Category: non human animals
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Greylag and Bewicks over the Severn
I’m so very grateful to be living so close to the river Severn, with all the sights she offers. Brown and fearsomely tidal, she is home to so many creatures. Here are a couple of shots from a walk the other day. The ancestor of most domestic geese, the greylag is the largest and bulkiest […]
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Water Rail
Water Rails are shy birds, and I was delighted to see one emerge from the reedbeds and cautiously dig around for breakfast… Not the first time of seeing for me, but this time it came right out and had a swim in the very flooded wetlands around Slimbridge WWT. It looks very diffferent in swim […]
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Winter arrives
The summer seemed unending, and it felt almost inconceivable that we might slip back into winter, but the planet’s tilt will not be ignored no matter how much carbon we throw into the air. Winter is here. I woke to -6ºC this morning, and a bright crisp frost under the bluest sky. The village lay […]
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The Royal Family
Another lovely day, filled with sunny walks on dappled tow-paths and pubs with pies and pints a-plenty. And Kingfishers! I’ve done a page of kingfishers before but one is never enough to capture the irridescence of these marvellous predators. And this time I’ve got both the male and the female. I’m particularly pleased with the […]
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Living with madness
A provocative title – and possibly a trigger phrase for some, for which I apologise – but that’s what we seem to be doing in the UK. Ruled by an elite which is so totally disconnected with those it presumes to govern that it doesn’t even try to cover up the ridiculous, aberrant, contradictory and […]
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Chicken-napping!
You never know how the day is going to turn out. In between showers, Miss and I take the opportunity to go for a walk around the village, as you do. Less than quarter of a mile into the walk we smile a “good afternoon” at a lady coming towards us (we still smile and […]
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Chicken (on the) Run
Ok, so at this time of year there’s not a lot to harvest from the fruit bed, a few mostly green strawberries and the odd raspberry hanging on into autumn… but somehow the girls found opportunity to have a go. Must keep that gate closed, eh.
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The Cave of Wonder
I don’t know who was the more surprised, me or the mouse. Can you imagine how he felt, finding himself in such largess? I would never have imagined he could get in… the feed bin is a normal plastic bin, the lid of which is kept on except for when we’re actually refilling the chicken […]
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Development Opportunity
Or demolition opportunity, really. After nearly ten years of mostly immobile service, the mobile chicken coop has given up the ghost. It was expected. And earlier today while pulling up stinging nettles I attempted to lower the undercarriage and wheel the coop out of the way… and the base collapsed. So, it stays where it […]
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Killing Cock Robin
Back in 2004, at about this time of year, there was a small killing spree at a garden centre down the road from me that even made national news. In creating a new and fancier eatery in a refurbished outlet, Wyevale decided the rather friendly robins, who had taken to sharing the crumbs that were […]