At Minchinhampton Common – Take 2

With sun shining across the hills under pretty scudding clouds I decided to go up to Minchinhampton Common to practice filming skylarks in flight using the tips I learnt at the course last week.  When I arrived and parked in a remote spot, I spotted a few starlings amongst the grazing cattle which have just been released onto the common for the summer as part of the ancient grazing rights of the Commoners.

I saw a starling on the back of a cow from a distance and thought it might make a good picture, but by the time I'd got there the cows had moved on and the starlings had mostly gone.  Those remaining were intent on finding worms in the grass and they seemed to like to do so very close to where the cow's head was grazing.  I don't know what that was about, but it happened lots of times.

When I moved further on and heard the first skylark I concentrated on finding a good vantage point to film them both in the air and then again on their return to the ground.  All went well and I followed one skylark very closely, managed to get up quite close and got lots of probably good pictures of it scurrying in the long grass whilst singing.  I also got various flight pictures of it both ascending and descending as well as in horizontal flight just above the ground. .

But I suddenly noticed an Error message appeared on the camera screen and all access to the Compact Flash card was denied, saying it had to be reformatted!  I have had a similar problem when downloading my pictures but never in the camera itself.  I took it out and put it back in but to no avail.  I will try to borrow a card reader and see if that can access it before I format the card again.  What a pain, as I was really looking forward to seeing how the pictures turned out.  I had earlier looked at a couple of the images on the camera's rear screen and some looked perfect.  I am very annoyed.

So I went back to the car and got another card out and went to try to at least take a couple of snaps of a skylark for a blip, but they seemed to have melted away completely.  So I went to the pub in the middle of the common called The Old Lodge and had a half of bitter to drown my sorrows.  I went into the garden to sit on the stone wall and was pleased when the group of horses and a donkey, which also roam on the common in the summer months, arrived to graze around the 18th green of the golf course which also occupies some of the common.  In the distance the local ice cream factory's van can be seen  at the centre of the common.  The green hills in the distance are on the far side of the Golden Valley.