Nice Photos.

Ian,

The bird is a male sparrowhawk (males have rufous barring, females have grey barring) and it is really nice to see one just sitting there rather than flashing through the garden at high speed.  A hobby has vertical breast stripes, a moustachial stripe (very appropriate for Movember) and is generally less beefy.  The location is classic sparrowhawk habitat with the dark “woodland” backdrop.  Hobbies are birds of more open habitats.

Great photo jamie. What exp time did you use to get the effect?

Yes the Sparrowhawk is a regular visitor and sits patiently (albeit menacingly)  on the fence quite frequently. I did get a picture of the squirrel and the  sparrowhawk positioned within 2 metres of each other. The sparrowhawk did not appear too interested in the squirrel and the latter was not perturbed in the slightest.  

Thanks CBR, 6s @ f/11

We have one in our roof. Noisy little bugger! But the trap is set. He'll be relocated in a day-or-two.

Other question is how you got the emphasis of the blue colour?

Is this a filter effect?

No filters. It was a cloudy (and slightly rainy) night. Street lights were giving the sky an orange cast. So changed wb to tungsten to reduce it and voila! Although it is actually blue. To be honest I need to give it a proper edit to clean up image a bit.

Nice, good depth of field as well, and not a single sight of any other object, well planned

Thanks

Had to wait ages for a bus! (Although another with a police car is quite good too)

Taken on happy hols a few weeks ago:

steve

Excellent. Very evocative...If only the tourist were wearing a hat!

The Thames at peace

Very nice set of London @ night photos you've taken there Jamie. What time of night/morning did you take them?

Had a day off yesterday, so went for a drive.

Very lucky to live where I do.

Very nice Rod. Out of interest, where do you live?

Thanks Kevin, between about 8 and 10 in the evening

Thanks Kevin

Well I work in Nice and live in a small village called la Colle-sur-Loup, inland from Antibes, but the drive was into the mountains to three villages Massoins, Roure and Bonson, and the furthest of these is at least an hour and a half away from me (in fact the ski resort of Isola 2000 is slightly less driving than Roure). 

Where I live is beautiful, but I do need to drive for the really spectacular stuff!

But one of the motives was the drive itself. Because of this mainly:

Nice composition Jamie. If it was shot at an earlier time, you could have captured some shadow detail and/or an interesting sky fill. Try a much longer exposure and see what happens with the water movement. One to go back again, I think.

Lucky chap! I thought your pictures looked vaguely familiar, and living in that part of the world, no wonder you enjoy a good drive.

I used to go to the Cannes area a fair bit for work and have actually been to Colle-sur-Loupe, it's very beautiful and the Atelier des Saveurs is a very good restaurant. The great French artist Yves Klein came from Colle-Sur-Loupe if I recall correctly. 

Leonardo da Vinci's horse at San Siro racecourse in Milan

Thanks Jamie.

steve

Thanks Count, trouble is I'm not very local anymore, so didn't have much choice over time of day! I did do some longer exposures but then the splashing/vapour disappeared of course and so the single water jet begins to look a bit odd...