As the parade passes by

This photo is actually from the same time last year and was one I was disappointed not to use. How lovely I can share it now! It was taken just a few miles from us as we drove over to Buxton in Derbyshire.

[Joanne Diochon]

Nice shot, is it a stiched together panorama? And, I can't help asking about the red butts.

[Babs]

Beautiful shot. You can feel such a sense of space. Could be the pied piper.

[Shirley Marshall]

A breath of fresh air. I think the red butts help the farmer to identify his own sheep, but hey I was born a town mouse so what do I know?

[Angela]

@gardencat It's not stitched- instead the effect is from a letterbox crop but I thought it really suited the shot. As Shirley says, the red bums are for a farmer to identify his flock from others when they're in adjoining fields. I'd never seen a flock following a farmer like this before so I wonder if he was carrying sheep food... whatever that might be!

[🐞Lucy Dolittle]

Wow this is such a beautiful composition.

[Andy Roe]

Super shot - especially cropped in the letterbox format. The red bums on the sheep probably show which ewes have been served by the ram. The dye used is called raddle; the ram wears dye on the underside of his body so when he mounts the ewe it leaves the dye behind thus showing the shepherd which ewes have been served.