Romsey in the Frost

Thursday 5th January 2017

I had a lovely unplanned walk this morning around Romsey, it was cold and frosty but wonderfully fresh and crisp.

Romsey Abbey

The War Horse Memorial in the Memorial Park, for details of the tribute, see here

The Bandstand.

Then I took more photos in the Memorial Park as it was such a lovely morning.

I saw lots of birds, this thrush (not sure which it is a song or mistle), a magpie, a swan flying overhead, mallard and aylesbury ducks, a chaffinch, pied wagtail, dunnock, robin, blackbirds (all over the place), wood pigeons, sparrow, moorhen, wren (close up) and a male blackcap.

This lot were in a right old flap, very vocal (mind you so would I have been sitting on the River Test in this cold weather!).

Moorhen (also being very vocal)

My favourite bird, singing his little heart out, taken by zooming in to infinity and beyond, but it's not bad I didn't think?

Then I just zoomed in a bit and took one that should be more in focus, but to me it doesn't look an awful lot different.

Then it was time to get on with the shopping as I was on a bit of a time limit, a very pleasant way to spend 20 minutes.

Epic Christmas Window Displays in Swanage!

Wednesday 28th December 2016

The shop keepers in Swanage certainly know how to celebrate Christmas, their window displays are just great.  I've taken a few photos to show how everyone makes an effort and how good the town looks at Christmas.  

Quite impressive I reckon!

A Cold December Afternoon Beach Walk

Friday 16th December 2016

Despite the cold we had a lovely walk along Swanage Beach from Shep's Hollow this afternoon.  There was alarming evidence of cliff falls all along the beach from heavy rain and fierce seas, enough to keep me away from too near the cliffs!  Walking back along the beach we came across a couple of teenagers swimming/body boarding in the sea - without wetsuits, just thinking about it makes me feel cold, goodness only knows how they felt!!  

The sand from the main beach appears to be at the north end of the beach for now, and the main beach seems to have lots of stone.

A couple of nice finds, a tiny cuttlefish and a mermaids purse.

A welcome bit of colour on a dull December afternoon.

A festively coloured beach hut complete with a Christmas wreath.

As the sun sets, so ends another walk!

Poole & Harbourside Park

Wednesday 7th December 2016

We had a brief shopping trip to Poole this morning, mixed in with a walk along the harbour.  Despite it being the end of the first week in December it was surprisingly calm in the town centre and we were in and out of the shops quite quickly and painlessly.  

There's so much more in the little streets off of the main roads.

The tourist information centre even had a postbox for mail to Santa!

I didn't dare go in to this old fashioned sweetshop, as I may well have had to try everything!!

The harbour Christmas tree, alive to the sound of singing....

house sparrows.  A lovely temporary home for them amongst the branches.

Now and then as we walked passed the fishing boats and fishing equipment, it smelt revolting, very fishy!!  

Black headed gulls keeping watch.

The tide was coming in and there were plenty of wading birds about.  We saw several of these turnstones and among others, cormorants and oyster catchers.

The par overlooking the harbour is a nice place to just sit and watch the boats coming and going, away from the hustle and bustle, overlooking Brownsea Island.

A Visit To RSPB Arne Nature Reserve - Twitchers We Are Not!!

Friday 18th November 2016

We had a lovely walk at the RSPB Arne Nature Reserve this afternoon,  we had a wander through the reserve, taking in the autumn colours and the fresh smell of peat and pine. We have been to the reserve a number of times and each time we've stopped off at the bird hide which looks out across Poole Harbour.  Usually we are the only ones there but today  both the lower and higher hides were busy.  The tide for once was in so there were lots of birds to spot - this is where we came a bit unstuck, we are quite good I would say at identifying many birds but wading birds is obviously not our thing, there were quiet mutterings around us of sightings of  various birds, none of which we had a clue about.  Luckily there were details and pictures of wading birds in the hide, so we could take a sneaky look at the birds that the twitchers had spotted then try and spot them ourselves!!!  

In the far distance we had dismissed a large group of 'geese' but the reason for the amount of people in the hides was to see the spoonbills!!!! (the so called geese that we had dismissed). I think we can safely say we are not very good twitchers!!  We did however spot oyster catchers, egrets, curlews, and sika deer from the hide.

When we got back to the car park the lady RSPB volunteer that was on duty at the information centre asked if we'd had a nice walk and asked if we had seen the spoonbills.  She told us all about them and now we know that very few (about 70 birds)  come from the Netherlands at this time of year and we had seen about 30 of them, the rest she said could well be at Brownsea Island another of their favourite haunts apparently.

A field of epic cows with even more epic horns of various arrangements!

A leafless silver birch tree covered in ivy almost looking like a fir tree.

Poole Harbour in the distance.

The view from the bird hide and right in the very distance, visible only with binoculars,

spoonbills (zoomed in to infinity and beyond, hence the less than clear photo).

An egret was a bit closer to the hide.

The view from Shipstall Beach.

In front of us, one at a time a group of sika deer crossed the path.  We had to be very quick with the cameras but my photos were absolutely rubbish, these of Steve's however were better, I put the photo of the albino deer in despite it being out of focus just because it's special ..... the deer not the photo!

There were  a few dead old trees about with many holes in, this one as well as holes in it, had some rather large fungi on it.

On the way back to the car, as the light was fading, in the woods we saw eight grey squirrels scratching about in the leaves. I wonder if they were searching for their last meal of the day?

Beautiful colours.

I asked the lady about a fox with a limp and a bad leg that we had seen on a visit in April, we saw it close to the information centre and it didn't seem frightened or bothered by us at all and walked very close past us.  She knew all about the fox and told us that her leg had healed up and she had had a litter in the spring, it was lovely to hear that all appears well with her.

A happy tale after all.