CreamyGoodness

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Bad Chickens

Or more specifically, bad Little Chicken. Recently, the chickens have taken to going to sleep on the barbeque rather than in their run. And every night, Little Chicken prods and pokes until she it nice and cosy under Big Chicken. Quite sweet, and photo on the right.

But this is all just a show. Yesterday, Little Chicken found a Slow Worm warming itself on our patio and killed it, pecked it into two and then ran away into the bushes to eat it. Clearly an evil chicken, but at least she's still laying eggs, which is more than can be said for Big Chicken.

30/06/09

Devon Report

Back from a week away in Devon, staying at a National Trust cottage near Dartmouth. Quite lucky with the weather it seems compared with the rest of the country.

Spent most of the time eating seafood - some cooked at the cottage, some at resturants in Dartmouth, some at Hugh's canteen place, and some at the Riverford organic farm place. We ate mussels, squid, cuttlefish, john dory, cod, crab (lots), plaice, lemon sole, mackerel. And on the way home this morning we bought some scallops and pollack which I shall cook tonight.

A bit of snorkeling saw lots of spider crabs and although I picked up a few small ones, the ones big enough to eat had very long scary claws.

On the cliffs right next to the cottage, were some peregrines which I managed to get a few shots of - still rather distant. Also saw Whitethroats, and the rare (to the UK) Cirl Bunting - apparently only a couple of hundred pairs in the UK.

Tried experimenting with my polariser filter a bit for landscape shots - full photo report can be found on the Devon page here.

12/06/09

Trouts

More trout success. Tonight, I caught 1, Steve caught 2. Photo on the right, my fish at bottom - weighed 2 lb 6 oz.

04/06/09

Trouty Goodness

I've been fly fishing on the River Test once a week for three weeks now. Tonight, coinciding with the first decent mayfly hatch of the year, I wrestled my first trout out of the river. A Brown Trout. Much bigger than I expected, although there were some fish in the river that were a lot bigger still. Next week perhaps.

Photo of my catch on the right. Also, a photo of the upper half of the beat I am allowed to use. Very pretty - especially as the mist started to settle over the meadows later in the evening. At some point I'll take my decent camera down there and take some long exposure mist shots.

28/05/09

Badger Update

Went back to the badgers tonight to try and improve on the photos from last night. I think I succeeded, so have removed last night's photos and replaced them with tonight's. Less frollicking tonight. A bit of bedding gathering, and then one adult badger trotted towards us and then off down the path.

I've also posted a picture of my new car against an oilseed rape and blue sky background. Shiny.

10/05/09