A bit of a miscellany today, as I have collected some bits and bobs that don't all fit into one long narrative.
First, a visit to the Swans showed no eggs... but some nest-refurbishment.
And while on the subject of eggs...
This is a new one... I now can't remember how small it was... definitely smaller than the Pheasant one but I thought maybe blackbird sized. According to this picture, though, the colours seem like Skylark - and there are plenty of Skylarks about.
I found an archway for a mouse.
I rather like that.
And enjoyed the sweet scent of these...
Red Campion. They used to be everywhere when I was a kid, now the farmers plant them on their set-aside land to attract pollinators.
I celebrated an Ash.
The ones on this walk seem to have been hit by die-back, but at Pitsford and at Hanging Houghton all the Ash trees seem very healthy.
On a windy day in the copse, I leaned against my favourite Poplar. She is dying from the top down. I pressed my listening ear against her trunk and it was like... aaahhh... the wind was made into wood to be turned into sound and transmitted to the ground. Such low frequency sound... as though the trees could speak with elephants through the earth. Maybe elephants can hear distant trees on windy days. Maybe sound matters more in the ground than we think.
On the subject of sound, the Merlin app claims that I have heard a Lesser Spotted Woodpecker. Some were sceptical about this. I was sceptical when it came up with Spotted Flycatcher - only to read on a local birdwatching blog that one had been seen in the very location where the app recorded it. Then it said there was a Swift in my garden. Again, I thought, no way. Then I looked up and saw... a Swift. A long way up, to be fair. But it was a Swift. So, when it claimed there was a Coal Tit around I was inclined to believe it. And, funnily enough, I saw one in my garden. Unless it was a Blue Tit in disguise or a Great Tit who'd pecked at Alice's 'eat me' cake and shrunk.
The Jays are visiting again, which is nice, if noisy. And, in the park, a very slim-lined Robin makes himself visible when I call and hops up, bob-bob-bobbing, to take suet pellets one by one.
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