Janet Drew

@jedrew.bsky.social

257 Followers 227 Following

Lifelong astronomer and scientist, with an interest in birds, landscape, geology, and (almost) all things natural. For fun, consumes crime fiction, and tries to play the cello.

A whooper swan seen on the main lake in Welney Wetlands, near Ely, Cambridgeshire. The bird is seen side on, with it's neck in a relaxed curved shape, practically resting on its back. The wings are slightly raised making them look a little fluffy. The photo was taken on a sunny winter day, illuminating the bird in a warm light, showing off the yellow in the beak well.
A pair of rock doves meeting up on a Greystones Marina quayside, Wicklow. I first noticed them walking towards each other at the quay's edge - so I watched what happened, taking a few photos. It seemed to me quite sweet - two birds pleased with each other's company - an established couple, presumably. Both are identically-marked rock doves (iridiscent necks, light grey backs/wings with black wing and tail bars, white rump patch, coral feet - not feral pigeons).
A black guillemot, sitting on the quay in Greystones Marina - taking a break. There is a community of around 10 of them there this summer. They seem to be using the gaps between the large stone blocks making up the sea wall to nest in (a man-made cliff). In this photo, the bird is in profile and a red leg/foot is just visible. The white epaulette that marks these auks out, is centered. Otherwise the bird is all dark - including the dark eye and eye ring (zoom in and you can just see it...).
Summer solstice sunset - looking across to Inishbofin, from Cleggan (Connemara). Orange sky with no hint of cloud. Darkening foreground. Inishark (just visible left horizon) and Inishbofin in silhouette across the water.
A juvenile blackbird is sitting, side on, in a green ceramic bird bath (with a few insect-friendly stones in it to help out the occasional passing bee in need of a drink). The bird's plumage is brown all over, but its beak is beginning to acquire the yellow colour of maturity. Seen side on, it is head is turned towards the camera.
Two mallard drakes show their displeasure at being disturbed by a female goosander whose sole crime is to decide she's had enough of sitting on the corner of the quay and is walking between them. Photo taken on the edge of Lake Como last week, in late afternoon sunshine. The two drakes are hissing at the goosander (beaks open and heads thrust forwards).
This photo was taken from within one of the more wooded sections of the Villa Carlotta gardens on the banks of Lake Como, on May 16th. The right hand side of the picture is dominate by a gap in the foliage, revealing the matching blue sky and lake (and the opposite bank, in the distance). The main feature of the left hand side is a rhododendron in flower, with the pink of the blooms making a very pretty contrast with the luxuriant foliage - that, for sure, is characteristic of Villa Carlotta and many other Como gardens.
A female goosander is making her way on a concrete pier, between two seated mallard drakes. Inexpicably, both drakes turn their heads and hiss at her. The photo was taken late yesterday afternoon beside Lake Como. The strong shadows are testament to the very clear conditions.
A still, from the ground near Gatwick Airport, of the plane we were on yesterday afternoon - as it was struck by lightning. This image appeared in a couple of online reports yesterday evening. We were in row three (me, by the window) on the side the lightning struck. ...brilliant white flash, and a loud crack!
Four starling nestlings lined up in their distinctly linear space beneath a roof tile - up on the house next door. The photo was taken today (with extreme 30x zoom - they are a long way up). I fear for the small one at the left end of the line that's only just visible. The biggest, with an especially mean expression is second from right. They are probably not long from fledging. When a parent flies up on the roof with food for them, the squawking is intense and all you can see are the gaping yellow-outlined mouths frantically pushing forwards.
A sportive lemur passing the daytime away, wedged in a tree cleft - as they do - in Zombitse national park, Madagascar. The lemur is looking down at the camera, while clutching the thick branch to the left in the picture. He/she is not minded to do anything about his/her audience. The animal's fir has a golden hue. The prominent eyes are round with small pupils - they are really designed for evening/nighttime use.
The first of three photos of a pair of wisteria buds up on the garden wall. This one was taken a week ago. The buds are compact and purple in coloiur and have 'scales' that make them look a bit like pine cones or hops. They are set in young leaves at the end of a woody stalk. Training wire on the wall behind is visible about 3/4 of the way up the photo.
A x20 phone camera zoom of a heron that had just landed at the far edge of the Watercress Reserve's main pond. I rather like the fuzzy reflections of the heron and the waterside plants in the pond. The heron is side on with its neck extended.
A trinidadian motmot perched on a wooden balustrade, seen in Tobago. The bird's head is in profile showing off the bright blue feathers framing the crown and the eye - while the rufous tummy is in three-quarters view.
A rare instance of a white bluebell, next to a blue one - in among thousands and thousands of the blue kind carpeting Langley Wood in Heartwood Forest. April 9th 2026
A photo of the sea of bluebells in Pudler's Wood, Heartwood Forest (Herts. England). The coppice is not yet in full leaf, allowing in the light that encourages the bluebells to flower. The foliage showing on the trees is 'spring green' in colour.
This photo was taken through a (not very clean!) window of two wood pigeons *lurking* in the bay tree at the back of our garden. The more visible of the two, on the left, is in what might be a guard position with its head and beak pointed straight at the camera. It will have an excellent view of what is going on out in the open. The other, to the right, is side-on and embedded in the bay foliage. Eating or nesting? Might be either.
Jurassic-era strata that have been tipped to practically vertical - mostly limestone with some softer darker layers in between. (Lulworth formation rocks for those interested in the geological detail). The drop captured in the image is several 10s of feet. These are seen on the east side of the promontory. The famous Durdle Door view with the arch is from the west side.
A zoom shot of two large inflorescences on an almost tree-sized rhododendron-related shrub -- the lower of the two is still opening up and glows with pink. The upper flowering is more nearly white, but the dark purple detail in the interior of each individual flower is more visible. This plant is Mount Usher Gardens, Wicklow.
A magellanic penguin seen on the Valdes Peninsula, Patagonia (Argentina). It is stood with wings open, right next to a parking lot: at the bottom of the photo, the cast-iron bar separating it from the sandy ground the penguin was stood on. It seemed completely ease despite the tourists (including us) within just a few feet. Along with his compadres, this individual had just waddled up from the water's edge below, with the immediate goal of simply getting into the sunshine. The real reason they were there - to scout out nesting sites on the slope down to the water. Apparently the boys show up before the girls, each breeding season, to do this.
Lanchester goes on to give polling evidence with numbers. The effect is real and so excrutiating and maddening.
A patagonian sierra finch, facing right. It has a typical short finch-style beak, with darker feathers around the eye blending into a grey head. It has a khaki/green collar, and a light warm brown back, edged with more khaki/green. The wings and tail are grey mainly, and the tummy below is yellow. A white rump is just visible. The feet are pink. The bird is stood on a bench - off picture there is a bit of bread left by a visitor that it is summoning up the courage to seize. The out-of-focus weird light blue background is the Perito Moreno glacier.
A group of 6 fulmars gliding/flying low over the north Atlantic. Five of the birds have their wings in a horizontal glide, with only one actively flying. The sea beneath, a steely blue-grey, is being rucked up by the wind. The photo was taken from the deck of the Fram (Hurtigruten) in 2017.
In the foreground, a puffin standing tall in profile, looking to the left, with a beak full of sand eels. To the rear two more puffins, slightly out of focus - one of them is hunkered down on its tummy also looking left, while the other is looking to the right (off frame). Photo taken on Inner Farne, spring 2018.
This photo, and the one accompanying are both of the Matterhorn as seen from my hotel bedroom in Zermatt. This mountain has to be the most iconic mountain of all. In its many moods, it just seems like a Platonic ideal - the stuff of imagination. In the first photo, taken during the afternoon, it was wearing some of the fluffy white cloud in the picture like a scarf, around and streaming behind its neck. More on the second photo in the next alt text...
A pair of spectacled ducks stood next to the water. The water in question is the meltwater forming the lage at the foot of the Perito Moreno Glacier in Argentina. The ducks are mostly a warm chocolate-y brown, with a purple/bronze speculum visible on the wing. The 'spectacles' are very distinctive white patches between the actual eyes and the top of the dark pointed beak. Orange legs and webbed feet. The darker barring on the chest is a nice feature.
The first of three photos all featuring the octagonal light that is the eye-dragging effective centre of this impressive cathedral. Here the view from the choir stalls looking back down the nave. The dark wood tracery of the screen is in strong contrast to the bright octagon above.
A male(?) chimango caracara at rest on a branch of a dead tree, atop Cerro Llao Llao (near Bariloche, Argentina). The bird is looking to its left placing the head in profile, while the light-brown mottled, delicately feathered chest is seen from the front. Sunlight illuminates the left side of the bird, whilst also seem to catch the tip of the down-curved beak.
From the back garden around midnight: trees, part of the house, a bit of cloud at the top of the frame - and in between - a red aurora glow (to the north)
A view across the railway line out of Kilcoole towards Wicklow Town. The sun is low in the southern sky behind fine "combed-out" cirrus. Marshland occupies the middle distance, showing very dark green in the highly angled light.
A picture of very gently rippling water, with a thin fringe of reed to the fore. Right at the front is a greylag goose in profile: fine orange beak, buff chest, pale rump and patterned brown feathers. Another one further back, has its head down.
The photo shows a doorway with a tall winerack to the near side of it. One of the two cats in the photo sits on top of the open door, while the other opts for the next highest point on top of the wine rack. A typical moment of madness from these two!
Two black guillemots swimming together in Greystones Marina. The view is from above, via a telephoto lens. Their bright red legs show under the water. Most of the plumage is a rich chocolate brown. The birds appear 'black' only from a distance and/or under cloudy sky. The distinctive white wing patches are clearly visible.
A ring-necked parakeet clinging to a feeder, checking her surroundings (if male, the ring around the neck would be more prominent). Seen Christmas Day 2025, in strong winter sunshine. Mostly green plumage, although the tail has some blue in it, when viewed from behind.
A robin, on a gravel footpath in the National Botanic Garden, Kilmacurragh, Wicklow. Facing left, he/she is looking up at me as I take the photo (taken early March this year) - quite unfazed by the people around at the time.
A Christmas-themed knitted postbox bonnet, seen in St Albans, Hertfordshire. Two dinosaurs, wearing Santa hats, sat on a white (snow?) base, with a smaller decorated Christmas tree at the front. The blue dinosaur with a striped scale on its back seems to be trying to swallow a Christmas pudding. The dinoosaur at the back is green with yellow spots and is swallowing some tinsel.
Great tits, juvenile blue tits, and a couple of siskins on 3 bird feeders hanging outside a cottage window in the Lake District. June 2022.
Eight Chilean flamingos in the lake next to El Calafate, in Patagonia, Argentina. Photo taken on an October late-ish afternoon. One of the two flamingos at the extreme left is facing the remaining six who are pretty nearly lined up, as if in a class of some sort. All of them have warm rose-pink plumage, with a slash of shocking pink near the tail.
Black male and orange-brown female 'white-lined' tanagers, on a bird feeder in a Tobago garden. The wikipedia entry admits that the white on the male is often not visible. Needs to be watched in flight. We put out papaya for them, as I recall.
A side bed in a Hertfotrdshire back garden, Nov 21 2025. There is a winter jasmine in full flower up against the fence. To its right - a rose bush, STILL flowering and even has rosebuds visible.
The fizzingly scarlet autumn colour of the leaves on a japanese maple ('orangeola'). The frame shows nothing but the 'dissecta' leaves of the shrub from no more than month ago.
A mute swan, rearing up out of the water with its wings open and up. Seen against a backdrop of wintry reeds on the water in Tyttenhanger gravel pits. With it being winter, the sun is low rendering the swan with strong highlights and partial shadow.
A group of female eider ducks sunning on a slipway in Seahouses harbour, Northumberland. Three are fully within the frame, with the nearest actively preening. One is standing, showing off her beautifully plump, rounded, brown-striped chest.
A pair of upland geese, seen by the roadside on desolate grassland in Argentina approaching the Andes. The terrain is in a rain shadow, and covered mainly by tussocky yellow-grey grass, used to little water. They were some distance away, and very clearly a pair. Both looking right. The female is mostly soft two-tone brown, while the male is an easier spot having a beautiful white neck and chest, with fine black/white barring on his back and sides. Both have neat black beaks and dark eyes.
A southern crested caracara readying for takeoff, from atop the branches of a small tree - the wings are up, and blurred a bit by movement. The leading edge of the bird's right wing (especially) is seen end-on and looks quite muscular - as they need to be for these sizeable birds. The photo was taken in Torres del Paine National Park in October 2018. The tree is just coming into leaf.
A curlew, in marshy undergrowth, seen side on just after he/she had found a crayfish to eat. The crayfish, belonging to an invasive species, is still in the bird's beak. The bird's plumage blends well with the mixed grasses/reeds environment: only movement gave it away. Location: towards the sea from Burnham Overy Staithe, north Norfolk.
A rufous-collared sparrow, seen on the walkway overlooking Perito Moreno Glacier in the Andes foothills, Argentina. This bird of many browns, with its lovely rusty collar, stands on a wooden rail. Out-of-focus walkway grid shows behind it.
A mourning sierra finch, percehd on a post watching us pack items in the car boot. Has the grey/black plumage that presumably inspired the name - and a bright yellow seed-eater's beek.
The sun shines through branches, in woodland (Ardnamona Nature Reserve, Donegal). Middle foreground includes some rust-coloured bracken, shining as well. Everything is wet.
The softly golden dusk sky, over Donegal harbour 28/10/25 - with a single gull in silhouette aganst the sky flying over the water, at distance.
The River Vartry flowing through Mount Usher, Wicklow. To the right, a bank of hydrangeas, and in the centre, on the opposite bank - a maple ablaze in gold and red, reflecting in the water. Phone camera, a week ago.
Birdfeeder footage from today (27/10/25). A goldfinch tries/fails to bully a blue tit away - who literally hangs in there, and gets some sunflower seed.
A little egret standing on poolside rocks in Orlando's Sea World - the fluffy decorative feathers on its pure white chest showing. Very confident.
Seen from Snettisham, Norfolk: knot murmuration over the Wash at dusk. Photo taken in October 2022. The sky was apricot orange behind the dark, fast moving flocks of knots. That season, there was quite a bit of comment about the huge scale of the flocks of knots gathered at/near Snettisham beach.
A brown pelican with wings fully extended, gliding over the sae off Englishman's Bay in Tobago.
A harris hawk at rest on a falconer's job - with jesses on, ready to fly. Seems to be thinking about something. The breeze catches some of the wing feathers.
This motmot was seen in Tobago. It would frequently visit the garden where we were staying, hoping for food (lizards). One day a golden tegu passed through - and the motmot straffed it unsuccessfully, beak first (the feet on a motmot are pitiful). Rainbow colouired from head down to the tip of its tail.
A razorbill on the cliffs at Bempton, Yorkshire. The bird's head is side on. The black on the head and back is very glossy black. The tan smudge on the white tummy is just an out-of-focus flowering grass.