this morning

I always see these lovely photos of tidy strings of dew drops on spiders webs neatly arranged in circular fashion. The spiders here don't go for tidy...their webs produce this:

on the shore

I'm at work, so all I've got at hand is a photo in which water is somewhat in the background:



but if it weren't for the water I guess there would be no pretty shore...

Happy splashing!
Or (disclaimer: skip if you've read this before) if you have some time to spare and love the Andes or the rainforest please visit my picture book about my fieldwork in the Peruvian cloud forest:
http://www.blurb.com/photo-book-contest/view_book/914061
I've entered the blurb competition, and if you feel generous please vote for me.

trees in the puddle

I live near a floodplain - so whenever it has rained I'll get to see some rather good reflections in the enormous puddle which is otherwise known as 'the meadow':




There are more weekend reflections at James' blog.
Or if you have some time to spare and love the Andes or the rainforest please visit my picture book about my fieldwork in the Peruvian cloud forest:
http://www.blurb.com/photo-book-contest/view_book/914061
I've entered the blurb competition, and if you feel generous please vote for me.

blue

Here's the blue surface of the Dordogne - a beautiful river in the south of France:



Happy Watery Wednesday to you all!

shortly before sunset

Late afternoon water reflections on the lake in Blenheim Park:



Watery Wednesday, hosted by 2SweetnSaxy, has links to watery pleasure from all over the world.

bottom of the sea

Our internet has packed in and might not be repaired until Friday :(
Very irritating. So here's a rushed post from the work computer:



For more water visit Watery Wednesday hosted by 2SweetnSaxy. I'm looking forward to your photos when all is back to normal here.

Dover

The channel is hardly a pristine bit of water, but I love it - once a month the ferry takes me over to the continent where I can dance till I drop and hang out with all my tango-friends:



For more water visit Watery Wednesday hosted by 2SweetnSaxy.

Meet Mr. and Mrs. Swan

My fieldwork season is coming to its stressful end - a new Watery Wednesday coming up, and I haven't even managed to visit last weeks entries...
I'm spending many hours in the river each day, and then some in the lab. Tomorrow I will finish the experiment in a long mad day of sampling, freezing and starting some analysis. Meanwhile I'm looking forward to a last encounter with Mr and Mrs Swan and their eight rather grown-up cygnets. I've met them every day on their way to their preening grounds - annoyingly just upstream of my experiment. I hate peeling their feathers away from my flumes each day. Needless to say that they hate me, too. You can probably tell from Mrs Swans suspicious ogle in my direction:



Just after taking this snap of them I felt very much like hastening towards the bank...I'm not really up to facing 10 hissing swans towering over me whilst I'm submerged up to my middle in the river.

Back to Watery Wednesday, hosted by 2Sweet'n'Saxy.

Moving on

This little plant is traveling downstream just under the water surface until it gets caught on something and grows roots there:



Happy Watery Wednesday to all of you!

archive sky

I'm posting from the lab...so here's a pink old sky over a nice river. Nothing special but hopefully pleasant enough:



Find some more exciting skies at Skywatch Friday!

new river

I have moved my work to a lovely, clean river near Newbury. My current experiment is keeping me busy and so I have no time for anything (sadly including visiting all your blogs). Working amongst the trouts, graylings and ranunculae (or is it Ranunculaceae ?), though, is a real treat. Yesterday we even saw a swimming snake! I didn't manage to snap it...so all I can show you is a little ranunculus blossom poking out of the water:



Back to Watery Wednesday hosted by 2SweetnSaxy.

waterfall

Happy Sunday and happy Monday - and altogether a happy new week to all of you!
Back to Aileni's Monochrome Monday for more b&w.

Raindrops...

Have a look at last week's Mother of All Downpours - it hit me as I was alerting my neighbour to the fact that her key was still stuck in the lock from when she opened her door. We chatted for 1 minute and I got drenched to the bone.



Back to Watery Wednesday hosted by 2SweetnSaxy.

happy fish in happy water

A brown trout hanging out in the amazingly clear water of the River Coln by Bibury.



It hurt to see, though, that despite the beauty of the water some plastic garbage had found it's way into the river - who knows how. I didn't take a photo of it -

Happy Watery Wednesday to you all! Back to 2SweetnSaxy, or if you want to think a bit more about plastic and water visit a site about the big plastic vortex in the Pacific.

Sky in the mirror

The sky reflected in the 'moat' of St Catz, an Oxford College designed by the fabulous Arne Jacobsen:


And back to Skywatch Friday.

snorkeling

My nephew has learned to snorkel during last weeks' holiday:



Well done him. He thought it was fun - me too.

Happy Watery Wednesday !

favourite river

One of the cleanest and prettiest rivers I've ever spent time on and at is the Vienne, in France:




Visit 2SweetnSaxy for a good dose of Watery Wednesday. I'm still in France and will have to visit all your water photos later.

Rocks

Nothing more beautiful then some scenic rocks. Like these:



Visit PhotoHunt, hosted by TNchick, for other rocky stuff.

bloom

Some 14 days ago there was a heat wave (as in: a few days when the temperatures rose above 22 C) and so we had growth of luxurious proportions in our experimental flumes:



These filamentous algae are not the same as the smaller planctonic algae which cause the dreaded toxic algal blooms. They are just the chaps nobody wants to tread on when getting into a fresh water lake because they're dreadfully slimy. They are a food source and only take over if there are too many nutrients in the water - and too much sun :)

Visit 2SweetnSaxy for a good dose of Watery Wednesday.

guilty pleasures

All my life I've loved being on boats. I'm not a good swimmer but there's nothing greater than stopping by in a little cove to hang out, enjoy the view, read a little, sleep a little and dip into crystal waters in between. These outings, even though just once year, do make me feel guilty, seeing that most motor boats are terrible fossil fuel consumers and general polluters.



Here, however, is the end of a lazy afternoon, the captain ready to start and the dog tied up so that she won't fall into the water while the boat speeds towards the harbour to take us back to dinner.

For a range of summer pleasures visit Summer Stock Sunday and Scenic Sunday.