"Odds & Sods" (old version) - please add to the new thread 2020 instead !

These photos were taken on one frosty morning in early May. Although our weather has be barmier that usual, a frost in May (as many a gardener knows to their cost) is not too unusual.

All photos taken with my bridge camera. Hence a bit fuzzy, especially due to the early morning light conditions and mist.

There were two Greylag geese (hope I've identified them correctly) on 'lower lake' on the nascent Fleet Hill farm reserve. I saw them quite a few times over the following weeks.

This Great Crested Grebe was on its lonesome in said lake. In all the months I saw it on the lake, it was always on its own. It got quite used to people, due to them walking their dogs or riding their horses along the bridle path, newly created by Cemex, that bordered the lake.

The resident Little Grebe remained steadfastly wary of humans.

Hopping over the Longwater road to the nascent Manor farm reserve, I was dead surprised to see so many Egyptian geese. Normally I saw a maximum of three. On this particular day there were at least a dozen or more.

This photo gives an idea of how much water was pumped out of Finch pond to aid restoration efforts. Water levels are even lower as said pump is still chugging away.

The shoreline in the upper half of this photo marks where the bulldozer had got to in May. The original shoreline is about 40 yards away in the direction of the tree line. The treeline marks the course of the river Blackwater and footpath. There is about 40 yards of scrubby grass between it and the original shore of Finch pond.

This new shoreline has been further extended into Finch pond since this photo was taken.

I'm not entirely sure where in Finch pond these Egyptian geese are. However, I suspect that the area has been filled in and is now dry land well clear of the water. There are large flotillas of Tufted duck. Strangely they form two groups, swimming round the lakes like two armadas, never quite merging, but never far away from each other.

They flew over to join their pals sunning themselves on the west shore of Finch pond

Love those misty shots Angus, especially the one of the 5 Egyptian geese, very atmospheric.    Water levels everywhere are drastically reducing due to lack of rainfall and expecting water restriction to come in any day.

Here's a few pics from my garden yesterday and day before ….    staring with a Peacock butterfly that was spending a lot of time on the damp waterfall rocks

a trusting female blackbird who looks pleadingly towards me for some live mealworms ! 

of course I duly obliged …..

small white  ?

bumblebee -  buff-tailed ? 

Green-veined white on the Erysimum 

Flesh fly ?  on the lily pad 

G.S. Woodpecker (m)  

female blackbird doing a lovely wing and tail stretch drying off after a bathing session 

Earl the crow strutting his stuff 

Not yet half way through July, yet I find a whole load of ripe Blackberries along the Blackwater! It was a reasonable sized patch as well. I was surprised. The odd early vine maybe, but a whole section of the Blackwater?  Bodes well for animal life, provided this hot weather that caused the early ripening allows some rain in.

Decisions, decisions, do I go Blackberry picking this Saturday?  It's is 'supposed' to rain tomorrow, with the odd bit of thunder and lightning. Perhaps I should leave it until next week for more of the Blackberries to ripen.

I made Blackberry jam three weeks ago from what we had frozen from last year's glut. That's 12 jars last autumn, and 8 jars three weeks ago. With a further six jars of Black current jam from our sole Black current bush. I managed to harvest them this year before the birds got them.

Willow Warbler. I suspect a youngster due to the colouring and hint of a yellow gape. It’s not been slow in learning to hunt though.!!

Return of a rare visitor to our garden today - a pretty collared dove

I popped over to Manor farm, yesterday lunchtime, for my mid-week look see on progress. A lot has been done. On my way back to my car I was treated to a short, sedate flying display. However, before yesterday's display, here's one from last September.

These Lapwing would often fly about like this. I snapped these over Manor farm, near the pump station, as they wheeled overhead for some minutes. They're all busily breeding now. I hear them every time I pop down. They should start congregating again quite soon.

I still get excited when I see them.

Now a different sort of flying creature. These fellas fly over my house occasionally. I snapped these when I was standing quite close to the Longwater road sewage works.

They were very sedate. The Lapwings flew faster than them. Like the Lapwing, they wheeled over Manor farm for several minutes (actually over the pump station), executing three circles and then flew off east very serenely.

My WWI aircraft recognition is even dodgier than my bird recognition. There were two Fokker Triplane (easy as its got three wings), and possibly an SE5. Cropping out the aircraft.

You occasionally see a DC3, with D-Day markings, making its way to some airshow or other. Very occasionally, the odd Spitfire or P-51 will zoom over.

Unknown said:

I find that my Heath Robinson bird feeder is helping to keep Blackbirds alive this summer. The soil in our garden is rock solid, while any sensible worm is deep underground. The Blackbirds are often seen thus, consuming lots of seeds. I haven't seen them pull a worm for sometime, and they rarely forage in the mess of dead leaves in my borders.

An improvised bird feeing station, which the birds are improvising how they access it.   ;)

A few photos from todays  wander around Baddesley Clinton, primarily to photo swallows, which can be seen on the Family of Swallows post: