016: Lamplite on a Wood Kitty

A cute wooden cat drinks its bowl of wooden milk. On a wooden floor.
I used the same lens again (see yesterday,) but an LED torch to illuminate the kitty. I was intending initially to use flash. The room was dim, so I put a torch down beside it to help me focus manually. But the image in the viewfinder changed my plan immediately - no flash this time! I barely adjusted anything, it was just right as it was. f/4.5, 1/5 sec. I rested the camera on a wooly hat, and the "floor" is the wood-veneer top of a speaker cabinet.
The result is very much to my liking. It's pretty good considering how basic and contrived the setup was. It's not so much a testament to spur-of-the-moment thinking, but more about how unexpected developments can make a real positive difference to the outcome of photo.
Being away from home today, I am relieved that I remembered to bring my camera's USB cable. Otherwise no photo!

003: Mushrooms of Wood

A group of mushroom-like carvings fashioned from tree trunks, which I came across these in a clearing in some local woodland. Do these serve a purpose or are they merely the result of a forester's idle fancy? Either way, they caught my attention today with their unexpected forms.
They somehow seem like stakes with safety caps.

That same walk in the woods this morning was filled with small birds. We could hear two woodpeckers tapping on differently sized trees (judging by the difference in pitch.)
Plus a list of other birds we spotted:
Jay, Woodpigeon, Great Tit, Willow Tit, Blue Tit, Robin, Blackbird, Chaffinch (possibly.)
Our toes got slightly frozen again today, it's been an unusually cold winter. All the better for ice photos, though.
I didn't take any photos of birds today as it was too cold to stand around and wait, and I wasn't in a waving-a-large-lens-around mood. Besides, the birdwatching hide was a long way off and on the other side of a main road.