Tortoise

It HAD to happen!!!! Standing on the muddy side of a receding pond and I wasn't moving!! NO, I REALLY wasn't moving but the underneath layer of mud suddenly gave way! I ended up in it! Camera...first priority was fine - in fact that was Hubs first question!!!!!!!!!! Oooozing smelly sticky mud between my toes I came home caked and had to put my deck shoes in the washer. What is even more galling was there was nothing to see and I hadn't fired a shot on the camera!

Was Hubs smug or what ?!! 'It was only a matter of time'......lah lah.......ears closed!

So..moving swiftly on...

Went having cleaned up to Lower Lode. Rather like being in Peter Pan on the walk there with butterflies circling round my head!

All the way down the miles of river bank today there were these small tortoiseshell butterflies. Solitary sometimes, in ones and twos , in groups of four - usually all very frisky flitting, no, not even fluttering. all of which sound rather dainty, but chasing each other hell for leather trying to get a bit of the action!

At one point I thought I might try to practise my flight shots!.................... LOL!

This is a mobile butterfly which flies freely across the countryside and occasionally reaches France! It just loves stinging nettles which was why it was on the Severn riverbank!

Met this lovely guy who had lived round here all his life and gave me the heads up on some owls - for an hour - in the blistering heat. Transpires we had been going to the same places for shots over the last few months! Should have asked for a contact no. So..... tortoise in that I didn't get as far today as I would have liked. Thought the dogs were going to expire!!