Umborne Primroses

When we moved into the area 10 years ago we lived in a small collection of houses known as Watchcombe and every morning on the school run drove through a small group of houses called Umborne, incidentally Umborne has one of the finest village halls I know of, I'll get a photo one day and show you. Between Umborne and Shute village there are several small lanes which for a few weeks in April are literally festooned with Primroses. The first time I saw them I was quite awestruck, especially as I don't remember seeing any wild Primroses at all in all my time living in Staffordshire. I hadn't driven that way (in April) for several years, so purposefully popped over there today for a look and they certainly didn't disappoint. Here's a photo of one small section of Lexhayne Lane.

See festooned!

There were also a few clumps of Wood Anemones around Easy Bridge, a lovely plant which is said to be indicative of lost woodland if in a meadow or hedge bank as seen here.

Beauty in simplicity I think.

What about birds!? Well, not many migrants around today, one Sand Martin flew overhead near to Marsh Farm, where there were also a pair of Swallows. They were hanging around on wires next to the farm with the male singing, so likely a returning local pair. I also saw the male at Musbury today which Steve mentioned earlier in the week. A gorgeous pair of Grey Wagtails were on the River Umborne too.


Amazingly I haven't managed to miss any more Ospreys today, after having missed three this week so far, including two on Tuesday. Two I missed while at work, although a certain jammy individual still manged to see one of these, while conveniently loitering in the back yard! ;-) The earlier of the two birds on Tuesday decided to fly over my house while I was a tad indisposed, my dinner was a little bit ON FIRE!!