I am visiting Barton Fields for a picture report every month this year.

It was another bright sunny day. There have been many such days since the Lockdown began. The fine weather encourages us to enjoy nature.

During the lockdown there are more people than usual visiting the area as part of their exercise allowance.

The Thames Path leaves Barton Fields by a wooden bridge before meandering round a fishing lake towards the River Thames. More people than usual seem to be smiling or saying hello as we pass at a distance. Somebody said recently that it could best described as ‘physical distancing’ rather than ‘social distancing’.

There are smaller paths that go through Barton Fields allowing more ways to avoid other people physically.

Today was St George’s Day. England’s National Flower is the rose and the path passes close to these rose like flowers – possibly apples.

There are Hawthorn Bushes / May Trees seen here next to last year’s hay.

Cutting the meadow with scythes, and piling tbe hay, encourages wild flowers to take hold. There are many Cowslips growing among the short April grass.

There are many other wildflowers dotted about. I think these are bugles.

Tony says ‘Ten years ago in April you could find butterburs all along the Thames from Abingdon lock to the first gate. Today, with extended mooring and I suppose more walkers, there are just a few clumps of them. These wonderful pink flowers appear before the leaves which can be quite big and downy.’

We saw these two grebes bringing twigs and making a nest in a place not very far from a road, and on the other side of a hedge and fence. They got vocal and agitated when a cycle passed by their chosen spot. It was not as secluded as it could have been.

The black headed gulls wheel and swoop for crumbs of bread thrown in their path by humans. It is like feeding time at the zoo at St Helen’s Wharf when it happens – which is less often during the lockdown.

This butterfly had settled near the River Ock on a nettle. Nettles are young and fresh at the moment. Butterflies normally flit away long before I get near with the camera. The information board at the start of the Ock Valley Walk has a picture of a Red Admiral, but this one looks like a Tortoiseshell. Somebody might know.

This is the view we have of St Helen’s Church from our back garden. The view will change and the steeple be mostly hidden as the leaves grow back.

Yesterday we walked near Barton Fields and so I have some pictures of the green leaves reappearing in the nature reserve in March. The ground is drying out and green reeds are growing out from the ponds and marshy areas.
The Abingdon Naturalists bring a sample of the pond life for the Abingdon Science Market on the Market Place, which could not happen this year.

A lot of the trees and bushes have their early leaves. This is the view where Barton Fields is bordered by the Sustrans cycle path.

These are a few of the many millions of leaves appearing out from buds.

The butterflies and birds were too far away to get a clear picture, but I did get close enough to these two insects.