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
…

…

…

…

…

…

…

…

…

…

…

…

…

…

…
'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

---

---

---

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

---

---

---

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.

---

---

---

Thursday the Twenty First of May

More rose!

---

---

---

Friday the Twenty Second of May

Small mallard family




Still there




Dog rose




Mum on guard

---

---

---

I didn't like today at all

Well, or rather not well, I awoke this morning about 4:30.
"Why?" you ask,
"To put it bluntly, the trots." I reply.
Spent most of the day in the bathroom.

Snuck out long enough to buy cat food & check out the roses in the Canch rosegarden.

At Morse Nb Little Lucy was going through:

bloke on his own with a little dog.

---

bought cat food & went on to the Canch. Roses really are beautiful flowers, Flickr pics here:

Walked back via Canal Road. A narrowboat I'd noticed twice before, once in the Marina and again at Worksop car park, was moored up & two guys were working on it. They'd bought it in the Broads, sailed it here and were doing it up.

That's it: all I've done today.

Don't you just hate Wednesday?

Well, bad day. Woke up at 7:30 - the back's gone!

I've got a strange back, 99% of the time it's OK and then out of the blue it goes. A constant ache which turns into a sharp, incapacitating jag at apparently random times. One thing that brings on the "jag" is miss-stepping ; for instance not noticing a kerbstone and the foot hitting unexpectedly. I can bend down but straightening up again's another story: jag, jag, jag. Sitting requires a dead straight back and when walking I have to be ramrod straight and watch where I'm putting my feet. Don't even think about running!

'nuff about my troubles:

I eventually went round the pond. Not much happening but the Heron was there.

Coot chicks lose their red heads pretty quickly

But Moorhen chicks are black headed from the egg

Dog rose

'shopped

Heron

Cropped & 'shopped

Tuesday: the Canch (second post today)

First: what's a "canch"?
Apparently it's a mining term:

1.  A part of a bed of stone worked by quarrying. 
2. Eng. Roof or floor removed to make height and side removed to make width. If above the seam, it is called a top canch; if below the seam, a bottom canch. A canch on a roadway close to the face is called a face canch; a canch on a roadway outbye is called a back canch. Also called brushing; ripping. SMRB 
3. The face of the roof ripping in a roadway. It follows that the canch is continually being excavated and advanced. 

I assume it means the cut made for the canalised section of the river which later, below Kilton lock, feeds the canal. Was it a fish supply for the priory before that?

It now apparently applies to the whole area from the River Ryton (N side), Priorswell Road (E side), and Memorial Avenue (S side), tailing off to the west behind the new library. I've shown it here. There's tennis courts, kids play area, paddling pool, exercise area and they're putting in a skateboard thing.

They've put a new bridge across it: rather nice:

If they could just get all the litter permanently out too! I suppose it all comes down the river from god knows where.

---

---

Now for the roses!!


They really are individually beautiful, I don't think the rose garden as a whole's very nice, but that's as much down to vandalism as anything.

The pics are below the fold 'cos they fill the page to bustin'

Monday, Monday

Overlaid: didn't get up until about 10 O'clock. Spent the day doing stuff around the house - walked round the pond about half past five.

Him getting stroppy 'cause someone's approaching in the field. (yesterday's pic)

Still there!

Courting grebes: He offers a reed ...

... and she ignores him!

Something about this log: it's a must for birds to stand on and a must for them to be photographed

Only one chick!

Might be a wild rose, but it's beautiful

9:30pm - just been visited by a tiny ginger kitten. Possibly a byeblow of my own ginger tom? No idea where he's from, but he's very cute if a tad stroppy.