Marston Vale Country Park in the snow...

A panorama of the ice-bound Pillinge lake, taken from the hide.

The visitors centre.

Yesterday 12 Dec 2010 my wife and son (Pattie and Thomas Outen) went to purchase a Christmas Tree from our local farm at Clifton Bury. They told me that some of the trees had galls on them. I checked thees out and identified them as caused by the Homopteran bug Adelges abietis. Sean Karley has confirmed my identification and tells me that "this species was already on the checklist for Beds, but without any localised record; it has one now!"

MVCP - Pillinge Panoramas

A view over the MVCP Pillinge Lake from the Wetland 3 bank.

The view from the MVCP Pillinge hide.

Both of these photos were taken using my Canon S95 compact camera and stitched together using Photoshop Elements. The final images were made up from about 8 or 9 individual photos each. These are very compressed versions of the panoramas, both full-size versions are about 17,000 pixels long... Photos by Martin Green