We went for a quiet walk this evening in Abingdon and saw some swans and cygnets.

A little further along were some ducklings with mum and dad not in sight.

A cygnet became the hero of the Hans Christian Andersen fairy story Ugly Duckling. It was seen by the other birds and animals on the farm as an ugly little creature and suffered abuse as a result.

Then at the end of the story the duckling is shocked when the beautiful swans welcome and accept him, only to realize by looking at his reflection in the water that he had been, not a duckling, but a swan all this time.

Reading the Abingdon Taxi driver’s column in the Abingdon Herald this week, cygnets have suffered at the hands of humans who took pot shots at them with air guns.

The ducklings will eventually find their dad and mum. Dad has started to moult and loose his fine colours.

Barton Fields, cared for by the Abingdon Naturalists, has lots of flowers during June – particularly on the side near the cycle path.

There was a light rain today as we walked round, and meandered a little. The weather has cooled since the blue skies of April and May.

Bramble flowers are a good food source for honey bees and bumble bees.

There is one area in particular where the soil has been prepared for wild flowers and where the colours are vibrant.

Elsewhere wild flowers grow in the grass.

There are so many different sorts of grasses and other plants.

In among the ground cover and hidden by the bushes are butterflies and birds. Some birds can be heard but not seen. Then occasionally you are rewarded with a clear view of a bird – in this case a pheasant.

One thing has been puzzling us on our lockdown walks. Why have we not seen any ducklings on the River Ock and the millstream

Somebody tonight told us that in the last two years mink have become so rife that they are eating the ducklings, and the young of other native species.

Flying must be easy when you are a bird. You just open your wings

and glide.

Bees need to buzz a lot more.

They also need frequent nectar stops.

The birds were seen by the Millstream in Abingdon.

The bees were in Old Abbey House gardens this evening. This was part of a walk after work.

Riding back from work at about 3:30pm I saw a long queue at the Drayton Recycling Centre. They are using the golf area next door to queue cars rather than the main road. The process is slower as only half the bays are in use for social distancing reasons. There is also a big demand for the dump after the shutdown for a couple of months.