Willow Holt bike trip

Before talking about that, had a run of absoloutely no value yesterday round and about Sconce and the River Devon - nothing to see! I saw more in my garden when I gapeling Blackbird - with fully grown tail though - rustled through the first fallen leaves and turned them over hither with vigorous hakes of its head. Tried to photograph it as it let me get quite close, obligingly it waited until the split nanosecond before my cameraphone was focussed, then jumped off onto another twig.

Just back, via Morrisons, from a trip on my Bike to Willow Holt reserve. It's a fine brightish day, but not exactly warm and when I got to my little stamping ground by the river end of the reserve on a park bench it seemed all the little birdies had gone to bed for the day. It was beautiful and peaceful, but not a mere twitter of birdsong to be heard. No waterfowl either, the Trent is usually well populated with Mallards and Canade Geese, but not today either. One thing I did notice is that the Black Headed gulls seem to have lost their heads already! Seems very early, wonder if the rubbish summer has done this. Come to think about it, I'm sure we are getting the first falling leaves early as well.

But I might be imagining it. My imagination can run riot somedays!

After fruitlessly scanning the canopy with my 10 x 25s and finding nothing, I wandered around the woodland a little and found a couple of photographic subjects - a little Speckled Wood, and a fantastic bracket fungus on a tree. Will put those up later, I'm not staying on this library computer a second longer, the hamsters aren't spinning the internet wheel quick enough.

And then, as I was leaving and the sneaky little fellows had spotted me doing so, the birds started singing.

In celebration no doubt.