In search of a Kingfisher photo

This morning I read an article by Simon Barnes
in the BBC WIldlife magazine contrasting the
soap-opera-action-packed wildlife documentaries
(which I, as you know, adore) with the mundane reality
of humdrum-but-delighting-in-living-in-the-moment
nature of real wildlife encounters.
Visiting Slimbridge today, trying to catch a kingfisher
on camera, kind of proved the point. I waited, and
waited and waited for the kingfishers to appear.
They nest in a hole opposite a hide at Slimbridge
every year, so sooner or later they must show up.
In the meanwhile I started clicking at other
wildlife on show.
A chaffinch, sunning itself, stayed obligingly still.

A cuddly wabbit.

Ooh! That's a bit more exciting.
...a great spotted woodpecker!






Still waiting.

Meanwhile here's some abstract photos
I took back in December but didn't get around
to blogging at the time.
Black-headed gulls (winter plumage)
swirling









A goose goesssssssss byyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy

Flamin goes feeding








So. What about this kingfisher then? Well, distracted
by birds, squirrels and rabbits hopping around at the
side of the hide I could almost of missed the show when
male and female both turned up and perched outside
their nest hole....

How's that for a first effort?

A bit blurred, true. But a worthy effort which
I challenge myself to better next attempt.
But for now: mission accomplished!

Stinchcombe Hill to Wotton.....and a bit beyond

With the golfers (d'you see one here yet?)
I make an early start. Parking on Stinchcombe Hill
I follow the Cotswold Way across cowslipped grass
then down through the wood on the hill edge.

From hill to vale, still following the Cotswold Way

The hill in the distance is good ol' Nibley Hill.
The smaller hill to the right, topped with Nibley
Green church is (apparently) where one of the
last "private" battles on English soil occured in
March 1470. The issue was who held the feudal
rights to Wotton. Ho hum!

I approach North Nibley, hill and monument climb in
propect

Spiraling upwards...

Day light! I'm nearly there!

So here I am. Atop the Tyndale monument.

..a look down..

...looking ahead to my next destination....

A look back towards Stinchcombe Hill and the
route I took thus far (across the ploughed field,
following the hedgeline down to the bottom left
of the picture, and passing through Nibley)

On a clearer day you can see the Severn bridges,
with welsh Wales and its Black Mountains....

The Severn bridge is 12 miles off
to the left of this next view....
but how far to the Leaning Tower of
Pisa!!?

Moving on, I found a huge cowslip!

A Bluebell

bluebells...

blue bells..

..a bees eye view...

Wild garlic in flower, and scent (!)

A speckled wood butterfly appeared to distract me,
but was less of a photo challenge than
it could have been....

but did not long distract me from the floral theme
....Wild Strawberry in flower.

Descending from Nibley Hill, through Conygre Wood,
I reached Wotton, browsed in the secondhand
bookshop in passing (as you do) then carried on out
across the fields for Tor Hill. ( A backwards look to
the town)

I rejoined the Cotswold Way once back on the Tor Hill
and began my return route.

In view here are both the Tyndale monument,
and Wotton Hill with its little stand of pine trees,
a good place for a good view at lunchtime I thought.

I reached my (self-) designated lunch stop at last!
At 2 p.m, a little later than planned!

So, lunch with views of places visited on my way through
Wotton and on the hills beyond.


Replenished, I continued my return route across
Nibley hill, enjoying more displays of wild garlic
and bluebell below trees becoming more leafy
by the minute, it seemed.

In the valley between Nibley and Stinchcombe Hills
the banks of the quiet lanes are thick with flowers...
Stitchwort (and art and evermore shalt be)

Celendine, I think

Some speedwell

and I heard my first cuckoo for this year, to boot.
Just in the nick of time too! (as the saying goes:
"In April I open my bill....")

Back up onto Stinchcombe Hill and one last look
back whence I have come

and then back home.

The joys of spring in westonbirt

Spring is springing, buds are bursting..

In the hedges, hawthorn seems less thorny covered
in white baubles...

that burst out green-ness


and the blackthorn winter is a welcome one...
a farewell to the "holly and ivy winter"


Meanwhile, down in Westonbirt arboretum more
delicate blooms abound....



Not a late frost but carpetting drifts of wood anenome..

blooms of pink, blooms of blue











Some yellow even.....

What is more.....I saw my first swallow
(although only poetic licence would say it
was today, neat though that truth would be
to my blog!)...on Thursday evening. one more
of them and it must be summer!