Here I am at Lover’s Leap! The stone steps leading up to this outcrop contained myriad crinoid fossils. Apparently, this part of Derbyshire was part of a warm, shallow sea just north of the equator about 300 million years ago. It stretches my imagination a bit to picture this place as a tropical lagoon with coral reefs, brachiopods, and crinoids.

I soon came to Reynard’s Cave, a place reportedly long used as a shelter. There is a beautiful arch just outside the entrance and the stones on the ascent have been worn so as to be polished much like an abalone shell. There are many ferns and bryophytes growing amongst the rocks, including Asplenium scolopendrium, the harts-tongue fern.

There was a small tunnel leading further back into the cave. I went a little way in using the red LED on my camera as illumination, but without a proper torch I was reluctant to go any further.

I watched a pair of goosanders (a.k.a. the common merganser, Mergus merganser) in the River Dove. They were excellent divers and it was a pleasure to watch them fishing.

Another large limestone cave eroded by glacial meltwater.

This spire is known Ilam Rock and is apparently a favorite of local rock climbers.

I began looping back to the carpark at the quaint village of Milldale.

I ate lunch in the shelter of one of these stone walls. Out of the shelter of the dale, the wind was quite fierce.

And though it was mostly sunny, a big dark cloud blew over and a flurry of precipitation somewhere between snow and hail descended.

The round trip was just over six miles. You can see

the route I took on Google Maps.  All in all, a lovely day out!

The earthquake Wednesday night shook us awake. At first it seemed like it might be just an especially big gust of wind, but it soon became obvious that it was an earthquake. It wasn’t powerful enough here to do any damage, but it was another exciting occurrence in an already dynamic week.

Several people have asked me what I’m going to do now that I’m not home educating the kids anymore. The short answer is that I don’t know.

The longer answer is that in the short term, I’m planning to do things that I like to do. As any parent can tell you, there is never enough time to care for the kids and do things for yourself. So I’m thinking of indulging myself with some things I haven’t had time to pursue in the past seven and a half years.

On Tuesday, I rode my bike along the Trent and Mersey canal that runs near our house. The first section of the path is part of the National Cycle Trail and is quite smooth riding. After the cycle trail veers off towards Melbourne, it becomes more of a muddy footpath until you get to Shardlow about seven miles down the line. Shardlow is apparently a hive of canal boat activity; there is quite a marina there. The

path ends with the confluence of the Trent and Mersey canal, the River Trent, and the River Derwent. I saw a few water birds here, including some tufted ducks,

a couple of goosanders,

and a group of coots.

Paintings courtesy of the RSPB birdguide.

On my return trip, I noticed I was riding on my rims and I ended up walking the last 3 or 4 miles back. Yesterday, I found several very large thorns embedded in the tires and patched five punctures. Anway, when I got home I ate lunch and had an hours nap. Then I picked the kids up from school, made homemade pizzas for dinner which we ate with one of Molly’s co-workers and his friend from California. Finally, I went to capoeira.

I don’t expect every day will be as full as that one, but I am looking forward to having some time to myself!

In 2007, over 400,000 people took part by counting the birds in their garden for an hour. Together they spotted 6 million birds across 236,000 gardens, helping reveal the winners and losers in the garden bird world. Over the past three decades participants have made a significant contribution to monitoring garden bird numbers and helped highlight that some garden birds are in need of help. The survey has recorded the huge declines in some of our most familiar birds. Since 1979, the number of house sparrows counted has fallen by 52% and the number of starlings by 76%. However, it isn’t all bad news – chaffinchs and great tits have both seen their numbers increase since 1979 by 36 and 52 per cent respectively. Our scientists can then use these patterns in bird numbers to help prioritise our bird conservation work.

I spent a nice hour with the cats yesterday morning, counting birds and drinking coffee!

Here are some of the birds we commonly see in our garden:

The blue tit

The chaffinch

The collared dove

The dunnock

The great tit

The greenfinch

The robin

The blackbird