May goeth on

Eighteenth of May

Back garden rose
You'll probably get a lot of these 'cause I like roses

Still on the nest
You'll probably get a lot of these 'cause I like grebes




Guess the flower
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'tis

a
raspberry

flower






Not a dandelion but common hawkweed





This is the largest coot brood I've seen





Proud mama

Dad was between the kids and the footpath keeping folk at bay




Ribwort plantain

Swanlet

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Tuesday the Nineteenth of May

Two tits on the feeder




Stroppy looking tit




Mummy with twelve (TWELVE!) chicks

On the nest
There's no way that I know of telling the gender of a great crested grebe: they take turns sitting on the eggs





All the family

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Wednesday the Twentieth of May

What’s in a name? that which we call a rose

By any other name would smell as sweet;
(I did say that I like roses)

The pond

Extreme zoom to show that there's four eggs in the grebe's nest

Four's a lot for a grebe, at least as far as I know on the pond

Swan, swanlets and grebe

you can see the zoomage and croppage in the previous pic

The swan took a discrete path around the grebe's nest

Blue tit looking startled

There are at least three different families of tits being fed from here.

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Thursday the Twenty First of May

More rose!

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Friday the Twenty Second of May

Small mallard family




Still there




Dog rose




Mum on guard

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More May

Continuing with May's pics - still lockdown so …

Friday the Fifteenth of May

Starlings are beautiful when you really look at them

Scratching an itch

Can you tell what this is?

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Mother and child

High in a may tree a blackbird demands notice

There ARE cygnets under her

Would you bring kids into a nest like this?

Orange tip female

There's a fly in the ointment

I thought this wee beastie was a dunnock or a wren but was told, on twitter, that it was a robin!

This is definitely a fledgling sparrow.

"Top o' the world, Ma"

Feeding the kids

Fledgling on the gate

Saturday the Sixteenth of May

Back garden clematis

Was cherry blossom

Bee on dead nettle

She's still on the nest

(Actually it could be 'he' - they take turns on the eggs)

Thistle buds

Edit - not thistle but 'prickly oxtongue'

Prickly oxtongue at the side of Morse Lock

Back garden magpie thru the patio door

Sunday the seventeenth of May

Early morning : ten to six to twenty past seven

Back garden clematis

Dog rose

Checking the egg(s)



Both of 'em




Reflected sky

Tiny, really tiny, fly

In a line behind mummy




Rainbow over the early morning pond
(you can tell it's early morning 'cause that's almost due west)

Fly outside the window
(a tad overprocessed to bring out some detail)

Afternoon: twenty to three to half past

Back garden rose



Back garden clematis



All the family




Turtle
I was told that one of the turtles had been found dead



The grebe was watching neighbouring coots with some apparent anxiety





At last a clear shot of all nine cygnets.

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