Flyladyphotography By Wendy Cooper

  No Frogs… Second week running I’ve been up to the little pond in the woods and they are still not there.  I am hoping that they are running late – last year the Annual Frog Ball, with reasonable attendance, took place the last week of February, despite the pond having become extremely shallow; currently, after all the rain we have had, it is back to it’s proper levels, with the water clear and dark.   The Frogs on my tiny pond in the garden however have been singing away amidst the remnants of last year’s grasses for the last few weeks. Whilst I stood near the pond in the woods, waiting in case my footsteps had alerted any amorous amphibians to dive amidst the ripples, there was a fierce cold wind whistling past me from across the field outside, I put my hand upon one of the slender tree trunks. The base of the Tree was sturdy and still, yet its’ crown was swaying and flexing in the wind.  Through my hand I could feel the muscles and fibres within vibrating ...

  One of the first things I do when I get my new calendar every year is to add a reminder for the Big Garden Birdwatch; as well as it being a little bit of Citizen Science (which snowballs into LOT of Citizen Science with so many folk across the country taking part) it is also a perfectly reasonable ‘timeout’ to just sit, wrapped up warm and with a big mug of something hot, watch and be entertained by our garden visitors.  The first arrival was one of the Robins, appearing in the remains of an elderly Ceanothus before darting across the garden into the depths of the Bay Tree.    A familiar bubbling chatter was heard and a pair of Long Tailed Tits appeared next to the feeders in the middle recently we have had a pair visit as well as a little family group. Within the ivy along the fence and the branches of the Field Maple, as well as from the depths of the Bay Tree, the local flock of Sparrows could be heard discussing whether to approach the feeders… Graduall...

  Well now that the dust has started to settle on 2019, I had a browse back through my Nature Diary to try to choose my favourite moments….  There were A LOT of moments!  I’m not entirely certain where the year went – it seemed, once again to pass in a flash, however thank heavens for the camera with which I was able to record more than a few magic moments through the year. Those of you who follow and read regularly will know that I will happily take pot luck with what I watch and am definitely not a ‘tick and click’ person; unless I’m at a bird reserve, where I’ll lurk in a hide for a while, pretty much everything watched has been ‘on the hoof’ so to speak, so watching ‘new’ or ‘firsts’ are special moments indeed. I managed to lose the first part of the year due to a nasty bout of lurgy, however towards the end of January I managed to venture, somewhat wonkily out, first on my local patch  where as well as watching the regulars I also spotted one of the elusive ...