Chiltern Birder

Not the earliest year but still a nice suprise. Walking into Chesham along Botley Road one crossed in front of me and flew across a field of horses. This field is popular with the swallows probably because there are always animals grazing with associated insects around them. I also saw an orange tip butterfly on the same walk and noticed that flowers were out on the horse chestnuts. Spring develops so rapidly! In the garden the starlings are becoming a lot more active.

With the fine weather and a holiday it seemed a good idea to take advantage of the fact that I live in some very beautiful countryside. A walk in the Ley Hill area took me up Broomstick Lane, where escaped cultivated bluebells were mixing with the wild. Then into Cowcroft Wood where a substantial badger set seems to have had somebody digging. (I won't add my thoughts on that as Blogspot has rules about bad language). Although birds were audible there was nothing to be seen and the walk continued out onto Ley Hill Common and along the side of the golf course towards the community wood, now named Crabtree Plantation. One tree had several hollow sections where branches had fallen and a nuthatch was taking advantage of the previous night's rain to plaster mud around one of these. Its mate was on the next branch. A little nearer the road was a recently discarded pair of bright red knickers, I did wonder if the cloudburst had cooled somebody's ardour rather precipitately. In the ...