An overnight trip to Bristol flower & produce wholesale market.  5am 10/03/15.

Roche Rock 06/03/2015.
I have photographed here many times in the past with varying results.
I don't usually big up my images, taste is fickle & one mans meat etc.
But I honestly think this is the best photo I've taken.
This Panasonic micro 4/3 & 14mm lens combo is excellent, especially for mono.
I'm chuffed.

Looking east from Roche rock are two wind turbines.  Monolithic structures framed by natural granite extrusions that are real monoliths.
Turbines get a lot of bad press & NIMBY protesters.  Personally I like the look & sounds of turbines.  I'd far rather see them than pylons & certainly more photogenic than a coal or nuclear fired power station.
As always right click, view image & enlarge.

Cornish Backbone.

Rough Tor (L) & Brown Willy (R), the two highest points in the county, with Helman Tor in the foreground.  Photographed from Carn Grey rock (Another smaller tor) yesterday on St Pirans Day, 5th March.
The backbone of Cornwall.

The view from Tavas Carow AKA Garker fields AKA home (above).
& Treffry viaduct, Luxulyan valley. (below)

As always right click, view image & enlarge.

Japanese quail (Coturnix japonica) are shy & very well camouflaged in the wild, It's rare to spot them on the ground & tend to only get noticed when they explode from cover like a squadron of harrier jets.
One could say they are, to use birding terminology a typical LBJ (little brown job).
 Kept tame & well lit by flash even the wild form shows their true beauty & are far from plain.
The above male who was very camera curious shows just how attractive these birds really are.

& his mate (above) shares the same multi hued & patterned plumage but lacks his showy breast & has a speckled breast instead.

Like a lot of once wild birds that have been kept domestically for centuries, man has bred for different plumage colourations & mutations.
The Golden Italian (below) is probably the second most common after the wild & shares the same marking but in a much lighter sandy tone.

Another popular form is the English white.  As its name suggests just plain white although almost all birds have a spot or two of brown usually on or around their heads.  Not as easy to tell the sexes apart but the males have more facial feathering which they use when showing off to the girls. Many breeders prefer white birds for the meat trade as with other poultry & game, the odd feather left on a white bird after plucking doesn't show as much as with darker plumaged birds.

The Spanish or Range quail is a melanistic  form.  Much darker & with completely different markings to the wild & Italian.

 Finally the Pied or Tuxedo.  Another melanistic type but with white breast & facial markings.
A very striking bird in my humble opinion.

These are by no means all of the plumage variations out there.  I have owned cinnamon, & there are also blue mutations.  As they are all the same species cross breeding & the resultant variety can be very interesting.  With certain genes being dominant & others recessive you are never sure what might turn out.
As always right click & view image to see full sized.

A few of my 'well trained' honey bees.  A blend of six different images merged with photoshop5.5.

Sometimes you have to stare into the light.
Willow in Carn Grey quarry & lens flare.
The tree is stretching towards the light & the lighting gives it a facial quality.
Often when I'm shooting mirrors & mandalas the unique way a tree is lit on a particular moment means no two images are the same & many times I've tried & failed to duplicate or improve but the results always differ to the point of frustration.
So now I just treat each image individually & try to find something special that I can highlight or enhance.

The same tree photographed at another time.