Chiltern Birder

Yesterday I took advantage of an overcast morning to visit the College Lake reserve near Tring. The advantage of the cloud cover is the lack of reflected sunlight on the water so you can actually see the birds rather than just silhouettes. There were good displays of primroses around the edges of the paths but the most spectacular feature was the acrobatic display flights by the lapwings. There are quite a few pairs nesting on the islands so there were usually several birds in the air at the same time. There was the usual collection of waterfowl with shoveller, gadwall, tufties, mallard, coot, mute swans and both Candada and greylag geese. Remarkably well camoflaged on the shingle were some redshank, I could hear them but it was only when one took flight that I could find them and even then once I took my bins off the spot I couldn't be sure of finding them again. At home the badgers are still visiting but catching them on camera is still not as exciting as seeing one in the...

The snow hasn't brought anything exciting to the garden. For the last couple of days we have had starlings, blue tits, robins and blackbirds and one brief glimpse of a wren at the bottom of the garden. Out walking yesterday it was cold and foggy. Just the usual woodland birds but in Cowcroft Wood a fox trotted out into the ride in front of me. It was a handsome beast and, in the still air, hadn't caught my scent. After a couple of seconds he became aware of me and loped off without much obvious concern. There were lots of signs of activity in the snow, particularly creatures digging down to get at the earth underneath. I assumed that it was foxes after beetles. There were also footprints of deer and rabbits had occupied a badger set, the droppings standing out clearly in the snow. What was also clear was that a some of out human neighbours regard farmland as a glorified theme park as there were several toboggan tracks going out into a sloping arable field where new crops wer...