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.