Mill Piece market garden

My local organic gardening group made a visit to a nearby small market garden. After punishingly hot weather last week, today was cool, overcast, and with very murky light.

 

Peregrine tower, Leamington Spa

Above the Town Hall is a bell tower. Inside the horseshoe arches is a large open space that, for several years, has been used by a pair of peregrine falcons for nesting and rearing young. This year's four juveniles are now well grown and will fledge any day. A watch party has formed, to catch the moments of fledging, and I joined them for a couple of hours this morning. We were still waiting when I left!

The tower . . . with birds at some distance: it's a very high tower! Adults are on the ledges at the bottom of the dome. The juveniles are hunkered in front of the balustrade, in the greenery on the right.

Highlighted here, the father on the left, the mother on the right:

Both are keeping watch over their chicks. A red kite flew into "their air space" and the mother flew like an arrow from her perch, screeching loudly, and chased it off . . . watched by the juveniles from below.

Father on the left of the dome.

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Mother on the right of the dome.

Juveniles below on the ledge in front of the balustrade. Only one standing up, two just visible hunkered down, the fourth behind the stone lip, not visible from this angle

Snowshill Manor (4): Cotswold stone in monochrome

And one that isn't stone - a large verdigris covered copper water container:

 

Snowshill Manor (3): dovecote, birds, flowers

 

Snowshill Manor (2): stone, tile, planting

 

Snowshill Manor (1): gates, doors and passages

An outing with my U3A photography group on a day that was really too bright, sunny and glaring for good photography light; to Snowshill Manor (National Trust).

Early morning woodland walk

Spring half term is 'Nature Week' in my town, this year a week later than usual because of the monarch's platinum jubilee celebrations. One of the activities was a guided early morning birdsong walk in the woods at the end of my road. The woods are beautiful at 6am on a sunny morning (not my usual time for being up and about!), the birdsong was delightful and the light conditions in low, bright sun were - shall we say - challenging for taking photographs on the move with a group!