Decent weather sun and a slight breeze.
Oak before ash,
We’re in for a splash.
Ash before oak,
We’re due for a soak.
No idea which came first this year, I’ll try to take note for 2014.
Saturday First
Only round the pond and down to town and back.
Three of the grebe chicks. They’re training to fish now, diving under supervision from one parent or the other.
Seeds on a head of grass.
“Daddy long legs” crane fly on a nettle. Not sure what’s where on this insect.
Sunday Second
Pond, canal, Brancliffe, Lindrick, Thorpe Locks, home.
Two views of a long-tailed tit.
An (unsuccessfull) attempt to capture a swarm of midges over the canal.
CC Trust tripboat Seth Ellis turning in to Shireoaks Marina. She was up from the Hop Pole giving short trips from the Lock Keeper.
White (or is it gray?) horse doing a pretty good Stubbs impression.
Swallows at Brancliffe farm.
(Click to enlarge)
Chaffinch just inside Moses’ Seat wood.
The north side of the wood down to the river is floored with ramsons.
Brancliffe canal feeder passes under the small cliff at the edge of Moses’ seat.
Optimistic ash tree on a rock in Lindrick Dale quarry.
Cock pheasant doin’ the buggerin’ off.
Sparrow sized Little Brown Job, indeed it might even be a sparrow.
Back on the canal, the pound immediately below Thorpe Locks bridge was empty.
(Click to enlarge)
As black as a tar barrel!
Chiffchaff(?)
Trip boat Seth Ellis again this time with St John’s church spire reflected.
Monday Third
Two days round t’pond and down to town is all.
On the pond daddy grebe taking fish to the bairns.
Female Orange tip butterfly. The females don’t have the orange tips that give them their name.
(Click to enlarge)
White duck doin’ the buggerin’ off. Wonder if they get any lift from the water like a GEV.
Tuesday fourth
Ears and one eye of a bunny rabbit hiding in a hedge bottom – about two feet away.
Sometimes planes fly quite low overhead. Here’s a French “Corsair Airline” plane heading north.
A raft of hawthorn blossom with a lone downy feather in Worksop winding hole.
Convergent flights.
The Wisdom of a Wazzock 
The butterfly, the spire, the duck and the woods, all hurt my heart a little, in a good way. I have never heard the Ash rhyme before, but hope you didn’t “cast a cloot till May was oot” or no doubt something dire will befall 🙂
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Spire and duck are within a few hundred yards of the scruffy town of Worksop and the woods are only a matter of a few miles away – you’re missing nothing. Did you know that, according to some magazine’s poll(Heat?), Australia is the happiest place in the world? Nostalgia’s good though. 🙂
[know-it-all-warning-of-irrelevantly-googled-stuff] The “May” in the ‘ … clout … out’ warning is referring to may (hawthorn) blossom. Still call hawthorn trees “may trees”
It was bad luck to bring may blossom into the house: I recall my father, who was as superstitious as a brick, banning even the cutting of may blossom (we had a tree at the top of our garden), let alone bringing it into the house.
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Oh, it’s a great place, if you were born here. Thorough response to that would be an entire post of its own. Ideally I would live here 6 months and Scotland 6 months of the year. Well, a girl can dream 🙂
We always thought it to mean you were not to take any of your clothes off – eg vests and whatnot, until the end of May or you might just freeze to death – always a possibility where I grew up 🙂
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