Shall we go for a walk?

Beach

Marsh

Kew botanical gardens.

Coastal heathland.

Estuary nature reserve.

And a memorial bench

with a plaque that simply read,

'Wish you were here.'

Ripples

We've had alternate days of fine and foul.

Here's the fine.

And here's the fowl.

The House Captain would like to apologise for the marked

deterioration in the quality of this blog.

The photographer is making a valiant effort to raise the tone

 but the author has been put on warning.

Puns, to quote Dryden are

'the lowest and most grovelling kind of wit'

or as Ambrose Bierce has it,

'a form of wit to which wise men stoop and fools aspire.'

Little Boy Blue

Little Boy Blue,

Come blow on your horn,

The sheep's in the meadow

The cow's in the corn.

Where's the boy

Who looks after the sheep?

He's under a haystack

Fast asleep.

Will you wake him?

No not I,

For if I do

He'll be sure to cry.

I'm brushing up my nursery rhyme repertoire.

You never know when you're going to need a diversionary ditty

with a little one about the house.

But I may have to rewrite this.

We've got quite used to

The ponies on the footpath eating bracken -

 but 

The cow's* in deep woodland eating ivy?

Where is Little Boy Blue when you need him?

*These are British White cattle, 

one of the oldest breeds of cattle in Britain 

with direct links to the ancient indigenous wild white cattle.

They thrive on poor pasture, rough vegetation and heathland

and have been brought in to help manage a coastal nature reserve.

Birding

I'm not a great fan of sitting still in dark bird hides -

they tend to be colder than the outside,

and often devoid of bird sightings, apart from coots.

There are always coots.

But sometimes they offer shelter from a stiff breeze

and a knowledgeable birder who was kind enough to explain

 the wonderful extraordinary sight of the flocks of birds 

wheeling, blending and separating

overhead when we emerged together.

He told us that they were lapwings and golden plovers

and that they were taking evasive action because a pair of 

peregrine falcons were trying to get above them so that they could

stoop in pursuit of their prey.

We don't know if they succeeded, but the birdwatchers were happy.

'That's a big tick,' said one satisfied couple.

I scored 25 points in my

I-Spy Book of Birds.

Things to do on the beach in October

Gallop.

Make a dog happy

by throwing pebbles for him to chase.

Bird watch.

Wish you could say you'd seen a Bar-tailed Godwit.

Find and pocket a useful Duralex tumbler.

Seek shells.

Marvel at the tenacity of Marram grass.

Watch the river flow into the sea.

Wonder what these razor shell initials stand for.

Find industrial archaeology.

Find beauty in debris

but wish there wasn't so much of it.

Admire the geology but stay away from the foot of the cliffs

because you've seen the rock fall without warning.

Stand and stare.

Wait for the sun to break through.

Stay as long as possible.

Watch the beach empty.