Lower Compton (Wednesday 24th March 2021)

Today Refna came over to work at the Woodland Garden, mainly on pruning the driveway buddleia but also sorting through the 50 or so pots. Although I had seen her once this year for a socially distanced picnic in the Town Gardens a month or so ago it was the first Woody Wednesday gardening session of the year.

It was a mild morning though spotting with rain, which looked to be getting worse. In fact the opposite happened and the sky turned blue as the sun started shining. So much so that after lunch I decided to drive over to Hills Pools (see Extra), a mere 3.6 miles away, where I knew there had been seen half-a-dozen little grebes the day before, having come across some pictures online.

I wasn't sure I'd ever seen one, even in my youth when they were known as dabchicks, so I parked up near the pools and before long I caught a brief glimpse of one on the other side of the pool, until it dived and didn't reappear within sight. Eventually I found it even further away and managed only this one barely-usable cropped shot (taken at an equivalent 2000mm focal length) that does at least prove that I did see one. There was also a small group of tufted ducks including one having a worse bad-hair day than I was (in Extras), as well as a group of six red kites circling high overhead.

Only the tufted duck's tufts really qualify as wild but nonetheless I'm including this for Wild Wednesday, with thanks to Cailleach.


L.
24.3.2021 (1925 hr)

Blip #3388 (#3138 + 250 archived blips taken 27.8.1960-18.3.2010)
Consecutive Blip #000
Blips/Extras In 2021 #044/266 + #023/100 Extras
Day #4017 (883 gaps from 26.3.2010)
LOTD #2531 (#2372 + 159 in archived blips)

Taken with Nikon Coolpix P900 (24-2000mm equivalent bridge camera)

Lozarhythm Of The Day:
Dry Cleaning - Oblivion (2021)
Until this, everything I had heard by new favourites Dry Cleaning featured Florence Shaw reciting her marvellous and unique list-based poems. However there is a forthcoming compilation album of 4AD artists recording versions of other past and present 4AD numbers, and on this Florence Shaw sings Grimes' much loved 2012 single, Oblivion, a track published online on this day.


One year ago:
The Old Forge