Last on the Card: the Four for the Price of One Edition

The sight of the area round the ponds in our village these days tends to make most of us who live here grumpy, and to sound like fully paid members of Reform UK, the anti-immigrant political party responsible for normalising racism.

It’s Greylag Geese, wherever you look. As you can see.

Each pair of devoted geese (and I have to hand it them, they’re excellent and solicitous parents) has a brood of about nine. They spend much of their time terrorising the other water birds, who have largely done a bunk: or alternatively crossing the main road that bisects the village. This brings cars, bin lorries, the local bus to a halt in both directions as each mother leads her brood slowly across the road, while father brings up the rear. One brood may follow another. Then another brood, from the opposite side may decide to return. I wasn’t quick enough on the draw with this shot. The action is almost over.

This photo was taken a couple of weeks ago. Astonishingly, only we were held up on this occasion.

It’s not just ducks and moorhens who are terrorised. We are not welcome either.

‘Hissssss’

They only discovered our ponds about three years ago. But every year, last year’s babies return to the place of their birth, and every year, the problem gets worse. Back home, as we clean from our shoes the excrement which the geese deposit in plentiful piles on the pavements, we can be heard to mutter: ‘B***** immigrants, terrorising our ducks and murdering our ducklings. Why can’t they just go back where they came from?‘

Well, that’s not a happy note to end on. So instead, glance back to the header shot. That’s truly the last shot on my camera for May: the sunset from our bedroom window.

For Brian’s Last on the Card.

An Elderly Barn

Near to us is an ancient barn, unused apart from housing bits and pieces that somebody at sometime, decided needed storage space, and has probably long forgotten. The windows are broken, the woodwork rotten, the paintwork peeling. It’s ear-marked for development sometime soon and will be treated sympathetically and with respect. That’ll be good for its long-term future, but meanwhile, I’m rather fond of this distressed and decayed old building, and have chosen it for Egidio’s Stuck in Place challenge, where he invites us to stay close to home, and to spend a good half hour wandering nowhere very much, to see what we can see.

Monday Portrait: The Story Begins Here

You remember those little nuthatch hatchlings I showed you last week? That was not the beginning of the story of course. Here are some great tit eggs. The mother has been laying them day by day, allowing them to get cold as she disappears to feed. Then, when she’s laid the lot, she starts to incubate them. They warm up as her body covers them, and lo! They hatch at pretty much the same time as each other. Will they all make it to leaving-the-nest stage? That is another story …

Monday Portrait

… And Just for You, I’ve Chosen Blue

This week, for the Lens-Artists Photo Challenge, Ritva asks us to Pick A Colour.

I ruminated on red, pondered about purple, almost opted for orange, nearly yielded to yellow, gleaned several greens, prevaricated over pink, but in the end, went for ….

Well, obviously you have to have sky … even if day is long past and evening’s getting on for being midnight blue …

And water’s a must too. Nothing idyllic here. Just industrial sprawl near Rotterdam.

And let’s keep up our less-than-picturesque watery scenes, on the River Thames….

… before nipping off to the fishing town of Arenys de Mar in Catalonia. That’s better. Mended nets hung out to dry.

Let’s stay in Catalonia, but head to Barcelona and some street art …

We’ve got ourselves about a bit. Maybe we need another car wash. That’s where we began, and it’s shown in the featured photo.

Spring has Sprung?

This week, Dawn of The Day After fame, has asked us to consider Spring for Leanne’s Monochrome Madness. No, she doesn’t want daffodils, blossom, gambolling lambs (though actually they would definitely do). Instead she wants us to treat the word as a verb, and find images about springing, or synonyms thereof.

So I’ve headed straight for some shots from Ripon Theatre Festival last year, from the weekend of street entertainment:

… which put me in mind of more dancing, of the Morris variety …

The dancers of Four Hundred Roses are my featured photo, where Morris dancing meets belly dancing meets steampunk.

Then I remembered an exhibition in The Baltic, Gateshead where an astronaut was about to leap on my head, And the day at Thorpe Perrow Birds of Prey Centre, when an owl plunged down to seize a meaty titbit, before springing up and away once more.

And then those springing lambs. Considering I live in Sheep Central, you’d think I’d have plenty of energetic shots. Nope. This is the best I can do.

Finally, I’ll give water a look-in. It can be fairly lively. Here’s poor Atlas at Castle Howard, bearing the whole world on his shoulders. And getting soaked in the process as water leaps and plashes around him. And next to him is a frisky and ebullient waterfall near Muker .

Eight Monday Portraits of Eight Tiny Birds

Mondays at the moment are when I help some of the Wildlife Team here at Fountains Abbey and Studley Royal as we check nestboxes round and about the estate. I’m very much a junior member of the team – lots to learn. The questions change as the season progresses. Which boxes are occupied? (by no means all). Which boxes have meticulously constructed nests within – different species, different nesting styles? Which ones have eggs? How many? Covered or uncovered? Cold? Meaning more will be laid. Or warm? Meaning they are about to be incubated. Is there an adult sitting on said eggs? And now – increasingly – have they hatched? Are the absent parents out and about frantically securing food for those ever-open mouths. Which nests – partly finished or fully constructed have been deserted?

The first photo is of nuthatch hatchlings, maybe four days old, courtesy of Colin, a fellow volunteer. My – slightly fuzzier -photo is of some even younger blue tits.

It’s a tough year. It’s been cold, and insects and caterpillars simply aren’t about. Food is hard to come by. Eggs are abandoned, hatchlings starve. Today wasn’t as bad as we feared, and we were glad to see so many boxes with eggs yet to hatch, just as – finally – the temperatures are promised to rise this week.

For Monday Portrait.

I did rather wonder why not a single soul had either ‘liked’ or commented on this post. It turned out to be simple. I hadn’t pressed ‘publish’ after I had written it …

Texture

I thought of taking a walk, and pointing out all the textures I noticed, from moss to tree bark to muddy paths to rocky outcrops. I thought of showcasing an example of every different texture I could think of. But in the end I settled for this: a random gallery of Texture, in all its hard, soft, smooth, rough, grainy and prickly variety.

For Anne’s Lens Artists Photo Challenge: Texture

Meet Fethera

Fethera is part of a flock of sheep now dispersed all over northern England. She and her sisters came into being for the HERD festival – part of Kirklees Year of Music 2023. They were made and designed by artists Dave Young and Jane Gaffikin from salvaged materials and reclaimed wood.

Fethera’s home is a suitable one. She’s at Sunny Bank Mills in Farsley Leeds: from 1829, a bustling complex involved in the textile industry, from raw wool to finished product and all steps in between, and employing 900 people. Now it’s still bustling, but in a different way. It now offers creative business spaces for both small and large organisations. Sunny Bank Mills Gallery has exhibitions, workshops, studio spaces and events, and there’s also Sunny Bank Mills Museum & Archive, which protects and promotes the history of the Mills. 

Fethera’s job is to welcome you onto the site, and her sisters are called:

Aina (the mother sheep) Eddero, Covero, Bumfitt, Dix, Ix and Jiggit.

These are all ancient words, used in a sheep-counting system traditionally used by shepherds in Yorkshire, other parts of Northern England and beyond. There are countless variations, but here’s one common in Yorkshire :

1. Yan 
2. Tan 
3. Tethera
4. Methera 
5. Pimp
6. Sethera 
7. Lethera
8. Hovera
9. Dovera 
10. Dik 
11. Yan-a-dik
12. Tan-a-dik
13. Tethera-dik
14. Methera-dik
15. Bumfit
16. Yan-a-bumfit
17. Tan-a-bumfit
18. Tethera-bumfit
19. Methera-bumfit
20. Figgit / Jiggit

More than 20 sheep? Put a stone down, and begin counting all over again. Repeat as necessary.

Too much information? That’s what comes of whiling away a morning exploring at Sunny Bank Mills. And there’s lots still to explore …

For Leanne’s Monochrome Madness.