Ancient Forest Remains Uncovered on Penzance Beach

The ferocity of recent storms has uncovered remnants of an ancient forest on Chyandour beach at Penzance. The forest is thought to date from 4000-6000 years ago (so good evidence of sea levels rising) Remains can be seen of oak, beech and pine trees along with peat beds. Tidal movements will likely again recover the forest again in a few months with sand.

Winter Sun at Marazion (well for an hour!)

Finally a break in the weather, no wind and sunshine, a great start weather-wise to the day.  Well the good conditions lasted about an hour, lol. Did mange a few shots before it clouded over and the wind picked up. Apparently Bitterns were flying all over the place in the hour before I got there, but this also stopped as the wind picked up so only saw a couple at distance, however there are still three confirmed birds over wintering.  A Stoat has also been sighted again I saw it three days ago and again is was spotted before I turned up this morning. Well then onto the images from Saturday.

Long Tailed Ducks off-shore

Mute Swan

Grey Lag Goose

Bittern

Stonechat

Greylag in flight

Little Egret

Competition begins already for the prime nesting spots

Bob Sharples Photography Website Update

Just added seven new galleries to my website; all storm related which is a reflection of the latest weather we have all been experiencing, please follow the link here to view the galleries: http://bobsharplesphotography.co.uk/Photocart7/photocart/index.php

First Wildlife Shoot (with the camera) in a while

Just seems like we have had storm after storm, which is what I have been photographing lately. On Sunday we had the unusual site of blue skies, sunshine and no wind.  So I headed of to Marazion, plenty of birdlife around but very little in the way of action, everything just seemed to be soaking up the rays! So after a couple of hours I gave up and decided to spend the day relaxing also.  Here are the images I got, all regulars from the marsh!

Large scale destruction at Penzance, latest storm wreaks damage along promenade

I had seen the images on Friday night (14/02/14) of Penzance/Newlyn, I was in Porthleven at the time but I went down to have a look the morning after. Just amazing the power of nature when it is unleashed, although unfortunate it is material damage that can be rectified. Hope the pictures can give you a scale of the impact the latest storm had!

Huge stones from the promenade wall, have been lifted and deposited on the prom/road

No chance for the phonebox

Jubilee Pool took the brunt of the strom waves

Massive amounts of paving were destroyed

Removing the debris

Trail of devastation along the path

Andrew George MP, talks to a local resident

Friday's Storm at Porthleven

With a large swell and strong wind conditions for a storm were ideal. Huge waves and gale force winds provided an awesome spectacle for everyone today. Hopefully the images have recorded the storm magnitude in a true sense.

White van man takes a risk

Good indication of the wind effect on the waves

More Storm Damage this time Praa Sands

Praa Sands did not escape the storms despite been slightly sheltered. I will let the pictures tell the story,

One of the two beach sign which were both destroyed

The sand has got and large boulders are strewn over the beach

Steps to the life guard hut smashed

Another view of the steps

The embankment at the edge of the car park and metal barriers have collapsed

Damage and debris in the vicinity of the beach cafe

A barrier is in place to prevent you going to the edge, some people are idiots

Longships Lighthouse Storm Saturday

Well I have been trying to get a decent set of images from the waves hitting Longships Lighthouse. On Saturday huge storm waves were predicted (well they were not as large as the previous Wednesday!) And I thought there might be a glimmer of some decent light so first call Saturday am was Lands End.

Light was useless and waves usable but not the size I needed, after a hour I put all the gear back in the van to head to Porthleven, by coincidence a faint yellow thing started emitting light from the sky, lol.  Got all the gear out and set up again. I got some nice use-able images which I like thanks to that last minute lighting change, not perfect but getting nearer to what I want.  Here are four from the day, I used different lenses to get a different perspective.

Saturday Storm at Porthleven

Ok, I normally do wildlife but at present in the Southwest we are being continually battered by storms.  As a result it is just weather related images now! Once normal weather is resumed wildlife post will continue, 2015?????? lol.

Onto Saturdays selection of images from Porthleven:

Left a splash of colour in this one

Coastguard, keeping everyone safe

Waves on the Inner Harbour

Again, waves smash into the inner harbour

A storm, a ship and a Saturday Session!

The pier about an hour before high tide

The coast taking a battering

Large Crowd watching the storm waves