Odds & Sods 2023

You might be amazed with how little soil a self seeded Holly needs to start ;) tenacious spiky little devils

Germain said:

You might be amazed with how little soil a self seeded Holly needs to start ;) tenacious spiky little devils

I have holly growing among the granite stone edging around the pond, it has been there for about four years, and doing very well. The roots have probably finally reached soil.

Left to its own devices, and without mans destruction, nature can be very inventive when needs must....

I finally managed to get and download the garden trailcams, which surprisingly, didn't have as many videos as I'd expect.

The foxes seem now to be using the garden less, though the bird life is still as prolific.

Here, a couple of videos from one of the two trailcams:

A fox foraging for food in the garden

https://www.flickr.com/photos/peak-rambler/52608586620/in/album-72177720304884911/

A blackbird finding breakie among the leaves in the garden

Had a look at your classic car pictures on Flickr Mike. It takes me back to my youth. I had an MGB GT for a while in my 20's, which looked pretty cool, but was not very fast. So I got an MGB GT V8, which was pretty fast in it's day, but didn't handle very well - a huge steering wheel which was needed to park in small gaps as it had no power steering! I then had an RS 2000 at the time when 'The Professionals' was on television, which of course made it the business ... 

Billysdad said:

Had a look at your classic car pictures on Flickr Mike. It takes me back to my youth. I had an MGB GT for a while in my 20's, which looked pretty cool, but was not very fast. So I got an MGB GT V8, which was pretty fast in it's day, but didn't handle very well - a huge steering wheel which was needed to park in small gaps as it had no power steering! I then had an RS 2000 at the time when 'The Professionals' was on television, which of course made it the business ... 

I've worked on a good few MGB's, and the Midgets, and I loved the throaty exhaust note the 1798cc engine produced.

The 3528cc V8 was some motor for a car of that size, though I never did like the thick Marley foam bumpers, that were only required for the US markets. As for the handling, that is because it was really a track design, rather than twist road design, if that makes sense.

I'll not go too far off topic, but just to say there are some more oldies (cars that is) about to be revealed.

It was actually sunny, this morning. Haven't seen much of the yellow orb in weeks. Nipped down to Manor Farm part of Eversley quarry restoration to see what progress has been made since New Year.

Not much wildlife about. Decided to turn stomp into BIF photography practice. Anything that flew was fair game to be BIFfed.  These Carrion Crows put up a spirited display, having a little territorial tiff - starting roughly 75m from me, then moving to 100m+  Some photos cropped.

Cropping birds out

Two against one

Harassed crow makes a dive for the deck

Quite astonished my camera picked the fast moving birds out from background clutter. Still diving. Now about 90m from me.

The birds were now getting a bit far from me. Shortly after this next photo, they disappeared behind some trees to my left. I was hoping they would swing back toward me.

Similar to Angus, forecast was for a couple of hours sun this morning, followed by wind and rain (and yet another yellow weather warning for both) and the forecast was correct. Off today, so nipped out for a couple of hours

Distant, murky Barn Owl

Lovely Kestrel

Finally a couple of half decent Red Kite shots

And to end lovely Mrs K

Just to warn you, I'm off tomorrow and the forecast is rubbish, but I have a couple of pre-Chrimbo walkabouts to sort through!

Lovely shots PB, especially the Kestrel and jealous of your Red Kite., I have seen one flying low over here but still waiting for a decent shot.

Some lovely shots PB..look forward to your other postings as weather is to be atrocious for rest of the week!