Hairy-footed Flower Bees at Gunnersbury Triangle
All posts by Ian Alexander
Solitary Visitor on Gunnersbury Triangle Boardwalk
A Quiet Spring Morning for the Deer …
Canoes in Chiswick Mall
Chiswick Mall, like Strand-on-the-Green, is a low-lying riverside street here in Chiswick. At High Water on a Spring Tide, the streets regularly flood, but not always as much as this … and in 20 years, I never saw kayakers here before! So I was delighted to get this shot.
For landlubbers who’re a bit rusty on what a Spring Tide is, the tides follow the moon’s 28-and-a-half day cycle from Full Moon (opposite the sun) via half-moon (right angles to the sun) and New Moon (roughly in line with the sun, when eclipses sometimes occur). There is a high tide roughly twice a day (and a low tide twice also); every Full Moon, High Tide (High Water) is especially high, as the pulls from the moon and the sun on the oceans have maximum collaborative effect then.
Kew in Spring
A Shepherd in London
Also on the walk, several Brimstone butterflies, and a couple of Peacock butterflies (presumably overwintered in a hollow tree or some such place). Near the sheep were two Buzzards and a Red Kite, on the lookout for some carrion, I won’t mention what they were hoping to find. Also about was an early Chiffchaff singing its simple song (its name, over and over), a Cetti’s Warbler, and a Song Thrush. And a flock of Goldfinches finishing up the last of last year’s seeds in a big patch of thistles, burdocks, and teasels.
Cherry Blossom in Chiswick
Suddenly it’s spring! The cherries and magnolias and flowering pears are all trumpeting their splendour.
In my garden, I hear the amazing sweetness of a Blackcap singing somewhere in the block of little gardens. He must be newly-arrived from Africa, as he certainly won’t find a female in such an unpromising territory – Blackcaps like woodland edges where they are safe and undisturbed. But he sings, high and pure, far too good a warbler to be any usual garden bird, though our Robins, Blackbirds, Dunnocks, Great and Blue Tits, and Goldfinches sing sweetly too. Somehow it seems silent in the city as he sings; I really can’t hear any trains or planes or trucks in this perfect spring moment.
Winching a Lodged Tree-Trunk after the winter storms
Storm Eunice snapped three or four trees in the reserve, and left many others leaning a bit. A few days later, Storm Franklin blew in, and dumped a lot of water on the trees. Some trees fell. Then over the next week, the trees with roots no longer securely fastened to the ground, or already leaning over, started to sag on the wet ground, and one after another, big old birches fell, crashing to the forest floor, or lodging on other trees. One of the biggest cherry trees in the reserve fell, bringing down several other trees and giving us quite a problem with the tangle it left behind. The winch enabled us to pull a lodged birch trunk down, but not before we’d pulled a bit in one direction, then another to dislodge it, then back to the first direction … and suddenly it started to slide. I thought it had jammed again, but one more pull and it fell.
Early morning Winter sun on turnham green
Winter mist at wraysbury lakes
Among the wonderful moments on this walk: a heron gave its cronking call and flapped slow over the water; a plane passed behind three cormorants drying their wings, perched on the branches of a dead tree; a group of goldeneyes panicked and pattered across the lake, gaining speed for takeoff, giving their high-pitched call, the waves sparkling in the slanting sunshine; a song thrush tentatively singing its repeated music; a solitary fieldfare.
