenty of evidence that this Winter was severe that made the headlines in the news: days with snow, days with temperatures below freezing, traffic jams, people spending more on heating, …, but there are other signs as well:

• Blue Tits and Great Tits are usually very shy, but this month I could stand in the garden and take pictures of them hanging on a fat ball.
• The past 2 months I took several pictures of birds gathering on chimneys for some warmth.
• For the first time in probably a decade I saw a Fieldfare in my garden. They usually forage in groups on the fields, but in severe Winters they overcome their shyness for humans and end up, individually, looking for food in gardens.
• For me Spring starts on a nice sunny day in February with temperatures around 10°C and when I hear the first Black-tailed Godwits in the creeks of Ostend. This usually happens around mid February, but I haven’t seen or heard any Black-tailed Godwits yet. Hopefully they will arrive next week. I am really longing for Spring.

Now you know what to expect in the slide show: garden birds and some more Winter pictures, but there is more:

• They are building a new pier in Ostend and they will provide an observation post for birdwatchers. About time. It has been more than 5 years since the previous one became inaccessible.
• Photos of three different species of Stints on the beach of Ostend. Yes, more birds.
• Some landscape pictures of the creeks of Ostend, my favorite place to go birdwatching. The observation post is only 6 minutes from my home by bike. The pictures were taken during the only sunny moments (3 hours) last week. It would have been perfect and the start of Spring if only I would have spotted some Black-tailed Godwits. Did I mention before that I live in a flat country?

All photos were taken with my Canon Powershot S3 IS. For the long distance shots I used the Canon Teleconverter TC-DC58B 1.5x with the Conversion Lens Adapter LA-DC58E.

The third article in the series of pictures from the past month. I wasn’t able to expand my roaming range in January; I am still more or less bound by the city-bounds of my hometown Ostend. Nothing spectacular happened in January. We had two cold spells with frost and snow, making it impossible for me to go out with my bike, and a lot of cloudy days without good photo opportunities.

Red-breasted Merganser

The pictures of this month contain a lot more bird photos than the previous months. You have been warned. As for the photo on the right; the punk look comes natural to the Red-breasted Merganser.
When we moved into this house, some 35 years ago and started feeding the birds in the garden during winter, only 3 species were attracted by a fat ball: Great Tits, Blue Tits and Greenfinches. A decade or more later House Sparrows and Starlings had acquired a taste for the fat balls too. This winter, for the very first time, I also saw a Blackbird and a Robin on the fat balls. I was able to catch the Robin in the act of feeding off the fat ball. It wasn’t easy, hiding behind a plant in the kitchen, taking the shot through the kitchen window. Interspecies copycat behavior among birds in a winter garden. Sounds like a good title for another article.

All photos were taken with my Canon Powershot S3 IS. For the long distance shots I used the Canon Teleconverter TC-DC58B 1.5x with the Conversion Lens Adapter LA-DC58E.
I would love to have better equipment, like the Canon EOS 50D with the Canon EF 500/4.0 L USM IS lens and maybe even an additional 1.5x or 2x converter. Alas, that is way over my budget and I wouldn’t feel comfortable biking around, carrying a backpack stuffed with over 5 kg of camera equipment worth over 6000 EURO. But I can always dream.

I am using the PictoBrowser plugin for WordPress to access my photos on Flickr. Let me know if you experience any problems viewing the photos.

The second article in the series of pictures from the past month. That makes it official, it’s now a tradition.

I wasn’t able to expand my Lebensraum in December. I went back to the gym for the first time in over half a year and I still haven’t found a sustainable pace. As you will notice we had a lot of snow in December. That is very nice for taking pictures, but snow, frost and a bicycle don’t go well together. During that time I was mostly restricted to the neighborhood. Despite all the snow, we didn’t have a white Christmas. The heavy rain on Christmas Eve made it all disappear.

Nothing spectacular happened in December, apart from the fact that I was so fortunate to photograph 2 birds of prey.

All photos are taken with my Canon Powershot S3 IS. For the long distance shots I used the Canon Teleconverter TC-DC58B 1.5x with the Conversion Lens Adapter LA-DC58E.

I am using the PictoBrowser plugin for WordPress to access my photos on Flickr. Let me know if you experience any problems viewing the photos.