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.
I am visiting Barton Fields for a picture report every month this year.
The blue sky shows some vapour trails – more than previous weeks. There was also a lot of white cottony stuff blowing around in the air – tree seeds.
May has been mostly sunny and today was ‘the hottest day of the year so far‘ – according to Radio 4. The pools and marshy areas in Barton Fields are drying out.
There were lots of Common blue damselflies flitting about around the meadow.
The 20th May has been declared as World Bee Day and this acrobatic bee can be seen sucking the nectar from a Comfrey flower.
The Woody nightshade (or Bittersweet nightshade) is easy to identify. The purple and yellow flowers turn to poisonous red berries. They are fairly common but they look dangerous and are apparently very bitter, and so poison very few people.
There are areas covered with nettles, and on this particular nettle is an iridescent damselfly.
Wild flowers are appearing in masses in some places, such as Oxeye daisies,
Ragged robin and Buttercups.
Other flowers are more solitary such as this orchid.
There have been more people out walking and exploring nature, during the lockdown, and the pathways across the meadows have probably become more marked than they would be in an average year. We did cause a Pheasant to fly out in alarm.
I saw another photographer waiting patiently for damselflies and dragonflies by one wetland area. I enjoy seeing pictures from Barton Fields and elsewhere on other blogs, twitter feeds, and facebook. How things have moved on since the days we posted a film of 24 or 36 shots to Tru Print or took it in to Jessops to get it processed and printed.
Yesterday I put up a video from Boxhill Wood. Today we were in the other nature area looked after by Abingdon-on-Thames Town Council -The Ock Valley Walk. There was a mixture of sun and shade as we walked between the two streams.
Below the weir a group of geese were paddling in the sparkling water.
We saw Martin Wackenier – Devine Times Photography and said hello from a Social Distance. Martin has been taking pictures every day on his exercise walk during the lockdown. With his sharp eye and lens he sees and identifies lots of birds and insects. First time we have seen him out.
It is a good time to learn to identify birds but not easy to get decent pictures.
Blackbirds and Robins are not that difficult to photograph but other birds like wrens are more elusive to the camera lens..
The other issue is identification. This bird is a wagtail and not pied. Both the grey and yellow wagtail can have yellow underneath. Most likely it is a Grey Wagtail, even though it does not look that grey. It is near flowing water and Greys are more common.
Further along by the other weir was a heron.
There used to be a blog about wildlife by the Ock. It has moved to be a more occasional twitter feed these days.