Friday 4 December 2009

One Brave Butterfly!


Swallow Pond

The horses had their coats on today and I certainly had mine on as I braved the cold and walked to the Rising Sun Country Park, passing a flock of maybe up to two hundred Lapwings on the way. I certainly wasn’t expecting to see any butterflies today, even though the sun was blindingly bright. However as the morning warmed a little, one brave Red Admiral put in an appearance as it flew across the fields and into the trees to seek some warmth. I know they are around all year now, but I don’t personally ever remember seeing one so late in the year. That'll probably be the last one of what I shall always remember as a butterfly year.

There were good numbers of Teal and even larger numbers of whistling Wigeon on the ponds today. There were several Shoveller about too and a lone Grey Heron was on the island of Swallow Pond. There was the odd Redwing along with the Blackbirds and Mistle Thrush feeding on the berries in the hedges and the fields near the farm held numbers of Curlew. As usual in the park the majority of birds seemed to be Wood Pigeons and Magpies! I did find a couple of Stock Doves in the pigeon flocks. A party of Long Tailed Tits fed near the pathway but I failed to find the Bullfinches that at least a couple of walkers mentioned having seen. Chaffinch, Greenfinch and Goldfinch were seen.

A cuppa in the restraunt was more than welcome. They were doing a good trade with tables booked for Christmas lunches. It can’t be Christmas yet surely!!! On the walk home I caught sight of an unidentified skein of geese away in the distance flying along the coast.

2 comments:

  1. "I caught sight of an unidentified skein of geese away in the distance flying along the coast"

    Probs just Bean Geese ;)

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  2. Oh, that's ok then as long as I didn't miss much. ;-)

    ReplyDelete