A FEW THOUGHTS...

Anna and I are lucky enough to have another few days off together this weekend, so we have had a trip down to a cousin's country pad in Worcestershire (on the side of Bredon Hill) planned for some time.

Unfortunately I hear its going to sh.... ship it down for the entire time, with a biting Easterly wind!

Hmmm...

Anyhoo -

Spring does seem to be slowly making progress.

Anna collected another Large White Butterfly for me yesterday whilst I was at work.

When I say collected, it had obviously emerged from its chrysallis in the sitting room somewhere- and she just shut the door - so when I came home, I could grab a snap of it.

I'm a lucky boy eh?!

We both went for a very nice ramble around a local Nature reserve that I know very well - Hosehill lake near Theale.

Thats where I managed to get three very nice photographs of an incredibly tame Robin.

I think if we returned with a handful of meal worms - that chap would eat out of our hands - all of my robin photographs (recent) on my online photo album were taken under a Hawthorn Bush, with the robin no more than 2.5 or 3 feet away from the camera - so clse I had trouble focusing on him, with any more than 3X zoom (my camera goes up to 18X zoom)!

The Cowslips seem to be out in force now, and our Maris Peers seem to be tentatively poking their way through the soil in the garden bed...

We may well have found a Kestrel nest box on our recent rambles - makes up for hearing that a loca Barn Owl nest I know of has been deserted and TWO dead Barn Owls have been found on the M4 nearby - VERY sad indeed.

And then there's the steam train that chuffed past our house t'other day.

I'm hardly a trainspotter, but I really SHOULD bugger off up the station (a mile away) and find out when all these old engines pass through Reading on a timetable - I'd love a close up shot from the station itself...... maybe I'll do that.

Anyhoo - We're off, until sunday afternoon.

Click on any of the images above to enlarge them or DO visit the "New Warren" flickr online photo album (as usual) to see the butterfly and robin pictures (especially), full size and with decent accompanying text.

Cheers.