WALKING WITH NATURE

Even with two hearing aids in I find it difficult to hear birdsong unless the surrounding area is totally silent, and even if I do hear it, I cannot determine the direction from whence it comes. Step in Adrian. Yesterday at the beginning of our canal walk he pointed out this little brown bird (an unidentified LBB) singing his heart out n the opposite side of the canal. I took several photos of it, and one of them worked quite well. When we returned to the same place two hours later he was still there and still making heavenly music. It wasn't until I downloaded the photo that I could identify the songster. A Willow Warbler Calling

Yellow-rattle is an annual that thrives in grasslands, living a semi-parasitic life by feeding off the nutrients in the roots of nearby grasses. For this reason, it was once seen as an indicator of poor grassland by farmers, but is now often used to turn improved grassland back to meadow - by feeding off the vigorous grasses, it eventually allows more delicate, traditional species to push their way through.

This female goosander had two chicks, both moved very rapidly and were difficult to photograph. There was no sign of the male. She occasionally carried both on her back as we were watching.

Herb-robert is a type of crane's-bill that is found in a variety of habitats, including woodland, hedgerows, rocky or exposed areas, scree slopes and coastal areas. Look for it in areas of shade away from acidic soils. Its small, pink flowers mainly appear between May and September. Herb robert (Geranium robertianum) has small crane’s-bill pink flowers and pungent foliage. It grows commonly in shaded areas where it can be a useful ground cover but its tendency to selfseed can make it a nuisance as a garden weed.

The delicate Field pansy is a wild relative of our garden pansy and can be found in fields and on waste ground and roadside verges - anywhere the ground has been disturbed. Its long-stalked, pale yellow flowers can be found winding their way through the grasses from April to October. Field pansies are annuals, so they live for one growing season, flowering, seeding and dying off. Only the dormant seeds survive, ready for the next season. The flowers are cream or pale yellow with cream upper petals and more rarely blue or violet. Each flower is about 10-15mm in size. You have to keep your eyes peeled to see them.

Bracken (Pteridium) is a genus of large, coarse ferns. It is a prolific and abundant plant in the moorlands of Great Britain, where it is limited to altitudes of below 600 metres. It does not like poorly drained marshes or fen. It has been observed growing in soils from pH 2.8 to 8.6, a wide pH band. Bracken is a pernicious, invasive and opportunistic plant, taking over from the plants traditionally associated with open moorland and has out-competed characteristic ground-cover plants such as moor grasses, cowberry, bilberry and heathers. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bracken

This could be mistaken for a dandelion, but there are some obvious differences. The seedhead is flatter than that of a dandelion. The stem bears scale-leaves in early spring, whereas the stem of a dandelion is smooth. The leaves appear after the flowers have gone to seed and are shaped like a horse shoe, hence the common name. The leaves of a dandelion resemble lion's teeth, hence the common name 'dandelion' from the French 'dent de lion'.

Today's Sunday Challenge: ENJOY THE LITTLE THINGS. This pretty little lilac flower opens around the time the cuckoo starts to call, hence the common name. It is a perennial of damp, grassy places like wet meadows, ditches and canal and riverbanks, as well as roadside verges. Its pale pink flowers bloom from April to June. It is an important food plant for the caterpillars of the orange-tip and the green-veined white butterfly. And in Cheshire it is the county flower and is known as 'milkmaids'. Leisure (W H Davies' poem)> Classic Poetry: Leisure by W H Davies And just to give you some joy: I'm Sorry I Haven't A Clue TV Recording 2008

The May blossom is now out in Shropshire, so it's time to put your winter coat into the wardrobe. Hawthorn, Crataegus monogyna.

This was taken at the limit of the zoom on my camera. I was surprised to catch sight of this hare, and delighted that I got a recognizable, but a tad blurred, photo.

Equisetum arvense, the field horsetail or common horsetail, is an herbaceous perennial plant in the Equisetopsida (the horsetails), native throughout the arctic and temperate regions of the northern hemisphere. It has separate sterile non-reproductive and fertile spore-bearing stems growing from a perennial underground rhizomatous stem system. The fertile stems are produced in early spring and are non-photosynthetic, while the green sterile stems start to grow after the fertile stems have wilted and persist through the summer until the first autumn frosts. The erect sterile stems are 10–90 cm tall jointed segments around 2–5 cm long. As a child i used to love pulling the segments apart and marvelled how they fitted together again. Equisetum is a "living fossil", the only living genus of the entire subclass Equisetidae, which for over 100 million years was much more diverse and dominated the understory of late Paleozoic forests. Courtesy of: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equisetum It is very troublesome in a garden, so don't even think of putting a container of it into your garden pond!

Flitting around our garden pond along with blue damselflies.

This fence surrounds closed reservoir containing water that has been pumped up from aquifers in order that the properties in the village have got some water pressure.