Hello ...

I've chosen two photos that I considered amusing this afternoon - an afternoon so beautiful that I took too many photos for a rational choice. The main photo shows the young shoots of this year's bracken shooting up; probably by the next time I pass this way that whole bank will be dense with fully-grown plants and the view of the loch almost hidden. To me they look like strange creatures - more Martians, perhaps.

My extra photo is of a new sign on the fence - the first time I've seen this particular warning, though heaven knows it's needed here. Pheasants are reared for shooting along Loch Striven; there are blue plastic feeding drums tucked away behind the trees and the hapless birds lurk in the undergrowth waiting to give walkers heart attacks by suddenly hurling themselves into flight with great whirring and squawkings. 

More conventional beauty that I tried to photograph included primroses in abundance (it's a south-facing loch side) and tiny purple violets, as well as the impossibly fresh green of new leaves and the pale foam of the foliage that hasn't quite made it. There were birds everywhere - a cuckoo on the far side of the loch; blackbirds singing their hearts out on silver birches; great tits and the aforementioned pheasants. The blue-green spikes of iris plants were marching up the hillside and the bluebells are about to make a full appearance.

It was an impossibly beautiful afternoon in a paradise that I didn't want to leave ...