Chiltern Birder

With all other sources of exercise forbidden I was starting to feel that my usual half hour round the local fields wasn't quyite enough. Today I turned left into the lane instead of right and went into Cowcroft Wood. A green woodpecker was very audible but didn't come within sight. Just as I entered the wood, however, I did see a treecreeper working its way up one of the trees. Naturally it didn't stay still long enough for a photo. Some of the old brick clay diggings are very impressive, filled now with so much regrowth that they could be mistaken for natural features. Without any sense of scale from people the photo doesn't do the view justice. I took a zig zag route through the wood comingout by the trig point, which must have been among far less undergrowth when it was used for surveying. Walking past Ladies' Wood I heard a buzzard scream, which makes a change from the kites, a few seconds later it circled overhead before vanishing behind the trees. On ...

After yesterday's snow I took a rather muddy walk today. Temperatures were a little above freezing and I didn't have much opportunity to creep silently up to wildlife while squelching through deep mud. Walking along the edge of Cowcroft Wood these boisterous young chaps came to see if I happened to have a couple of sacks of cattle cake about my person. Bird life was not much different to the garden. Robins and blackbirds pretty well everywhere, a jay in the wood. It always seems odd the way such a large bird flies under the canopy. Along Bunns Lane there was a flock of long tailed tits while blue and great tits turned up all over the place and a solitary chaffinch appeared in a hedgerow. The red kites overhead pretty well go without saying these days. I did rather like this fungus that I saw on a tree in Ladies Wood.