Above is Louise, one of a pair of Collared Doves who took up permanent residency in the trees at the end of my garden some time ago. Nothing odd there….except that her partner, Thelma (below), is also female! They both occasionally enter into a frenzy of nest-building activity at almost any time of the year, each arriving in the garden with nesting material and then parading about with it. All to no avail of course. They’re virtually inseparable and fly in the face of avian convention by (a) rarely associating with others of their kind, even during the winter flocking season and (b), by possibly being the only gays in the village!Thelma

On Golden PondOk, so no more sunset pictures on the Home Page after this one….I promise! There were lots of Wigeon doing Duck stuff on this stretch of water, plus a few Teal, assorted Gulls, Coot, a couple of Moorhen and a Heron and…. if you look very, very carefully….you wont see any of them because they all scarpered off to the other end of the lake once word got out that some hot-shot plonker who fancies himself with a camera was trying to take a picture!