Day 24 - Dockside

I was walking the dog this morning and spent a wonderful few minutes walking alongside a wild grass field thats recently been fenced off from access. There were swallows dipping and diving through the yellow grasses in the cool morning air. They are such a wonderful bird to watch as they dip, dive and bank at breakneck speed.

I went back and tried to tale some images with my 200-600mm lens, but by the time I was there most of them had gone to ground or moved off somewhere else.

Because they are so small I still need them to be fairly close otherwise all I get are some smudged pixels in a field of yellow!

So that may be an early morning trip tomorrow - we shall see!

For todays WATER inspired view though I went to the Sunderland Fish Quay - its one of the smaller ones and leads into Sunderland Port. There is a dredged channel into the banks that allows a few boats to moor and unload, but its a very low key (unintended un) affair with only one shop selling the wares.

Looking up the River you can see by the boat sizes that this is a smaller industry than it once was. However this view is looking towards the west with the 3 bridges in view, so I will have to come back on a decent sunset to grab these with the setting sun!

Its one of the things I try and of when I am out and about, look for images that are not necessarily available right now, but may be later on in the day or month or even year.

Make it stand out

Looking to the East and the mouth of the river you can see the heavier industry at play - the large cargo vessel dwarfs the smaller boats in the foreground which I think add a great but of scale.

It’s amazing how the buoyancy of water allows such high things to just float.

Fun fact - water density affects buoyancy, and the density is impacted by both temperature and salinity.

The colder and more salty the water, the more dense and buoyant it will be.

A Boat will sit lower in the water in freshwater than salt, and lower in warmer than cold water.

Eventually all boats will succumb though - this one has obviously been under for a while, although its a sign of how much the river surface changes between tides

This one was at low, but at high the whole wreck appears to be covered!

I’ll finish with my favorite image - I love the contrasting size of the old dinghy and the massive cargo ship!