Category: David

I’ve currently run out of recent local pictures. So, until I’ve accumulated a few more, I’ve dug out some holiday snaps from a dozen or so years ago, not previously posted. They are from south western France. To start, low tide in the Garonne estuary at Bordeaux.

Skittering over the exposed mud, and eating chunks of stale baguette which were thrown to them, there used to be a colony of coypus, presumably descended from individuals which had hitched a ride on trans-Atlantic cargo ships in times gone by.

There was no sign of them in the same area last year.

A pair of the greylag geese at West Park, sharing a small puddle for drinking water.

The West Park turtle (or rather, the larger of the two turtles) sunning itself on a fallen  tree by the island. Seen in the middle of August, it what was likely to have been its last showing in that spot – it also has at least one other, less public, backing spot somewhere on the lake — before it headed deep into the mud until next spring.

Elderberries, looking like they are very near to being completely ripe, withing down the ends of the branches of the bush they were on.

At the very end of August, a young robin hopping on one of the footpaths in West Park. It was just beginning to adopt the characteristic red breast of an adult bird.

The remains of plants of one of the taller umbellifer species, gone to seed. In this phase, the plants have an almost sculptural quality.