It’s been one of those quiet pottering days, some of the time spent in the garden but with a brief walk out on the Downs on the way back from taking yet more garden cuttings to the local recycling centre. I’ll start though with a photo from last night. It’s a lone frog in the pond, though a noisy one. We didn’t do well with frogs last year, so I’m not sure whether we’ll get any spawn this time around.
Pretty seems to turn into a shy fox in daylight. She does come by, but today refused to move beyond the back of the garden.
The local recycling centre is about a mile and half from here, just a short drive and to get to it I have to drive past the entrance to Sheepcote Valley. Sheepcote is my favourite kestrel site, but there weren’t any around today. Instead of roaming the valley I headed down one of the footpaths.
It was sunny but cool, and the skylarks were hovering overhead filling the air with their distinctive trilling. They really do make it feel like spring has arrived.
Skylarks are meadow birds and never venture too far from the fields. Goldfinches, however, are tempted to come into gardens and a small group (scarcely enough to call a flock) were flitting in and out during the afternoon. Mainly they hid out of sight in the higher branches, but just briefly they showed enough of themselves to warrant a photo.
Camera note: all photos taken with the Canon 7D and EF 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6L USM IS lens with the exception of the frog which was captured with the EF 100mm f/2.8L macro IS USM lens.
