Variations

Storm clouds on Friday night ushered in a cold, wet and gusty Saturday.

More March than May!

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Clouds, we are never short of.

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Coming back from Greenwich on Thursday, we took a very short detour.

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Through the countryside.

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On the pond near Stump Church, a pair of Canada geese paddled with a single child.

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Which they protected safely between them.

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Observing their progress, a Great blue heron.

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Grant urged me to get a shot of them all lined up, but this was as close as they got…

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…before the heron launched itself off.

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Coming upon a large snapping turtle, we’d made another stop on our way to Greenwich.

The turtle was sunbathing in the middle of the road.

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For once, we actually pulled off to the side. (I maintain we could do this more often!)

“They” say you should just stand guard until the turtle clears the road, but this fellow wasn’t moving. It was probably absorbing heat from the tarmac. We didn’t want to leave it there, so Grant tried to urge it on. When this had no effect, he picked the turtle up and placed it on the grassy verge where it appeared to roll its eyes in annoyance.

It seemed likely that it would crawl back out and for the rest of the day I worried, but at least it was large enough to be quite visible and that is not a heavily travelled road.

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27th May ended like this:

We have all sorts of clouds….

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…this was 21st May.

Sometimes I wonder how many variations there could possibly be. I must say I am rather partial to the latter. I’d never seen anything quite like it before.

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