Thread by @LevParikian

Evening. A short thread (don't worry – it contains no opinions, politics, hard takes, deep thinking or unlikely and amazing coincidences. It's just a load of nature photos.)

I went for a long walk today – 20 miles. This in preparation for an even longer walk I'm doing next week. (If you fancied throwing some money towards Alzheimer's research, that would be amazing.) justgiving.com/fundraising/le…

The walk took me from my front door in south London up to the river and along to Barnes and then into Richmond Park and then to the station and then back up the hill to my bottle of wine I mean HOME, to my home.

I saw some things, and I thought you might like to see them too.

I saw this family of greylag geese on the hunt for bread.

I saw this resplendent lavender.

I saw this goggle-eyed pigeon.

I saw this guy (I'm calling him Lance) looking for things, and just managed to stop myself from calling out 'looking for buried treasure? Good luck!'

I saw this moorhen chick on a water lily leaf.

I saw a tender family moment.

I saw this enticing path.

I saw a thingy sitting on a whatsit.

I saw this EXCELLENT jackdaw.

I saw a deer wearing exactly the same expression as the dog in the boat in that Far Side cartoon you know the one.

I saw this mushroom (parasol??).

I saw this magnificent piece of natural geometry.

So I saw a lot of things. But the best thing came last.

I'd walked close to 17 miles. My legs were weary. The station was still three miles distant.

I could either walk along the road through Richmond Park or I could take a detour away from the traffic, across the grass where the skylarks nest and into the woods. Traffic: shorter – no traffic: longer.

I took the longer route.

I saw a young deer (they're everywhere in the park at the moment). It saw me, and pronked away as fast as it good. A pronking deer is a fine sight, and I enjoyed it for a bit.

And then I saw a little movement in the corner of my eye.

My brain thought two things at once:
'Song thrush.'
'Not a song thrush – not song-thrushy enough. Too something-elsey.'

The something else landed on a branch and stared at me with open yellow eyes.

Now the thing you need to know is that, even though I've done a fair bit of birdwatching in the last five years, one really quite common bird has eluded me. Ridiculous really, but there you go.

In 2014 I didn't see a little owl.
In 2015 I didn't see a little owl.
In 2016 I didn't see a little owl.
In 2017 I didn't see a little owl.
In 2018 I didn't see a little owl.

Today, I saw a little owl, and it was quite the thing.

So there you go. The moral of the story is: take the longer path. ENDS (at last).