Conservation Art

Another bright day to delight in, with a walk in the park before cooking lunch. I've got a little learning project going at the moment, taking photos of the spire of Llandaff Cathedral from the far end of the park with three different cameras and five telephoto lenses. I'm curious about what lenses 'see' in both similar and different lighting conditions, how colour and sharpness vary. There's much I can learn best by doing and diligent observation, I think it's worth the effort.

After a post lunch siesta I walked down to Cardiff Castle to take a look at the huge shiny sculpture by Sarah Wardlaw of a red kite exhibited outside the main gate. It's a symbol representing RSPB Cymru, and is placed there at the launch of a conservation campaign entitled 'Revive our World'. In the run up to the Senedd elections in two weeks time, RSPB Cymru is calling upon the next Welsh government to implement a green recovery plan, in response to the climate and ecosystem crisis the world faces. 

The red kite symbolises what becomes possible when people really care about nature. Over the past thirty years, this kingpin species of raptor has gone from near extinction to 2,500 breeding pairs in Wales, thanks to the initial passion of one mid Wales farmer whose kite feeding program caught the imagination of many and ended up becoming a local visitor attraction. East Anglia has seen significant growth in the numbers of breeding avocets, which had suffered for centuries due to draining of coastal saline ecosystems. Work to restore these in designated conservation areas has resulted in a reversal of decline. The avocet with its long legs and turned up bill is the English RSPB totem species.

It's just occurred to me, this is the first time in several years that I've posted a photo to this blog. I used to add photos often, especially when I was abroad on locum duty, and I had time to spare to download, edit and re-size a photo to the correct size for this purpose. The process could be rather fiddly if I had first to edit and transfer a picture from another device, and did it less frequently when I was busy, and then got out of the habit altogether. I don't exactly know know when it happened, but only recently have I noticed a change in the file management user interface which the Chromebook uses to display photos. There used to be basic editing tools as part of it, but if needs be, it was better to use a proper web app like Pixlr to re-size a photo accurately. I've just discovered that this can be done using what Chrome itself provides, this makes adding photos to a Blogger post smooth and seamless. It's a much appreciated improvement to workflow.