flock shock

I am not sure whether this was a flock of starlings or skylarks, they look too small for starlings but what else flocks in these numbers? Skylarks around here tend to gather together on the ground. This lot squeak excitedly as they fly. Looking at an earlier photo of starlings (2001, see below) I think it must be a flock of starlings.

poseur

posing for posterity, this male chaffinch is displaying his Spring best against the gold euonymous

today's pheasant

keeping very still on the principle that if I can't see you, you can't see me

same as last year

same place, same snowdrop but it is so pretty it deserves another page.

drying off

after a refreshing dip there's nothing quite like a good shake of the feathers with one's mates. Three starlings at the bath house.

bird watch afternoon

it has been a busy afternoon with flocks of starlings, wood pigeons, collared doves, sparrows, blue tits, great tits, dunnocks, chaffinches, a cock pheasant, robins, blackbirds, rooks, jackdaws and this shy little coal tit.

puzzle tree

this is an image from the tangled woods, it is not quite what it seems.

stonechat

a stonechat (?) singing away, probably come down from Kit Hill for the winter. The warbling is very liquid and melodic.

Primrose

as my reference book says, the first primroses start to bloom in March ...., this looks like the bird's eye primrose, doomed to "die unmarried"

Tavistock

the road up to Kit Hill, with Tavistock and the gaunt hills of Dartmoor in the background, bathed in the rose pink evening light.

two sisters

drawing by Andreina Bertelli, and Hope by Alba Chapman












Hope

Here I am
at the end of the line

as I close the door
to the present
that is already past

I glance
at the future
that is today

and I wait
for Hope to come

Dunterton Church

This church tower sits on the hill in splendid isolation. I think it is near Dunterton (try the link on the title), on the way into Milton Abbot in Devon, but it is hard to be sure from the Cornish side of the Tamar.

Carthamartha

this is an ancient earthwork in Carthamartha woods in the bend of the Tamar where the Tamar and the Inny converge. It is very distinctive. Oil drum in foreground. I am not sure how Carthamartha came by its unusual name but the link goes to a site with a mine of useful information about Cornwall.

Uncle Max

Uncle Max is pleased to have found some snowdrops by the Tamar that have survived the recent flooding. We haven't been out much lately and it has been either very dull or very stormy.

aliens left behind

but it appears that some of the UFO's crew were left behind. Please take them back!

back to normality

the UFO has disappeared, one can understand why. This is the view from the bridge today.

UFO over Pensilva

a strange yellow object has appeared in the sky, low on the horizon. It has made no effort to contact us yet but we can feel the heat from its fusion engine. It casts so strong a light it is possible to take photographs without a flash light. What is it? Who should we inform? Should we be panic buying at Tescos? Has anyone else seen it?

ovine thoughts

There are lambs everywhere. Out of season, is this right? Down by the Inny, on a very mild day.

sunset over Stoke

this evening the sunset was full of opalescent colour