Fen rainbow

Many more photographic opportunities today! So many that I found it hard to choose my blip this evening.

When I came down to the kitchen first this morning I heard the call of a green woodpecker, and looked out to see two on the trunk of our willow tree. Surprisingly, I managed to get quite a clear shot of one, the first time I've managed this.

As the sun was shining and no-one else was up (younger people had been out socialising the night before) I took the dogs down to the river. The light was lovely and I took photos of unfurling dogwood leaves and a ladybird basking on a twig of pussy willow, both of which would have made acceptable choices.

I spent the rest of the morning in the gardes, trimming back shrubs and trying to eliminate the couch grass and bindweed which infest parts of the garden - a thankless task because I know that they'll always return. By the time Chris and the other boys were up the rain had started, so any thought of a walk was postponed.

The rain only lasted a couple of hours so Chris and I managed an afternoon walk at Holme Fen. The mere held the usual range of waterfowl: little grebe, shoveler, gadwall, wigeon, tufted duck, coot, mallard, mute swans and feral geese. There was also a very large flock of redwings in some tall alder trees, making a quite incredible chattering.

We completed our walk well before sunset, and were just waiting on the edge of the fen hoping to see the barn owl, when we turned to see the most incredibly bright partial rainbow against a steely grey sky. The rainbow gradually grew, eventually becoming a perfect, but much paler, full arc. Both of us took a number of photographs...and just managed to get our cameras away before the rain came. It was heavy and very cold, but luckily it was only a few hundred metres to the car. I nearly had to break into a run though!