Wednesday 16 December

Had a walk up on to Lower Burgh Meadow, this meadow is wet at the best of times so imagine what it is like now.

The paths are quite good and circle the entire meadow, it is becoming a good place for plants, it was once used as a refuse tip.

Plenty of Gorse on the edges along with bramble and bracken.

This was Hoary Ragwort, the seeds well and truly scattered.

Looking towards Winter Hill, I love the hill - probably because it was one of my playgrounds as a child.

I wasn't sure if this was Wild Angelica, it had been frosted and lost all it's leaves, plus other details had been lost it looked like angelica heads so I took a small floret home as the seeds were too tiny for my small pocket lens.

Definitely Wild Angelica - seed blown up 60x you can just make out the start of a wing shape and on the visible corner, on a fully developed seed there would be 4 four broad wings.

Pond on Lower Burgh, this is full of life in the spring and summer - plants, damselflies, dragonflies all manner of life lies dormant at the moment.

Water Rail being followed about by a gull hoping to get a few tit bits that are disturbed.

This Squirrel was carrying what we thought was some sort of rodent, pity the picture was not up to being blown up.

Don't lean on this fence to look at the river, the posts are being exposed by the water running down the brow.

Good day for a walk, the weather was damp but we managed to stay dry.

Take Care.