Studley House Farm

The weather on Sunday, unlike the day before, was as bad as any I have tried to take pictures in. I went off in search of a blip and drove through several potential stop-off points without seeing a single thing that inspired me to stop. Eventually, I pulled over by an old railway bridge near Studley, on the outskirts of Calne. I saw a buzzard in the field next to the road. It took off and flew a couple of feet above the ground before landing again further afield, its large brownish wings almost clipping the grass.

The railway is long gone and the track is now a nature trail and cycleway. I walked along it in the direction of Chippenham until I came to a crossing track, which led me into a copse. There were quite a few pheasants and grouse, and some of the trees had stairs leading to small caged areas affixed to them, presumably for shoots of some kind. Disapproving, I took a small path that led from the track to a stile into a field, from which a small farm was visible, with some penned cattle in the yard, and sheep in the next field.

I made for the cattle pen, sure of getting a blip there, and took a number of pictures. I used my fastest lens, underexposing by a couple of stops to get workable shutter speeds, hoping that converting to monochrome would conceal any digital noise, but when I looked at the images on the computer I had to delete nearly all of them due to motion blur and graininess, so atrocious were the light conditions.

However, I took no indoor shots and for the time being I am attempting consecutive blips for awhile, so this is the least worst.

L.
14.1.2014

Blip #1150
Consecutive Blip #012
Day #1389

Lens: Pentax 50mm f1.8
Cattle series
Black and White and Sepia series

Lozarhythm Of The Day:
Charlie Rich - When something is wrong with my baby (1967)
I was unaware that Charlie Rich had recorded at Hi Records in Memphis TN, but he made an album of mainly Hank Williams songs for the label in 1967. This was a brand new song, as yet unrecorded by Sam and Dave (they recorded it up the road at Stax the following month), written by Isaac Hayes and David Porter. Sam and Dave's version became a huge soul hit, whilst this original remained in the vaults until 1985.