Picspam - Birds, bees, spiders, cars, Prince Albert, Crossrail and Oolite

It seems a while since I've done a picspam post, here are a few of the photos (and one screen shot) I've taken over the last few months. I've reduced the size a little, but it's behind cuts because there are 10 images and one of them is a BIG (for London) spider!


Birds at the new improved (not so round) Round Pond:


Prince Albert looking at the Albert Hall, from the park:


A rather nice old car that was parked near here a few weeks ago:


A bee hover fly that was sunning itself on a sloping wall by the canal:


Ducklings (because Ducklings=cuuuuute):


The Crossrail tunnel opening at Royal Oak now that a lot of the conveyor belts etc. have been removed:


Swans grooming:


Oolite on a portrait-orientated monitor, showing some of the rather nice graphics of the current version:

The nose of the ship looks a bit low-res because it's never usually visible on a landscape-orientated monitor, only in external views of the ship.


And (behind the next cut) a spider I found in my bath this morning:



To give an idea of size, the plughole underneath the plastic tub is 50mm wide - that's the actual opening, not the metal surround! The body is about 30mm long, the legs about 60mm, so splayed out in the bath it was around 100-120mm wide, 4-5"! I caught it and put it out into the front hedge after I'd had my bath.


One problem arose when I was taking this - I discovered that the flash on my camera isn't opening out properly any more, I think that the spring that's supposed to open it has failed. It probably won't be economic to repair it properly, my first thought on a quick fix is to put a pad of plastic "sponge" cut from a sink scourer under the bit that pops up, it ought to be springy enough to work. Unless someone can point me at a repair service for compact cameras that isn't ludicrously expensive? Bear in mind I got this for £30 second hand!

Later - I've uploaded a full sized copy of the Crossrail picture to Wikimedia Commons
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Royaloaktunnels_01.JPG