A Marston Moretaine Walk

Yesterday I needed exercise, and the Marston Vale Forest seemed a good place to walk in sunshine and fresh air, away from contact with other humans. I took only my LUMIX fz20001 and walked along the main road to the gated entrance on the opposite side to the row of houses — encountering no one! Once through the gate, I had walked to the first viewing platform of the wetland area before I met a soul, and these were a couple in quiet conversation, who probably did not even register my presence. I climbed the steps to take in the view from this open air hide — all that was to be seen were some rooks and a lone Greylag.
The flowers in the opening and closing galleries were taken in the walk to and from the Forest Centre. The camera that recorded every image in this group was the LUMIX FZ 10002; which now accompanies me when I am not toting my heavy Benbo with one of my Canon bodies and the Sigma 60-600mm Sports lens. The irony is that the LUMIX should be easier to use, but because it has so many different functions, I find it harder to find the limited facilities I require, at speed! This is why I try to take this camera out as often as possible, so I can feel as confident as using my Canon gear. The drawback is that due to an aging brain, when I then next take out one of my Canons is that I struggle to remember how to do something that used to be second nature!
Initially the route I took kept close to the outer boundary of the reserve, and by pure luck I found myself taking a picture on the far side of a brick structure I had photographed only a few days back; it still has me puzzled as to its original purpose. I suspect it is a remnant from an erstwhile railway line, but viewing using Google Earth did not expose any further answer.
Today’s photo trip does show that Spring is definitely coming on, spurred by the several days of welcome warm sunshine. The wind has also moderated over the last couple of days. At various points along my circular trip, work upon the Covanta Incinerator can be seen with its tall cranes highly visible in red against the blue sky. Of more personal interest, I spotted my first butterfly of this year, the Peacock. The variety of colours and textures is very much in evidence at this time of year, hence why I enjoyed that afternoon trip; young leaves often exhibit far greater texture in their early stages on growth than their later full size. The variety of textures I found in dead wood, dried, crazed soil and discarded bark, and the curves of the paths are all featured in the gallery of images from this walk with a camera. Coming away from the Park, effectively bookended the gallery with what caught my eye once back on the road back to my house in the front gardens I passed.

Somewhat Forlorn Butterflies

The two mature Buddliea bushes in my back garden have been very slow to blossom this year, which has been a major disappointment to me. The florettes have only just begun to really show within the last three or four days, and I was beginning to worry that they would flower so late that no insects would still be around to do their work.

Sunday afternoon finally saw a reasonable number of both the butterflies and bees, I had only seen Cabbage Whites in the garden so far this season. Now I was seeing the more colourful varieties, the Tortoiseshell, Small Brown and Peacock, but upon closer inspection those visitors were in a parlous state, so having had a warm fuzzy over seeing the increased numbers of butterflies gracing my garden, I was now much saddened by seeing the tatty and battered ones that arrived. I doubt these specimens have long to wait before the end comes.

The bees seemed in better condition, but even before Sunday I was seeing battered wingtips on those. The gallery of images I have created shows that they were all hard at work catching up on lost time as they gathered the fresh nectar, and the bees seemed happy to bulldozer past the butterflies as if they were not there. The butterflies seemed far more concerned when their own species arrived on the scene, and would often fly away rather than stay their ground.

The various species of Whites were still keen on mating as they would often fly off and do their aerial pirouettes when confronted on a buddliea blossom. This now the last of any flowering in this garden, so once these visitors have left I really only have Autumn to bring colour to the garden till Spring next year.

Peacock struts his stuff and finally appeals to one of the ladies!

Mike’s next door neighbours have a peacock and thus far he has shown no interest in the peahens, so as he he was out, he had drawn an interested crowd of humans, several toting cameras! But if we thought it was going to be easy to capture shots of the event, or in particular to see him displaying his plumage in a courtship display to one of the peahens, we were in for a shock. He was in no hurry, and there seemed to be several moments when we the assembled shooters thought this is it, but finally he chose to strut around with more purpose and then finally we witnessed the display.

But for several minutes although a new lady had appeared she showed not the slightest interest – in fact she often showed disdain! Then we could see a slight melting of the Ice Queen and she moved closer, then bent here head and continued pecking in the grass, he would move around her and show his fine rear plumage; she would look up momentarily before continuing her interest in the ground. She seemed to tease occasionally by turning in his direction, sometimes moving a step nearer before resuming her lack of interest. He never closed his wings, he would occasionally do a shake as if to say: “Hey, look here lady it’s hard work keeping all these feathers up.”

You could not fault him for persistence; he was undeterred by her lack of interest, he seemed sure she would succumb to his charms, and slowly the interest she showed became greater than the spells of of disinterest, and she began to follow him, occasionally taking a look at rear, then she returned to face him and she gave a shudder as she plumped up her own feathers and this seemed to say: “OK, Big Boy, you’ve pulled!” and she demurely walked across his front as if saying: “Come along, follow me”.

The two pages of images give a clue as to the unfolding of the event – this was far from a private moment in this young beau’s life!

Three Counties Afternoon

I went to Tringford Reservoir first because a friend John was fishing at Marsworth, and as I returned to Tringford I took a look at Startops reservoir and spotted that due to the  low level it almost resembled a muddy beach, and a heron was perched on one leg on a branch over the stream entering the lake.

Bob, the bailiff for Tringford, was taking the opportunity for a spell fishing, so I took a couple of shots in case they were of use to him later in the month. I stayed awhile before setting off to Maydencroft Manor to meet up with Tom Williams to collect a camera I had lent him and to let him try out using my 80-400mm Sigma on his newly-acquired 550D.

He had friends around, so after a cup of tea and a chat; with lens handed over, I asked whether he objected to my taking a wander round the gardens again. He was fine with that, so I strolled around and spotted some discarded peacock feathers before I caught up with the owner, he was very quiet for a change! I came across a lovely cock strutting his stuff, looking as if he had fluffy boots. I then drove off down Maydencroft Lane towards Charlton, birthplace of Charles Bessemer, the inventor of the Besemer Converter.

I stopped for a while in the lane where I came across first a really tatty butterfly and fleetingly a beautiful and tiny blue specimen. I tried in vain for a while to get a shot of it and meanwhile found a similar sized butterfly with a beige underside with beautiful spotted detailing, only to find that when it opened its wings, it was the elusive blue one! Whilst following the butterflies I also spotted a cricket.

I took some shots of straw bales in a sloping field and later caught sight of a family taking to the field with children on their bikes. I called in at the Windmill pub for a swift half of cider by the stream in Charlton where they were rearing some ducklings, before returning to Bedfordshire near Wandon End as the sun was low over fields of ripe wheat.

Maydencroft May Bank Holiday

May Bank Holiday Monday was a day of April showers, and I found myself caught in three of them. I took a leisurely drive towards Maydencroft Manor, home of the Williams family, to try to capture some more of what goes on across their land. Having gained their permission once again, I wandered around capturing the colour and the wildlife to be found there.

Tom, their son was readying his offices for a new man joining Maydencroft Rural in a new venture, Jack the dog was his normal welcoming self, the peacocks were doing their barking for him, the peahen was quite unheeding nesting atop a table, Franey was gardening and Bob was on his favourite charger  striping the green sward for the first Cricket match on the 23rd.

The magnolia was in full bloom, ducks and geese were in flight, a bold blackbird was bright enough to know that if she kept close to Franey there might well be worms on offer, the young black lambs were occasionally gambolling in the front field, and a lone robin was keeping an eye on me whilst I took pictures of one of the peacocks.

There was a massive pizza-shaped pair of fungi close by the statue of a maiden, and the bluebells were out in the woods. the very first shot in the gallery was taken in a gorgeous valley just beyond Luton Airport taken on my journey over, because there was such wonderful lighting dappling the valley wherein lies Offley Chase. Spring and early summer in England is  a beautiful place, and should never be under-estimated. It is certainly a green and pleasant land.

Appeal Concert at Maydencroft Manor

Friday turned out to be a far cooler day than Thursday, which meant that Bob and Franie's plans for the Delmé Radcliffe Appeal Concert was blessed with perfect weather. The venue for the concert was Bunyan's Barn at the Manor. Bob's major concern was for the bats that roost here; I for one hope they enjoyed the music we heard performed there.

At the critical moment, the main stage lights failed, but the audience were good humoured enough for this not to spoil their evening. A cow and a peacock however were not to be left out and added their piece, sometimes with an excellent sense of timing!

Bats willing, this concert venue could prove an attractive addition to the Hertfordshire scene, certainly the acoustics are good and the performances excellent.

Purely from my own perspective, the harsh lighting made it hard to take the best photographs, but I nevertheless hope that I have captured the ambiance of the event in those shots which appear in the gallery.