Two Garden Visitors

Today there have been two visitors to the garden.....one of them, the song thrush, is one of our greatest singers and the other, the hedge sparrow is a bird of curious habits and a delightful song reminiscent of the white throat warbler. The female dunnock mates with as many males as possible but only allows one to father her chicks....by ingenious means.....however, all the local males think the chicks are theirs and help in feeding them......the dunnock is also regularly parisitised by the common cuckoo and somehow fails to recognize that the giant chick in its nest is not its own....

A Sand Lizard, a Grass snake and a Smooth Snake at Crooksbury Common

At the moment the sand lizards are in their full breeding colours. They are brilliant to see.....although thats not easy to do. They manage to remain well hidden most of the time. Seriously endangered by habitat loss they are now our rarest reptile along with the smooth snake which feeds on them. A tragic case of the endagered eating the endangered....such is life. Enjoy them while you can, but blink and they are gone......forever....

A Hobby (Falcon) and Kestrel on Blackheath

I sighted this beautiful and very rare falcon sitting on a dead tree on Blackheath, Surrey. The light was poor and the distance great but through the telescope it could clearly be seen. Marvellous! The photos aren't great but still its elegance and sickle wings can clearly be seen. I followed it round for some time trying to get a better picture as it flew from tree to tree, but all to no avail and eventually it vanished through the pines and was gone. A ghostly and magical memory of one of our most impressive birds.

Tugley Wood Meadow

There is a meadow in the woods at Tugley which at times appears to be a vision of true lovliness....in fact it can appear like a sort of heaven on earth on a spring day in the sunshine.....I wonder what you think.....foxes and roe deer and rabbits often frequent the clearing and song thrushes sing from the branches of the oaks. It really is fantastic.

Tugley Wood in the Spring

At the moment, Tugley wood is filled with bird song. There are several singing nightingales competing with numerous black cap warblers and a fantastic garden warbler. His voice is truly amazing. catching a brief glimpse of any of these great songsters is the best that can be hoped for though! They are all loud but highly elusive. As well as the birds there are some roe deer and lots of wild flowers. The early purple orchids are just appearing and fluttering amongst them are a few wood-white butterflies and a truly beautiful green veined white. There are no signs of any turtle doves yet though. Have they not made it back through the killing fields of France I wonder......?

A visitor from West Africa.....

It was a cool day in early May and this female stone chat was very flirty and photogenic on top of some gorse bushes. What a lovely sight she was, continually flicking her wings and making her stone tapping sounds while hawking for flies. Fantastic. Welcome back from Africa little stone chat!!!

Nightingales In a Surrey Wood (Tugley)

As I write there is a nightingale singing from the thicket on my left....accompanied by a wood warbler and a distant cuckoo....a wood-white butterfly is nectaring nearby. Could this ancient Surrey woodland be a vision of heaven?