Totally agree.

My pick. Excellent effort.

I hope you don't mind some variation on the scenery and architecture. There are no worthwhile buildings around here and I don't have a lens for scenery...

Willy Wagtails

Singing

Liftoff

Superb Fairywrens

Male with breeding plumage

Without plumage

Female

I think this is another male Fairywren or it may be a Jacky Winter

Grey Whistler or maybe an Olive Whistler

Lewin's Honeyeater

Rainbow Bee-eater - these are magnificent. In flight the colours are spread out and distinct both above and below wings. They are hard to get close to so quite a cropped long shot.

I do try for BIF but the small birds are too fast and the Barn Swallows are almost impossible for me...

These really need to be seen a bit bigger than the default posting size. The cotton grass shot and the sheep pen then come alive. These are my two picks from this set.

It is nice to have a variety of subjects! You have some colourful birdlife where you live.

A strange looking piece of sculptural architecture. Maybe I would have lifted the shadow areas a little.

These are fun, my pick is the very dynamic first shot.

BTW. No birding photography these days?

Fascinating to see how much time in old times was spent to decorate buildings and churches. Nowadays prevails utilitarian glass-cladded concrete, some buildings are bit more attractive, but not much decoration anyway.

Great shot, love different colours on landscape.

These 2 are my picks. First with lush vegetation shouts summer, second with those branches and green colours!

Lovely shots, too bad that fairywren didn't cooperate and showed rear end only.

Thanks!
Well, I recently paid exorbitant amount for ultimate birding lens for m43 system... :P Some "first" tests can be seen in dpreview thread and today morning I emptied my camera's battery in hunt for next batch of bird shots.
I'd like to show other type shots here, not just birds, but if I run out of other themes then maybe I'll show some birds here.

Well done, the first shots look good, but then the photographer counts for 90% of a good picture.

My shift lenses are cheap by comparison to these super long wildlife lenses.

We live once enjoy your lens. I have just spent some eyewatering amount on HiFi gear, so I know the feeling.

Great Hill: It's Been A While

I've been suffering from a bad back for quite a while now and as a result I haven't been getting out in the evenings anything much as I'd like to, or should do if I've any hope of maintaining any general fitness. After failing to motivate myself for most of the week, I managed to not only force myself out of the house last night, but hiked all the way across Heapey Moor to the top of Great Hill for the first time in nearly six months, a walk that I'd once have taken in my stride, but currently find to be quite an effort.

Fortunately, my back didn't give me much grief last night, so reduced activity seems to be helping there, but my legs and ankles were cramping up a bit as I trudged across the moor, you've got to love statins, beta blockers, blood pressure tablets and all of the other rubbish I have to take on a daily basis which really don't help when it comes to exercise.

Anyway, crappy fitness woes aside, it was a really nice evening out on the moors. The sun had made a rare appearance during The Rainy Season (also known as Summer) here in Northern England, its power tempered by a smattering of hazy cloud cover and a gentle breeze that kept the pesky midges at bay for most of the walk and yet, my forehead is still covered with the tell tale lumps of midge bites today, a clear give away that they sneakily got through the Smidge based pre-emptive chemical warfare I'd applied to my bonce without me really noticing. I'm sure they're the worst I've seen them this year, either that or I'm just not moving fast enough these days to dodge the little gits.

My route took me up the Black Brook gorge onto Heapey moor, before ascending the lesser known path that runs from the Great Hill farm ruins to the summit of Great Hill. I much prefer this path to the main route that climbs the nose of the hill as it's quieter and the views looking back down the hill are that bit more special. After a rest at the summit, I headed back down the main moorland path past the Drinkwater's farm ruins, then across the higher reaches of Heapey Moor, carefully dodging the boggiest parts along the way to Coppice Stile, before finally descending White Coppice.

Gear on this trip was my lightweight kit, namely the Nikon Z8 + 24-70 f/2.8S - the GFX kit is just too heavy to carry this far at the moment and I think carrying it (along with a tripod) over longish distances may have contributed to my current lower back issues (along with bad posture, 30+ years as a computer games programmer and the general rigours of getting older). All images were shot handheld and processed from single raw files in Capture One Pro 23.

Black Brook

This was taken a little way upstream from the quarry at White Coppice and is looking downstream towards Chorley (the Mormon temple is just visible in the distance). As it's summer and hence, rainy, Black Brook is flowing very fast, draining the moors as quickly as its deep but narrow channel will allow it. It's also very brown at the moment, stained by the moorland peat. These moors are a water catchment area for Liverpool, which makes me wonder how the tap water over there tastes compared to the tap water just down the hill in Chorley, which instead comes from The Lake District, specifically Thirlmere and Haweswater which, being mountain water, generally seems to look much clearer in the streams up there.

Slow Communications

This telegraph pole has been very slowly making its way down Black Brook for many years. I've no idea when it originally fell into the stream, but I presume it dates back to the days when there was active mining in the area as I don't believe British Telecom (or the GPO as it was beforehand) ran telephony across this part of the moors and I've never seen any evidence of other poles around these parts (although I think it had a D.P. [distribution point] number on it when it was visible from a different angle, so who knows?). The last time I saw it, it was further upstream, lodged below the water level in one of the deeper sections of the brook, but recent heavy rain seems to have dislodged it and sent it on its merry way down the hill before becoming stuck again here. I wonder if it will make it all the way down to White Coppice within my lifetime?

Z8 Artifacts

I've noticed the shutterless design of the Z8 leads to some interesting effects around moving water. It seems the sensor doesn't accumulate light continuously. The previous shot was a 1/4 second exposure and in this crop from near the centre of the frame you can see a single rapidly moving droplet of water rendered as multiple droplets rather than a continuous blur as you might expect with a conventional sensor (or film for that matter).

Specular highlights in the water can also take on an unusual effect as they move around during a long exposure, looking a bit like sharp hand scraped marks on film emulsion rather than the smoothly blended smears you might expect.

Not really an issue unless you're shooting long exposures, but curious effects no less. I'll have to get the Z7 out at some point and see how that compares under similar circumstances but using the mechanical shutter.

Foxglove

I do like Foxgloves, they provide nice contrasting colour against the abundance of green that dominates the moors at this time of year.

Great Hill Farm

Eventually I reached the ruins of Great Hill farm. This is the view looking back across the moor towards where I started out (somewhere down the other side of that distant green hill). I could have brightened this up quite a bit, but this is representative of how it looked at the time with its strong backlighting.

Great Hill Trees

A group of trees on the side of Great Hill that seem to be gradually coalescing into a single entity.

Heapey Moor

One of my favourite views from up here (and the subject of one of the framed prints on my living room wall). This is looking back across Heapey Moor from the path that runs diagonally up the side of Great Hill. Great Hill farm is in the foreground, Healy Nab (AKA The Nab - we're good at names in these parts) is in the distance behind Anglezarke Moor and the Hawthorn tree at Coppice Stile farm can be seen on the horizon at the right hand edge of the frame. The line of trees in the middle distance follow the route of Black Brook which marks the boundary between Heapey Moor and Anglezarke Moor.

Salty Moors

This is looking across Anglezarke Moor towards my favourite Bronze age mound of soil; Round Loaf. From here the cotton grass makes it look like salt has been sprinkled across the moors. The trees just over the horizon are a plantation known as The Flat, that sits at the top of Lead Mines Clough, another local location I've recently posted images from.

Summit Views

This is the summit shelter at the top of Great Hill. A few years ago the seating was capped off in rather smart large stone slabs. Despite being in a very remote spot, these slabs disappeared one night, never to be seen again. Seemingly people really will steal anything if it isn't nailed down.

The large hill in the distance to the left of the shelter is Pendle Hill, historically known for its grisly witch trials in times gone by and the hill to the right of the shelter is Darwen Moor with the Jubilee Tower at its peak. Darwen Moor has its place in history as the location of a mass trespass towards the end of the 19th century in protest against the then lord of the manor blocking access to ancient rights of way across the moor. This led to nearly 300 acres of moorland being passed back into the possession of the people.

Withnell Moor

The view from the summit looking across Withnell Moor. The cluster of trees near the centre of the image mark the former location of a number of moorland farms, including (from left to right) Ratten Clough, Solomon's Temple and New Ground. Botany Bay farm (location of the lone moorland tree I've shared images of before) is a little way out of shot on the right.

Drinkwater's

Looking down the main moorland path towards the ruins of Drinkwater's farm.

Drinkwater's Remains

It's difficult to get a nice composition of the Drinkwater's ruins, so I don't usually bother, but the light was quite nice at this time, so I took this shot from just outside the East gateway (sans gate). This path eventually leads to the top of Well Lane at Brinscall and provides access to the moors for emergency vehicles. A couple of years ago, the area just behind this gatepost was cleared to provide a turning space for vehicles (such as fire tenders in the event of a moorland blaze). This led to controversy when part of the ruin was demolished by the contractor doing the work.

The Reconstructed Ruin

This wall was the tallest standing part of the ruin and the upper part was demolished when the turning area was cleared. Allegedly the contractor concluded that the upper part was unstable and knocked it down for safety reasons. This caused uproar (well, the odd angry tweet on Twitter) amongst the walking community who frequent these hills and care deeply about our ancient ruins, leading to United Utilities (the current landowner) to issue a statement that "the wall will be rebuilt". Many, including myself, scoffed at this idea but, one evening when walking up there, I was shocked to find a team of bricklayers actually rebuilding the upper part of this wall. To be honest, given they only had photo reference to work with, they've not done a bad job picking and placing suitable rubble from the extensive pile at the back of the wall and anyone unaware that it'd ever been demolished would be hard pressed to notice that it's been rebuilt.

Now if only they'd get rid of the massive information signs that have been placed in front of these and other ruins looking like large lecterns and completely spoiling the aesthetics of the place that would be nice.

Coppice Stile

The last stretch of the path across Heapey Moor, leading to Coppice Stile (now home to an even more conspicuous large info sign placed slap bang in front of the ruins). Black Brook runs along the bottom of the gorge on the left of the picture, which is the route I followed up onto the moors.

Cotton grass is a great subject. I think it's getting a bit past its peak at the moment.

I like the way the tree appears to be reaching out to touch the grass here.

An interesting mix of ancient, modern and downright Heath Robinson building techniques here.

This one is nice. It reminds me in some way of those shots you see of 'the tree' clinging to the side of a gully at the Quiraing, Skye.

Being a bit of a nerd, you might find this interesting; www.onlandscape.co.uk/2019/01/physics-of-caustic-light-in-water/

Yes, nice light, though the shadows are a bit dense on my screen.

These are handsome creatures, well caught. It's always nice to see unfamiliar birds (and other wildlife/plant life) from the other side of the planet which I'm unlikely to ever see for myself.

Interesting structure. I like the shadow patterns.