I Had A Sort Of Busy Day,

firstly telephoning electricians,

we are going to replace out old fuse wire fuse box with a modern safty trip unit,

not that there is anything wrong with it, but,

we are going to have a new door fitted which will be fire certificated, the problem being the door will need a top closer on it, and where it will be fitted in the arch of the doorway is plaster board, so that will have to be replaced, which means the fuse box will have to be removed, so we are going to replace it and position it above the door,

moving on thanks to Julia at the Beckenham Photographic Society, the mystery bird I photographed a couple of days ago has a tentative identification, it is believed to be a rare visitor to the UK. It is a Pomeranian or Pommern duck, (Anas platyrhynchos domesticus), it is a breed of domesticated duck, it is a landrace originating in the German part of the Baltic Sea coast region called Pomerania, apparently there are only a few breeders in Switzerland and Germany who purposefully take on this breed, which begs the question, how did one arrive here in the UK? I did find this on the Internet here:

“The breed's inclusion in international registries further marked its recognition, such as in the Australian Poultry Standards (2nd edition) published in 2011 by the Victorian Poultry Fanciers Association, which provided detailed exhibition criteria for both blue and black varieties. Additionally, it appears on European rare breed conservation lists, including Germany's Rote Liste of endangered domestic animal breeds (2025 ed., assessed 2023), highlighting its preservation value".

"the Pomeranian duck is classified as endangered, falling under category III (endangered) on Germany's Red List of endangered livestock breeds. Limited breeding occurs primarily in Germany and Switzerland, where dedicated conservation-oriented farms maintain the majority of purebred flocks. As of 2016, registration numbers in Germany recorded 213 males and 452 females, alongside similarly small figures in Switzerland. Latest available data indicate ongoing low numbers, with no recent global surveys reported".

only my second day out of bird spotting and I found what appears to be quite a rare bird, how neat is that? Moving on I decided to try some different papers for my photographic prints, the company I choose was PermaJet, some of the other club members use this companies papers, the three papers I am going to try are Matt Plus 240, Photo Lustre 310 and Titanium Lustre 280, the papers have arrived and I have made up a test sheet below,

I have use 4 photographs which I have printed before, so I have a standard to compare the new papers to,

I have rotated the test sheet 90°, now it was time for my evening meal,

first a read, the latest Private Eye had just arrived,

 

'Cheers!', with a glass of milk as I am driving to the photographic club meeting tonight and afterwards picking up Diana from work, for tonight a crayfish tail salad with new potatoes, at the club this evening a professional photographer had brought along his mobile studio, he specialises in food photography, it was I must admit very interesting, apparently the budgets for food photographs are quite high, at the end of the meeting I picked Diana up from work, arriving home it was feet up for a coffee and a chat as we watched a Endeavour, after which Diana was off to bed, for myself a double helping of Bangers & Cash before I too was off to bed.