July 9th

soldier beetles touch

the cow parsley canopy

meadowsweet dreaming

First time in a long time, many weeks in fact, we walked on the moors. There is a wildness about them, the rain, that nourishing rain has burst the fields and moors aflame with colour. The plants and animals are thriving.

D is good at recognising plants and animals. So I learn a lot from her.

Soldier Beetles on Cow Parsley (although it might be Hedge Parsley, she’s fairly sure it’s of the cow variety). Solider Beetles are notoriously frisky, always getting it on with each other, although these lot are fairly sedate.

Meadowsweet. With it’s unusual smell. Kind of like vanilla, but not like vanilla at all. It’s a smell of it’s own. It hogs the sides of the river and its tributaries.

A pretty pink poppy, growing in the rape seed field. The yellow flowers of the rape are long gone, leaving the little pods containing the seeds from which the rape seed oil will be made. In this case it will contain a teeny bit of poppy too…

April 26th

 

Golden revival

synchronised bows, gentle waves

a tranquil sea swells

Haven’t been for a walk in the moors for a while due to the rain, so when there was a spot of calm we went for it. The rape had really grown! Some pics I took.

Can you see the nest in the middle tree in the photo above?

April 13th

 

Stormcocks drive away

the would be thief, their proud chests

puffed out and burly

 

Two haiku’s today. And some photographs from our lovely walk in the moors. The first one is about a pair of Mistle Thrushes who we witnessed chase off a magpie. I don’t think they would have built a nest yet, perhaps they were just defending the tree they’d decided to root in. Stormcock is an old English name for them. Quite an evocative one too as it honours their behaviour, singing from a high vantage point, even in the worst weather, almost in defiance or celebration of it. They seem fearless and fearsome birds. Unafraid to wade in. And they way they present themselves, chests out, head high, confident, noisy and musical. I’d never seen one before, so was quite exciting for me.

 

Silhouetted crow

black feathers consume the sun

dying in embers

 

The second Haiku relates to the following photo I took. About crows again, I keep going on about them. “Why don’t you marry one?” I hear you shout. It was just a lucky shot. but I’m very proud of it.

We also saw a skylark at ground level, I’d only ever seen them high up, singing their little hearts out. It disappeared into a field of rape. It sung, sung and kept singing all the way down, till it landed. Then it shut up. It landed in the vicinity of this patch!

A sunset pic

A puffball(?) on the trunk of a dead silver birch.

Finally, a pretty little long-tailed tit, whispering away with its mates in this hawthorn blossom. It sat long enough for me to zoom right in on him.