Merry Christmas from Steve & Mick

We hope that you had as nice a Christmas as we did. My wife Carole cooked the family a delicious roast dinner and my brother Mick came round to join in the feast. A few good glasses of wine were soon passed round and we all had an excellent celebration.

So today we decided to go out for some well needed exercise, so off we went for a walk at Oare Marshes. Mick wanted to try out his new fleece jumper that he got for Christmas and you can tell from his huge grin that he was snug and warm in it

The fleece was a present from our Mother, and like all good mums, she made sure that her other son had a nice warm fleece as well.

Unfortunately we did not bring our boots with us today which was a pity as the path around Oare Marshes was very muddy. It looked like a heard of cows had walked over it

And there, sitting in the sunshine was one of the likely culprits sitting quietly as if to state that it was not him, but if you look closely you can see that he is wearing a sly grin.

We therefore decided to walk along the roadway and see what we could find in the lakes. A young family of Teals swam over to wish us a pleasant Christmas before continuing about their business

And nearby a Shoveler gave us a recital of a famous duck Christmas Carol that he sang at the top of his voice.


A bit further on, we spotted a Mallard diving for food next to a small shrub of reeds. The reeds seem to be a popular feeding area so we guess that their food gets trapped down in the roots of the reeds.


Across the road from the lakes is another pathway to another lake, so we tried this one to see if it was less muddy. It was not as bad but still far to slippery for ordinary shoes so we just stayed on the outskirts. At first it seemed quite deserted but Mick spotted a rabbit watching us from a far off hill


We waited to see if he would come any closer to no avail. Just as we were turning to come back though, a pretty Stonechat landed next to us to say hello.


Unfortunately she could not stay long and flew off quite quickly, but her husband was not in a rush and he fluttered over to pose for our pictures


It was time for us to go so we walked back to the car. As we passed the lake we noticed that the Shoveler was still singing away and had found a nice little island to stand on



We hope that you enjoyed our walk. More pictures can be found in our galleries at www.voinapics.co.uk

Steve & Mick

Northwood after the rains 9th December 2006

We have had some wet and windy weather over the last few weeks so we have not been out much. Today though, the sun was shining brightly so we took a trip out to Northwood Hill. We took our boots as there were lots of puddles to play in!.


Most of the bushes and small trees have now lost their leaves leaving Northwood looking quite bare. There did not seem to be many birds about today either so we decided to take the small lens tand see what we could find.

It may have seemed bare at first glance but a closer look to the ground revealed lots of wild flowers waving their petals at us to try and get our attention. So we crouched down to admire their pretty colours and marvelled at the soft downy hairs that help keep them warm. Now that they had our attention, the flowers stopped their waving and kept themselves nice and still so that we could take a picture to show you, if you click on the picture, you will get a better view of what we saw.

And it was not only the petals that wanted to show off. Some of the autumn leaves had turned that gorgeous toasty gold colour and were just begging to be photographed. We had to oblige.

Sheltering from the wind we found a little ladybird. She had positioned herself deep in the protective arms of a plant in just the right place to be warmed by the sun. Getting herself into a comfortable position, she waited for us to take her picture then settled down for a quite snooze. With quick thanks, we moved the arms of the plant back to protect her, and tipped toed quietly past.



We continued on our walk. Mike wanted to see if he could spot any birds on the feeders so we made our way over to the hide to have a look.




And we found some Blue Tits enjoying some peanuts. The other feeders were not occupied so we guess that the birds were finding some juicy worms in the soft earth that the rains had provided.

We reached a gate at the outskirts of the reserve and stopped there for a rest. As we were leaning against the gate we noticed a little aphid out enjoying a walk as well. She came over to us to say hello.

Coming the other way was a teeny weeny spider carrying her shopping back home. She also came over to greet us and the pair of them were soon getting along like old friends. Unfortunatly it was time for us to go so we left the pair of them chatting and started to make our way back to the car.

But just before we left, I noticed some nice berries shining in the sunshine. I just had to stop and take a picture of them to show you

And what a pretty picture they made.

We hope that you enjoyed our trip out. More pictures can be found in our galleries at www.voinapics.co.uk

Steve & Mick