Sunday 16 March 2008

Fairtrade llamas

A walk in the woods produced plenty of birdsong from the usual characters, augmented by the first Chiffchaffs. The understory is carpeted by Wood Anemones and Wild Garlic, the latter giving its pleasant scent to the woodland (and to my boots long after I took them off).

From the edge of the woods could be heard Skylarks singing over the downland, and a couple of Yellowhammers rattling at each other along the hedgerows.

Nearby was a field of Alpacas, looking as daft as usual. But you long to sink you hands into the thick coat, which looks so soft.

When I got home, the current Mrs K. showed me a game of Solitaire that she had bought from Traidcraft, the Fair Trade organisation, which had llamas instead of counters.
So as well as bananas, coffee, wine etc, we now buy Fair Trade llamas!

4 comments:

Mary said...

How cool! The alpacas do look wonderfully soft! I love all the interesting names your birds have...chiffchaff, yellowhammer, etc. Does the Yellowhammer, hammer? Those flowers in the woods are very beautiful....a nice spring carpet. The game looked like fun and the llamas even more fun...did you win? Nice post!

me ann my camera said...

What a beautiful looking place for a walk and I love the names of some of the bird species in your area... Yellowhammers.

Kingsdowner said...

Ladies from the Americas - thanks for your comments.
The Yellowhammer is an increasingly uncommon bird of the fields and hedgerows, which makes a call that is known as 'Little-bit-of-bread-and-no-cheeeese'.

It's obviously yellow, but I haven't been able to discover the root of the 'hammer', and assume it refers to the repetitive nature of the call.

And as for the Chiffchaff, Mary, my wife fears the day that these arrive from Africa, as they are incredibly repetitive with their 'chiff-chaff-chiff-chaff' song.
For me, however, it's a lovely sign of the beginning of spring.

Sandpiper (Lin) said...

All beautiful pictures, but that forest with the flowers really is stunning!