Inside a glacier - Earth - The Power of the Planet - BBC

Great White egret

I watched one of these birds last night, just as light was failing, at Wilstone reservoir Tring. They seem to wade more than grey herons and have incredibly long, slender necks. I could actually make out the fish passing down its neck after one successful stab in to the water.

Almost like the old times..........

Very funny........

Fire from ice.....more amazing geography

Big landscapes, little gems.......

These were seen on our recent excursion to North Kent....photographs courtesy of Gerry Studd...whinchat, wheatear, long-tailed tit and red admiral

Mudlarks with the boys on the North Kent Marshes....

Yesterday was one of those days that it would be easy to avoid....'I'm too tired'...'I've got loads of jobs to do'....'I'm not getting up at 4am....it's my day off'....and so on. And yet it was a day that, like so many others spent in the same company, will contribute towards defining a lifetime. The crisp still air and intensity of an equinox sunrise in a vast landscape of skies and pylons whilst looking (successfully) for a bird the size of a small hen. A 'bellybuster' breakfast in an Essex greasy spoon. The banter at the expense of the nearlybirder. Tip-toeing gingerly along a muddy slipway to the Swale and scanning massed flocks of waders to single out the only spotshank.Whinchats on posts. Blue, blue sky. And a man with an electric remote control helicopter and a electric car at Reculver. These days always punctuate the routine of working life with the intensity of a shooting star against an inky sky.

Baillon's Crake - Essex

Nick Clegg Says Sorry (The Autotune Remix)

Thame ghosts.......?

I was on my way home on Friday night driving along the road between Thame and Longwick - the road was empty and dark and, as is usual for me, I was using my peripheral vision to scan the roadside for animals that perversely might decide to cross the road just as I was passing. Along a particularly straight stretch of road I noticed two indistinct forms close to each other in the grass verge. I looked closely at them on full beam headlights thinking they could be muntjac or roe deer only to see that they were two women. One was an elderly women in a bonnet, arms folded. The other was younger and wore a pale smock and had unkempt hair. As I stared at them, they stared at me as I drove past. I continued for about a minute before deciding to turn around......their location was SO dark and away from any habitation - perhaps they were in need of help......I returned to the same stretch of road not more than another minute later and drove slowly past the spot with my window down. There was absolutely no trace of either woman. I am not afraid of ghosts or hauntings - I nether believe nor disbelieve - but I do have good powers of observation and I know what I saw which, in hindsight, was certainly unusual.

Up: Love Story..........

I remember sitting in the cinema thinking this was going to be usual 'Kids' Club' fare.....a fast-paced, witty and very well-observed Pixar offering....and then the whole cinema went unusually quiet as this sequence played out. Why did it resonate so....? I think we all have adventures and dreams in our heart and whether we like to admit it (to anybody else or indeed ourselves) or not we want to share them with someone special. Trouble is, life tends to get in the way and then it is too late, as the realisation dawns that our time on this planet is finite. I think there are two messages to take from  this clip: the first is an echo of the small banner my mother has up in the living room of her house..'Don't count the days...make the days count'. The second, and perhaps more important, is to remember to find and recognise adventure in the everyday, the apparently mundane, because often it is  there that true contentment actually lies.