The joys of early morning

As the year progresses the sun moves back around Hadrian's Wall.

A quick check of the Metcheck site tells me that I have promising conditions for a sunrise shot.

For a change when the alarm goes off and I look outside I discover the forecast was right, so often weather conditions change by the hour, and I'm up and ready to go, keen to get back into the swing of early mornings.

I'd got my timing wrong, should have been up and out a good 15 minutes earlier, and then I was delayed having to defrost the car, but eventually I was underway.

As I was short of time I headed to Caw Gap, from parking the car I can get into place within 15 minutes, so it's a good standby viewpoint for me when time is short.

View towards Winshields Crag

The sky was a beautiful rich red as I parked the car but again these things change quickly, it had faded to a more gentle hue by the time I got everything up and ready.

I took a few photographs, the view here has a great lead-in line of Hadrian's Wall and then follows the line of the Wall as it climbs up to the highest point at Winshields Crag, if my sun position website was correct the sun should be coming up right in front of me.

I stood by the Wall listening to the world come awake, the dawn chorus seems to happen about an hour before dawn as the darkness fades, but the evocative call of the curlew, and the raucous call of the pheasant, helped me remember why it is that I love this time of day so much.

Even the putting of the shepherd's quad bike, as he checked his flock for overnight arrivals, seemed to fit in to the gentle pace of a day waking up.

Pippets and rooks fly before me, too fast to be captured on camera, lambs called and ewe's answered, I take a big deep breath of our fresh Northumbrian air and know what it is to be content with your lot.

Sunrises over Caw Gap

Eventually the sun comes up over the hill and I capture the scene and maybe I have taken the same sort of shot many times before, but I just love this time of day and photography is a great excuse to be out there.

View west from Cawfields to Walltown

It didn't take long for the sun to rise and get too bright for my camera, I wasn't quite ready to go back home so I took the long way back past Gibbs Hill where I could see mist rising from Greenlee Lough.

Road to Gibbs Hill and Greenlee Lough

I'd like to photograph the Lough there properly on sunrise but it's a difficult place to park and one of the landowners gets really ratty if you park on the side of the track.
On this occasion I pulled over took the photograph and then turned back the way I'd come, heading down to Steel Rigg for another quick picture before finally taking the road home for breakfast.

Steel Rigg

Catch you later.