Flying on...

If you left a comment on my last post, this is just to say that I will reply!  I love getting comments and love replying, but also I like to visit your blogs and see what you are up to as well.  I can't quite do it all because I haven't been much at the computer for the last two weeks.  Must admit I do presently feel a bit like Alice being dragged along by the Red Queen in Tenniel's illustration.

I'm not complaining, because it's a good reason for rushing about.  I've suddenly been gripped by a project that pulls together a few aspects of my life, and right now I'm gathering material which will decide its exact final form. As I said last time, I can't really share it just yet, because I'm still putting it together and it might change, but it does involve a bird like this,

and also one like this. I wonder if you can guess what kind of bird it is. 

I did go out to Oxfordshire at the weekend and on the way I looked at the OS map and saw "White Lion" marked. I thought it must be a pub (since "The White Lion" is a common pub name) but if so, couldn't imagine why they had put its name on the OS map, which never usually marks pub names.   Then I saw this,(below) in the vicinity of the village of Whipsnade, and realised it was a chalk figure.

I'd never heard of this lion, but as you might be able to tell by the style,  it is modern - that is, it was built in 1933.  Which counts as modern by chalk figure standards.  It was a clever advertisement for Whipsnade Zoo, as it was then known (it's a branch of the London ZSL Zoo).  The chalk figure lion isn't accessible to the public but I read up about it here and loved the idea of a colony of wallabies living on it - don't you?

Also saw an old windmill. Don't you agree this is a strange place for a windmill, right in the middle of a field when it could be up on the hill?  I've been to working windmills before, one in Holland and one in Lincolnshire, the wonderful Maud Foster Mill in Boston, which I thoroughly recommend if you are in the area. The one below is picturesque but its sails were not turning and I didn't have the chance to pass by and see if it is ever open to the public.

As I walked around I wondered if those were beech nuts or sweet chestnuts I was crunching underfoot, and just deciding they must be beech nuts, when ....

...I realised a lot of insects seemed to be flying around. Mostly they were going in and out of the hole beneath that white stone.   

I suddenly realised the stone was covering a wasp's nest and so I beat a quick retreat, after taking a photo.

I thought it was a rather elegant insect and looked it up in case it was a special sort of wasp, but no, it's only Vespa vulgaris, "common wasp."  It is always worth looking at nature close up, though in the case of wasps, not too close.....