Back by popular demand. This pink bunny was photographed in the wild by Martin Moneke who was visiting (with Beate) from Darmstadt last weekend.

The angels

All this they do not see.
Butterflies on a mountain path
Sun sinking behind the swollen river
The city at night, blinking in solitude
A house heavy with books and silence
The late monsoon rain
-
Glowing spheres
Warm orange, red, yellow and green
Gently floating, merging, parting
Some near, some far
Against a backdrop of white eternity.
All this they see.
-
We walk the Earth a little time
Invent distractions for our minds,
The Angels watch me and I seek
A little truth before I sleep.

"Aftercomers cannot guess the beauty been" Gerard Manley Hopkins wrote of the ancient meadow in 1879, following the felling of the poplars by the river.

The poplars have been replaced with others and Port Meadow is still, in my opinion at least, one of the finest things about Oxford. Walkers enjoy the beautiful meadow all year round. At the moment, during winter, it is flooded - inhabited by a mass of waterfowl and others. Forget your dreaming spires, aloof ivory towers, dark dusty libraries and sophisticated quads!

An article in The Spectator, 1914 reads,
"From Walton Well to Wolvercote it still stretches, a wilderness of green turf, the joy of the rider and walker, and the airiest meadow in the valley of the Thames. So be it, and so shall it be."

1 small noisy baby. Found growing in a bamboo shoot.

Fish eggs.

Butterfly dwarf cichlid (Microgeophagus ramirezi/Papiliochromis ramirezi)

These beautiful fish, also known as Rams, are about 6cm long. After careful cleaning of a broad Anubius leaf, the female laid a batch of about 30 small - 2mm length - white eggs (the male fertilises the eggs shortly after they have been laid). This process takes a couple of hours. They then take turns to guard the eggs. Guard duty includes chasing off other fish as well as gulping air from the surface and fanning oxygenated water over the eggs. The fry take about 72 hours to hatch. Unfortunately, the young don't have much chance of survival in a community tank - in fact, as expected, the eggs in this photo were eaten after day 2 (by the parents or a greedy platty). We will remove the next batch (imminent) to another tank after they are laid and "hand rear" them - but it's worth leaving the eggs with the parents at least once to observe their interesting parenting behaviour. These fish will also look after any hatchlings until they are fairly old.

Three years

"To love someone deeply
Gives you strength,
Being loved by someone deeply
Gives you courage"
Lao Tzu