Spring Adventures

In the time since I last wrote here spring has arrived and I’ve been so immersed in it that I’ve neglected to share. Shame on me! From turning part of our tiny back garden into a vegetable patch, hedge planting in Hampshire, discovering a Neolithic Giant on a chalky hill and Osprey spotting in the Lake District I have a huge backlog of stories to tell… plus I’m off to Scotland again next week for another adventure. My itchy feet are giving me plenty to do and no time in which to record what I have seen. I love the busyness of spring, but capturing it is one task too many.

The gradual unfurling of blossom, then green, the release of delicious new scents into the air, the reappearance of old migratory friends (we were lucky enough to be there when the Swallows returned to Derwentwater) has felt like celebration after our unusually hard winter here. On the banks of the Thames, the dainty yet screechily foul mouthed Black headed Gulls have regained their smart summer plumage. A few weeks ago when I took the pictures below some were still growing in the handsome chocolate brown head feathers for which they are named, now all sport their fine new plumage as they squabble and wheel.

Crammed into an unpromising corner of  our garden a small, self seeded plum tree has sprung up from a plum pit fallen from our neighbours tree; a week ago this little wild fruit tree was covered in delicate pure white blossom. Dandelions spring up in cheerful clumps wherever we turned the earth for planting, leaving me regretful at having to grub up their rubbery carrot like roots.

Sunflower seedlings bravely defy the slugs and snails, and in the rotton ash tree wood pigeons have settled into lazy displays of affection after the comical territorial disputes of early spring. I’ve been wandering the countryside, but spring in a small London garden is as beautiful and full of potential as anywhere I’ve been.

Related posts:

Stale oatcakes and black headed gulls

A couple of weekends ago I went to visit friends on the south coast; on our last day we made up a picnic and headed for Studland bay. We only had a couple of hours and the weather turned a little stormy. However, I’ve always loved the bleakness of a stormy beach and before the rain got too bad we discovered that stale oatcakes are considered a delicacy by black headed gulls.

These small, dainty gulls are beautiful flyers and it diddn’t take long before we had several competing to snatch oatcakes out of the air. I wouldn’t even consider feeding a larger or more aggressive gull such as the herring gull; these birds can become a nuisance in holiday areas where they will attack tourists for their food. This shyer, smaller bird is wary of humans however and we felt quite safe sharing our food with them. It also meant an opportunity to photograph them in flight and close up. Their flight is fast, spectacular and unpredictable; the vast majority of photos from that day show blurred, empty air.

Related posts: