Selene, the Greek Moon-goddess of passion, and Venus, the Roman goddess of love met above the western horizon at sunset last night: tonight they will be even closer, joining Mars to create a gorgeous celestial menage a trois.
If you look closely, you can see the gibbous phase of Venus.
While doing a bit of garden maintenance today, I noticed that both of the local leucistic raptors were simultaneously enjoying the thermals. The pale male Buzzard was, as usual, receiving the attention of a gang of corvids, while the Marsh Harrier had his part of the sky to himself!
All our large trees are now in full leaf, so it's hard to grab a focused shot between the branches!
Local artist John Applegate has been exhibiting a selection of his oil paintings at the Church this weekend. Perhaps unsurprisingly, these are predominantly local subjects, but there are landscapes from all arond the UK. Linda and I bought a really evocative Dorset beach scene....
Regular readers may recall that we are frequently visited by a beautiful pale Buzzard: in the last couple of days it's been joined by a leucistic Marsh Harrier. This striking bird really set the pulses racing the first time it soared over the garden!
There are some bright passes by the ISS for the remainder of the month: here are the predicted times for Norfolk and some long exposure photos from last night. (Also: Venus and Mars are both bright objects in the west after sunset: they are in the constellation of Gemini)
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Having just finished the report of this morning's survey, I checked the pager to find that the somewhat mobile Caspian Tern that has been visiting various broads around the east of the county was 'on the deck' at Hickling NWT.
Linda was busy in the garden, so waved me off: for once I arrived at just the right time to enjoy watching this fabulous beast on the ground and in flight. Four Temminck's Stints were still present, as were lots of Hobbies, Cranes, a Bittern and a Mediterranean Gull.
As usual, Peter, Sue, Linda and I met at the 'Little Church on the Hill' to carry out our monthly survey. The variety was pretty good, including a couple of unusual species, but the totals of everything were lower than usual. Just a single butterfly: a Large White...
Some beautiful crops of Crimson Clover nearby, as well as a flush of Salsify on the verges.
A two Stint day! Linda had to drop off some wax wraps at Cley NWT Reception so, before lunch, we walked out to the centre hides for a quick look around. Despite their being miles away in the haze, Linda picked out two Little Stints at the far side of Simmond's: very nice! Shortly afterwards another year tick materialised, in the form of two Little Terns.
