Summer's end, 2011

Early morning is the best time to see the swans flying up & down in the sunshine on the south side of the Mere.

Spring 2011 Astbury Mere

Grebes dancing & nest building, young sparrow in rowan, and I finally got my pic of swan in flight. Usually they wait till I've put the camera away.

Grass Snake - Spring 2011

Blog access restored!

This should make up for the gap. Grass snake (natrix natrix) spotted whilst out & about today - female easily 4ft long. Grass snakes love water and are good swimmers. They can bite, but have no venom. They usually roll over and pretend to be dead.

Photo courtesy of Very Nice Ranger. Cheshire's Countryside Rangers are fantastic; their roles are hugely underestimated not just in bringing communities together, but also in terms of the hard and relentless work that they do to conserve & manage wild and green spaces.

Finally, a bit of snow!

We got Redhead Ducks! .. they're all asleep.

Fol Hollow

Frosty November

Britain has its earliest snowfall for 17 years. Except for Congleton, which is in a rainshadow and never gets much more than a relatively light dusting.

A Great Northern Diver has arrived on the Mere. It has not managed to wander in front of my camera lens, however.

Spotted this month, a couple of Wrens by the butterfly pool (too quick to capture on film), a single Great Crested Grebe bobbing aimlessly alone, and 2 additional cygnets have flown in with whom the resident youth does not appear impressed.

Lammas Harvest at All Saints Church, Siddington

Hundreds of years before Christianity got beached on British shores, the tradition amongst farming communities was to 'hold' the spirit of the fertile earth within a corn dolly over the winter months, and then release it back into the field in the spring. Siddington All Saints Church is respectful and embracing of these pagan/druidic harvest traditions with the whole interior lavishly decorated - thanks to local historian & farmer Raymond Rush.

This is a tudor building built in the 15th century, however the brown timber frame with beige wattle & daub was encased in brickwork by the victorians, to stop it falling down. So now the bricks are just painted black & white instead. But it's still in there.

September 2010

Swans flying over the Mere, and a weather front moving across in late September.