As well as meeting lots of friends, drinking lots of red wine, eating lots of fantastic food and watching horses running around in circles, I did some birding this week.
The drive from near Oxford to the racecourse produced the first transect when Red Kite numbers from the car equalled Buzzards – and the Red Kite number was a record at 13 for our route.
A Raven was seen en route on Thursday – a commoner and commoner sight.
The owl site above Brockhampton produced up to four Short-eared Owls and a Barn Owl, and another Barn Owl was spotted at another location.
A Great Grey Shrike, near the owls, was a cracking bird and in the same place as two years’ ago’s sighting.
And near Eynsham we diverted to see a Whooper in a herd of Mutes with a Black Swan in the same binocular field.
And then this morning, back in east Northants, I heard my first singing Chiffchaffs of 2018 – so it must be spring! And a Med Gull too.
Gold Cup winner? Our Duke.
PS News of our judicial review and the response from NE at 6pm this evening
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It might be high clearance 4WD, but that’s not much help without the correct tyres for the terrain!!
Norman – nor the sense to know where to go and how to drive through it.
There comes a point in the Wetness of Soils when no tyre is correct
One of these people who care so much about the countryside they trample over it in a 2 ton vehicle, spewing vast quantities of carbon dioxide and other pollutants about. Guess we know what they really care about – their ego and their comfort.
It isn’t the countryside though but and the real ego-zealots arrive by helicopter