the longest day

A bonus post today.  How, erm, lucky...?

Anyway, with it being the longest day and all that yesterday, I got up at 4:45 to watch the sun rise.  What I forgot was that from our conservatory the sun rises from behind Drummau Mountain, and therefore takes around half an hour to come into view.

I really could have done with that extra half-hour rest later in the day!

No matter, I waited it out and at the precise second the sun peaked its little head above the mountain I got my shot.

Now, I was both lucky and unlucky in the same breath.  Unlucky in that a magpie that had been sitting on a neighbour's roof for a good twenty minutes and would have been beautifully silhouetted against the backdrop of first light flew off just seconds before my image was taken.  Typical!

But lucky in that another, much larger bird flew into view right on time.  This never happens for me, and I am eternally grateful to the Solstice Gods for their intervention.

(I didn't even see the bird as it was so far away - this is a 25% or so crop of the whole frame.)

Here's my shot:

I had every intention of shooting the end of the day from the same position, but two things conspired to stop me.  Firstly, there was not a cloud in the sky come sunset, so the light was boring, and secondly my early rise and failure to just roll back into bed after I'd taken my shot left me with a pretty well crippled back.  I don't think I could have even lifted my camera to my eye!

So, that's the solstice done and dusted.  It's downhill all the way now until 21st December!