Today’s guest picture is a swan which was spotted by my Somerset correspondent, Venetia while on a walk. She notes that the magnifying effect of the water gives it enormous feet.
My day started not with swans but geese, as a large skein flew over the garden just after breakfast with a lot of honking to make me pay attention.
A short while later, I took an impressionistic picture of my favourite poppies…
…and went off to the Laverock Hide to fill the Moorland Project feeders for Sandy. He is still in foreign parts and feeding elephants rather than chaffinches.
The light was very grey but it is almost always a pleasure to sit in the hide and watch the birds so I stayed for a while.
There were plenty of the usual suspects: chaffinches…
…coal tits….
…great tits…
…woodpeckers…
…and of course, pheasants both males, in an argument….
…and a female above such uncouth behaviour.
When I got home, I had a cup of coffee and did some business on the computer but I found time to pick some raspberries, which are in fine form, and have a quick look round some flowers.
The garden is looking bedraggled.
A man came round to clean our gutters and I hope that he has done a thorough job because we have a couple of inches of rain forecast for tomorrow and Saturday. This should give the gutters a good test.
I didn’t have long to hang about at home though as it was my day to go to Edinburgh to visit Matilda and her parents. Regular readers will not be surprised to learn that the train was late but I managed to walk down to the park near her nursery school in time to find Matilda playing with friends.
She was in a very sunny mood and gave me a big hello…
…and made good use of the playground slide…
…and the death defying ‘Flying Fox’…
…before we went home for some snap, Pelmanism and railway building.
Alistair made a delicious pasta with mushroom sauce for our evening meal and I caught the bus back up to Princes Street in a very satisfied mood.
I was early for the train so I took a picture or two.
My Lumix is very caring and if I get it out at night it says, “I know that you are old with a wobbly hand so I will see what I can do to help.”
I thought that it did quite well for hand held night shots.
The train back was late too but only by a few minutes so I got home in good time.
The flying bird of the day is a chaffinch at our own feeder.
Tootlepedal's Blog 
The rose glows inside. It’s nice to see it and the other flowers in October. We’re close to done for this year.
We have zip lines where I work, so I’d bet Matilda had a lot of fun on that one.
The Lumix did great on the night shots.
There were two frosty mornings while I was away and the garden is nearly over now.
That’s too bad. We’re supposed to see the same Sunday morning.
Wonderful to still have raspberries at this time of year!
They are autumn fruiting ones and will last as long as there isn’t a real frost.
Great shots, good lighting! Matilda looks beautiful! 🙂
Thank you HJ. I hope that you haven’t been flooded.
You packed a lot into your day, Matilda was looking very fetching and the night shots were beautiful.
The poppy photo is wonderful and your night shots very good indeed.
The camera is very clever….thank goodness.
You did very well with the night shots! The first image of the poppies is excellent as well. It sounds like another busy day for you, so I won’t comment too much about the wonderful photos of birds that you shot at the feeders.
Considering the gloomy day, the birds came out not too badly.
I can’t believe how quickly Matilda is growing up! She is quite the young lady now.
Time zips past!
Fabulous night shots! Love seeing Matilda’s bright face. And, yes, she is quite the young lady now.
She is indeed.
Stop it! You are spoiling us with all these wonderful photos from a beautiful granddaughter to another beautiful flower..those poppies and all those in between too!
She is the fairest flower in the land. 🙂
Looks like you had a great day. The night shots were excellent.
The camera is smart.
Yes, I thought it must be. 🙂
A lot smarter than me.
A social quandry – is it politer to disagree with you, or to agree that the camera is smarter than you?
The latter is more truthful.
🙂
What a kindly camera you have! I thank my lucky stars for the technology which enables hand-held just about anything.
…and the fact that you don’t have to wait two weeks for the pictures to come back from the developers only to find that they were no good.
Well, that certainly got a deep and very sincere chuckle out of me!
Or can’t remember why on earth you took that shot?
And think of the money we used to spend on film and developing!
What a wonderful post! I can never decide what I like best or feel I must comment on, but I will say I find the female pheasant quite attractive in her delicate, muted tones. Your Lumix is quite talented too. And Matilda is a gem.
I like the lady pheasants too. They have subtle colouring.
My favorite animal is a swan! ( thats why its my icon thing )