WOODPECKERS ARE BACK

Yesterday, the male Greater Spotted Woodpecker paid a visit to the feeding station and, for once, I managed to stay still enough to avoid scaring it off. Even the zoom inching out is enough to have it shoot up and away out of range. It was peeking from behind the tree checking out safety levels for five minutes before diving in:

Spending most of its life clinging to vertical surfaces seem to have made it incapable of standing up on a horizontal one. It's lower abdomen is consistently clamped to the wood and, to get onto the vertical again, it just shuffled around. He's so beautiful and I'm so glad they're both back now.

On my way to feed Trigger one morning, I was behind a small bird of prey skimming and following the road and then landing for a little while. I managed to get a picture through the windscreen but I'm afraid it suffered a bit thanks to our rubbish wind screen wiper's efforts and the fact that it was some way off. A male Sparrowhawk I think. What an amazing eye colour catching the morning sun. Incidentally, we definitely have a cuckoo here again this year. I've heard it but haven't seen it yet.

Origami Boy has conjunctivitis as well as the chest infection we've all suffered. I took him to the doctor's AGAIN this morning where he was seen first by a very nice student and then by the head of the practice alongside the student. I had told him that the coughing had now been going on for four to five weeks; the student had written down forty five weeks. I am still shaking my head more in sorrow than in anger. Stupid on SO many levels. Is this what we have in store with the next generation of doctors? He was really excellent in his manner but....well - you know. A day off school in quarantine spent picnicking by the stream and doing innocent and simple stuff with sticks and stones and water; the stuff we used to do when he was tiny. A truly magical time was had which I so appreciate in the face of his growing up. Before I know it, he'll have lost that innocence that he shares with very few children of his age. I'm very lucky. He is very much a child still and lovely for it.

Here are some more pictures from the last four days:

Foal A

One of the Dartmoor Madams having a roll

One of the many ponies I see that, from a distance, look a bit like Betty. I do miss her. I wonder where she is?

A Buzzard feather lying in the grass

Foal B

Kestor in the distance from Middle Tor

The moon yesterday morning

A new foal F with foal D - the one with the white bone marking on his shoulder

Foal D again

A rogue white Periwinkle flower amongst the blue

Sunny Chaffinch

Squatters in Trigger's field

The weather is just wonderful; not too hot but glorious sunshine. I sit on the wall while Trigger eats his food, basking in it, watching Snippet hunting rodents. Talking of food, I bought some incredibly expensive Trigger food for ponies that need to put on weight. It arrived today and I presented it to him tonight, only to have it rejected soundly with curled lips and violent bucket nudging. They don't know what's good for them. Until next time, here's Snip enjoying the sun. I hope you have it too!