Another dull, drizzly, cold May day meant another wander around Pensthorpe Natural Park with Inexcuseable and Count Podgekinson. I didn't take so many photos of the ducks, geese, and other water fowl this time as they're all pretty much the same as those seen in the previous link and this one. However, I couldn't resist this handsome little Mandarin duck on the right!
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Unlike the previous Pensthorpe post's mother mallard's ten ducklings, this one only had one
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This greylag goose couple were out and about with their three goslings
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This mute swan's mate was on their nest in the reeds
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The cob swam over when Count Podgekinson flung handfuls of duck food about with wild abandon. Some of it even went in the water.
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Another mute swan couple a bit further along our walk
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A gawky little moorhen chick
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This Eurasian crane almost had my fingers off in a rather crap attempt at eating the food pellets I offered it
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I just had to include this cheeky jackdaw!
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And now on to some of the rather more unusual specimens...
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A behemoth bee...
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... gargantuan grasshopper...
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... and a dirty great damselfly!
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King of all he surveys...
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... a somewhat see-through red deer stag
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And, finally, on to the environs...
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The River Wensum...
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... flows through the park
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Bluebell Wood at this time of year is quite...
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... spectacular!
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This den constructed of sticks and living willow...
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... has a living roof - and walls!
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Finally, this gorgeous bearded iris I spotted when we first entered the park serves as a reminder for you to begin preparations and start taking photos for the Infomaniac Garden Photos Event to be held later this year (either here, or on one of your blogs - I'll do a proper reminder post soon)
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Mandarins really are the Zandra Rhodes of the duck world, aren't they?! As for that crane - I wouldn't go anywhere near it, personally. It looks mean enough to go for the eyes...
ReplyDelete...and those Bluebells! Sigh. Jx
The Mandarins are almost unbelieveable. Just a tad more and they'd go from Zandra Rhodes to Edina Monsoon!
DeleteYes, the bluebells really are heavenly. Like a large swathe of fallen sky.
These are so awesome! I really love these pictures! How would you feel about sharing them on the Nature-led.org website? If you want to remain as one of the secret places I come to let my fae side run about that's cool, but if you're open to sharing there I could try to figure something out. If you had a Wordpress account I would give you an Author invite to post directly.
ReplyDeleteThank you, and how flattering! I do have a Wordpress account (set up when there was all that hoo-hah about Blogger going all prudish and clamping down on anything they deemed unwholesome), but not the time, unfortunately - I keep meaning to add something to our A Write Panic blog, but there's always something else to do first.
DeleteHowever, if you ever want to nab a few photos and link back here, then by all means do!
These are wonderful pictures- the Mandarin duck is looking swanky, and the little moorhen chick was adorable. Oh, but the bluebell woods! It is to swoon! So lovely! And absolutely natural looking - now I'm comparing these pix to the cultivated bluebell wood in Butchart Gardens, Canada, where it's all just a little too perfect. Your pix look so wild and breezy, which just adds to the 'wonder' factor in my opinion. The feeling of suddenly coming upon something secret and natural and beautiful that makes the heart stand still and the breath pause. Dude, you really caught that feeling. RAWK.
ReplyDeleteThe Bluebell Wood is just amazing! One wanders through the woods, coming across small clumps of bluebells then, further in the clumps get bigger and bigger until the trees part to reveal that breathtaking expanse of bluebells looking for all the world like - as I said to Jon - a swathe of fallen sky. Truly magical!
DeleteI love Buchart Gardens and Victoria BC, but I agree, the gardens could never do justice like this! I watch a lot nature programs and I recall one talking about these bluebell swaths in England. So I was happy to be reminded of that. Too bad I can't remember which program and episode it was.
DeleteI see that I'm going to have to look up Buchart Gardens.
DeleteI learned yesterday that Britain is home to about half the world's population of bluebells (Hyacinthoides non-scripta)!
That Mandarin is quite exotic. How lucky for you. And that poor mama duck... let's hope she only had one egg. At the prairie I watch the skies - for heron that fly back and forth overhead, going from one lake to the other, and hawks and eagles. All very beautiful. We still have small song birds in the prairie, but the wood ducks and the turkeys are gone - scared and killed off due to encroaching bike trails and winter activities that destroyed their natural habitats. Sad. Thanks for the lovely snaps. Kizzes.
ReplyDeleteOh, yes, I hoped that she'd only managed one egg this year, too. However, there were quite a few eggshells littering the edges of the paths as we walked around... :(
DeleteMight we see some photos of the prairie sometime soon?
My psychic sense is that hut has been used for things blogger definitely wouldn't allow.
ReplyDeleteIncidentally they recently took down two of my posts on the basis that I was hacking into the pentagon. Or something like that...
Only the two posts?
DeleteYou're probably correct about the hut. I mean, Count Podgekinson was swinging off the "rafters" - that's got to be forbidden somewhere, right?
Is that your sex den?
ReplyDeleteAnd that Mandarin duck and swans took my breath away! Excellent shots! I think the Mandarin duck has got to be one of the more pretty ducks around.
Mandarin ducks are so adorable! They've got such a soft, gentle face compared to their striking, colourful plumage.
DeleteThat den isn't just mine - it can fit three or four!
Did you get damp knees taking a couple of those pictures?
ReplyDeleteSx
Ah, yes, the bluebell shots. Fortunately, I managed to do some contortions without going arse over tit as I bobbed down to get them. I had to be quick too, as Count Podgkinson kept running up trying to jump on my back as I was bent down.
DeleteUtterly gorgeous All of it worth the damp knees, the close encounters with wild beasts.
ReplyDeleteOH! We had a downpour last night and this morning I have several Monty Don moments. Tithonia are waving their brash yellow flowers about. Tarty show-offs!
I have an idea - as does most of the rest of Britain, I should think - of what one of your rainy seasons is like after our very rainy May.
DeleteBluebell woods and Dens, brings back childhood memories. We were always in the woods always building dens, making tree swings and damming streams.
ReplyDeleteFab photos as per.
The bluebell woods in the next post feature several rope swings. My nieces often use them, but fortunately they're very loud so I know to turn around and go a different way home!
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