Wednesday 5 August 2009

snap, crackle and drop

Having heard all the exciting news about the juvenile terns at Yarrow Valley Park, especially the older chick: starting to fly - splattering into water - nearly drowning then managing to fly learning how to fish, I really had to go visit them tonight. After all the day's exercise, the younger was resting on the raft and the older stunt-chick was limiting his adventures to swimming around the raft (or maybe mum had grounding him? I am, of course, assuming he is male - certainly sounds like it!)

My camera isn't good enough to get a decent photo so I took one of this cygnet instead which spent ages grooming itself.

On our way round, we noticed this peeling birch tree. No idea what has happened here. Man made damage perhaps?

Later we paused under a beech tree and heard it snap, crackle and drop its nut cases on us. It shed them like a shower. At first I wondered whether there was a squirrel in the tree but there wasn't evidence of the beech nuts being eaten - just falling. A magic moment (even if I wasn't wearing a hard hat!)

We also saw a juvenile grey wagtail looking very lonely (Awww) and a frog. It's always worth a short evening stroll; you just never know what you might happen upon.

3 comments:

Caroline Gill said...

What a rewarding walk, Carol. We have been watching terns at our local WWT.

The Weaver of Grass said...

I like an evening stroll round the garden Carol - if only for the hedgehogs. Thanks for your info on courses, by the way. At present we are concentrating our funds on producing a booklet - but have filed your notes for future reference. Hope things have improved health-wise in your household.

Mistlethrush said...

The terns are flying regularly now and I expect will be leaving soon. Hope to see them next year.

Weaver - E is much better now, thanks. Went back to work part way through this week. Good luck with the booklet.

from the field book

from the field book
An inspiring gift for anyone who enjoys watching nature.