Buzzard prowling above Througham Slad

Despite not feeling fully fit, I decided not to cancel my car service appointment this morning, which entailed me going up the hill to the garage at Bisley on the top of the Cotswold escarpment. I had arranged to deliver the car at 8am and then wait, rather than get a lift back the four miles to Stroud.  I had planned to go for a photography walk there whilst the service was conducted, if that is the proper way to describe it!

The day turned out bright and breezy, but cold in the north-westerly wind.    Roger, the garage owner, said it would take about two hours so I set off to explore the adjacent valley which I knew in 1976 when I first stayed whilst working on a farm in this area.  I ended up doing some labouring work on the conversion of a Cotswold stone barn into a recording studio being built by the young Mike Oldfield, who had just started reaping the financial rewards from his 'Tubular bells' album.

He had bought a 16th century manor house in Througham Slad, the tiny hamlet set in a remote valley. (The huse is up for sale again - starting price was £6 million, but I gather it has now dropped).  I walked down the ancient single lane through old abandoned coppice woods, steep beech covered slopes still white with wild garlic flowers, hay fields, sheep pastures and horse training paddocks.

Swallows swirled all around me swooping over the grass as well as the hedgerows and particularly over ash trees where the insect life must have been abundant.  Large flocks of crows digging their beaks in the grass were startled by me and flew to the far side of the field. A yellowhammer perched on a fence post to check me out.  Lambs peered at me inquisitively whilst staying very close to the safety of their mums who didn't miss a chew of grass when I passed by.

I was really glad I'd made the effort to get out and walk for two hours and breath the fresh air.  I spent a lot of time just looking at the scene and and listening to the noise of nature.  Just one Land-Rover passed me on the road in that time.  As I headed back up the road after nearing the house and turning round, I saw this buzzard flying steadily along the line of the trees staring down at the ground in search of prey.  I followed it with my camera and managed to get a few shots like this.

After picking up the car, which luckily didn't need any repairs other than a new rear wiper blade, I drove round the corner to the Bisley farm shop.  I bought some vegetables there and when I bumped into Ashley he showed me where the swallows are nesting in their barn.  I took a few pictures but decided I would come back another day to concentrate on getting the swallows in flight.  I also saw two skylarks nearby playing together in the air just a few feet above the ground, which I thought might have been a mating ritual.  I would like to see that again.  Plenty more blip potential and in a wonderful setting.

I nearly blipped the pictures of a horse and a lamb if I hadn't caught the buzzard, so have put them in as 'Extra photos'.