Still work to do

The Safari was out early this morning to do our first Winter Thrushes survey of the season. The weather was kind, in fact we were totally over dressed, we could have gone out in just a t-shirt it was that mild and still. Really it was too mild for winter thrushes to be in abundance. We counted 44 Blackbirds but just one each of Redwing and Song Thrush. Little else was to be found apart from a plethora of Robins ticking away from almost every bush. There were quite a few Goldcrests too, we should have noted them down really, at least six on our walk. Three Grey Squirrels weren't the only mammals there seemed to be a lot more cats out than we normally see, perhaps it was just early enough to be out before most of the dog walkers which might frighten the cats back indoors...just a theory - that's a 'literary' theory rather than a scientific theory. One of the cats was lying in the grass towards the middle of the field in front of us and was ever so still at first glance, on closer inspection it was no wonder it was stone dead..had  a collar on so wasn't a stray and the only injury we could see was a small amount of blood near its mouth.

One of our few streams was blocked and a cursory glance might suggest we have Beavers in the vicinity, Beavers however would have made a much neater job than the local scrotes.

Back at Base Camp we gave the macro lens a few minutes with a couple of Scarlet Pimpernel flowers when the sun threatened to break through.

Individual pollen grains

Still not got it quite right, one more minor adjustment to make to see if that improves the images any.

The rest of the afternoon was spent at the footie...jeez 'pool are hard to watch, we've eaten most of the the inside of our mouth and the dentists bills for a new set of back teeth as the originals have been ground out of existance!

Two penalties, a bizarre bobbling ground shot that everyone in the ground players, stewards and crowd watched bobbled through the crowded penalty area into the bottom corner. A massive punch- -up followed by a sending off for each team which resulted in too much space and doooohhhhhh a late own goal for an equaliser - 2 points thrown away!!! Midfield - was there one? Defence - scary; Goalie was good!

Where to next? Not sure yet might be weather and Wifey dependent if we get out or not, the nature reserve could be on the cards.

In the meantime let us know who equalised late in your outback