INCOMING

The young swallows are being fattened up ready for the long migration south. I had to tweak this to the utmost to get any detail out of it - the light was awful and they were at the top of a dead tree at the far extent of my little Lumix's zoom range. Which is why you don't get a photo of the Pectoral sandpipers, rare visitors from North America, which my camera rendered as indistinct light brown blobs on a background of darker brown mud. Well at least I saw them.

And can any plant expert blipper identify the plant in the extras - about 50mm (2ft) high and growing on its own on a bank of native grasses and wildflowers? I don't recognise it at all.