Woodlife

Sometimes you have a good weekend and sometimes they’re not so good. This weekend started as the latter. On Saturday, all geared up, I jumped into Doris the Land Rover Discovery and… nothing. Dead. Demised. Deceased. No more. The battery was dead as a proverbial Dodo. That was the end of that trip.

Luckily, the sunny weather held until today. It was much colder than last week and the temperature didn’t get too far above freezing until noon. I took my 15 litre rucksack filled with a flask of tea, a folding sit mat and some food. Doris was raring to go with a brand new battery (which cost the price of 3 Granfors Bruks axes!)

The ponds were frozen over driving the inhabitants like this Moorhen onto the fields. There was little or no wind and the spring-like sound of a woodpecker echoed through Outfield wood when I eventually walked in. Apart from the odd squirrel I didn’t see very much, so after a while I decided to follow one of the trails to the far west of the wood. It wasn’t too long before I spotted some movement on the edge of a small copse about 200 yards from this wood.

I crept forward to the very edge of wood and watched as 30 Fallow deer came into view and wandered to within about 150 yards of me. The pic is from the video hence poor quality. They were a little skittish and were looking my way. Eventually they turned and scooted off to the north out of sight. I savoured the sight as this would probably be my last visit to these woods for a few weeks.

After lounging in the sun for an hour, nibbling on left over chicken (and nodding off in the sun’s warmth) I decided to have a drive around the outer fields.

Lapwings and seagulls were occupying much of the fields but there was something else perched on one of the fence posts. I grabbed the binoculars and realised I was staring straight into the eyes of a Buzzard. I grabbed the camera and managed to snap off a couple of shots before it flew off.

No sooner had I put the binos away than I noticed another slight movement. This time it was a male Munjac. Out came the binos again to confirm his small but prominant antlers. It wasn’t long before he was heading back into a copse. 

This was turning out not such a bad weekend after all. Having said that, I saw nothing else of significance and eventually headed home.

Thanks for the visit.
Pablo.