halftwo
Wird Batcher
The blanket grey cloud layer slowly clotted and clumped, its coagulation leaving little patches of pale turquoise where the hopeful sky began to peep onto this little valley, its steep sides dotted with shrubs.
Blackthorn and bramble, bracken and oak, ash and willow, thistle and gorse; and the scramble of honeysuckle sweetly clinging: this scrubby slope is lush and full. The fern and nettle and nodding foxgloves waist high above vetches, sedges, grasses, and dozens of flowers blinking bright.
Ringlets disguised themselves amongst Meadow browns, their subtle beauty only apparent close in: silvery circles and wing-edges showing.
But the birds were in profusion: everywhere movement, everywhere sound - calls, songs, half-songs, tiny brushings of leaf and the murmur of wings - too much to take in.
Willow warblers are everywhere, 'whoo weet's and bubbly bursts of part song, the lemony flick of wings and tails, young and adults, in trees and shrubs, on flowers and in wood piles; chasing juvenile Long-tailed tits - whose chestnut napes giving them an incongruous look.
Blackcap families and single Blackcaps 'chacking' away, Whitethroats alarming and singing, moving amongst thistles and up into elders. Young speckly Robins perching perkily, waiting to be fed. Speckly Dunnock juveniles, Blackbirds low in shadows.
A white rump of a Jay floats across a glade - a slow motion snowball white in shade. A Little grebe's call ripples up from the lake below like corrugated tin. A Chiffchaff sings. A Yellowhammer calls as it rises from its drinking puddle where fat black slugs slither slowly in the still wet grass.
Goldfinches sing - the electric buzz sparking across the gap between the bushes. Linnets and Bullfinches, sotto voce, bob above the wood.
From the copse a commotion begins: Magpies chatter and Jays squawk, Blackbirds persistent in their alarms, a Red-legged Partridge splutters from the broom covered slope between. Wood pigeons clatter from the trees. The noise subsides.
Stock doves display, and above, Swallows' and Siskins' notes drop back to earth.
In a single willow Blue, Great, Coal and Long-tailed tits, Willow warblers and Blackcaps almost cover the stealthier movement of a Lesser whitethroat - a rare find - busily picking at flies. Its bandit mask against the bright of its throat.
And behind a Garden warbler bends the outer leaves of a beech - plain and lovely in its muted colours. Now a young Great-spotted woodpecker begins to smash into a rotten branch, the scarlet crown a shock on its pied body. It picks a fat white grub from the hollow it has made and manoeuvres it inside the chisel of its bill and swallows. It shuffles around the small dead branch, blue-grey legs clinging strongly, zebra-striped undertail showing.
Bees began to fill the foxgloves as the morning warms and a Nuthatch calls from a spreading oak. A House mouse creeps back to cover amongst the stones of an old ruin. A Goldcrest runs the gap between two trees, its thread thin call joining them.
Out on the brambly bank a Chaffinch sings and Rooks sail across a brightening sky: black and blue.
Down by the lake Moorhens and Coots peck the lawn and young Tufted duck are learning to dive on the water's silvered surface.
Blackthorn and bramble, bracken and oak, ash and willow, thistle and gorse; and the scramble of honeysuckle sweetly clinging: this scrubby slope is lush and full. The fern and nettle and nodding foxgloves waist high above vetches, sedges, grasses, and dozens of flowers blinking bright.
Ringlets disguised themselves amongst Meadow browns, their subtle beauty only apparent close in: silvery circles and wing-edges showing.
But the birds were in profusion: everywhere movement, everywhere sound - calls, songs, half-songs, tiny brushings of leaf and the murmur of wings - too much to take in.
Willow warblers are everywhere, 'whoo weet's and bubbly bursts of part song, the lemony flick of wings and tails, young and adults, in trees and shrubs, on flowers and in wood piles; chasing juvenile Long-tailed tits - whose chestnut napes giving them an incongruous look.
Blackcap families and single Blackcaps 'chacking' away, Whitethroats alarming and singing, moving amongst thistles and up into elders. Young speckly Robins perching perkily, waiting to be fed. Speckly Dunnock juveniles, Blackbirds low in shadows.
A white rump of a Jay floats across a glade - a slow motion snowball white in shade. A Little grebe's call ripples up from the lake below like corrugated tin. A Chiffchaff sings. A Yellowhammer calls as it rises from its drinking puddle where fat black slugs slither slowly in the still wet grass.
Goldfinches sing - the electric buzz sparking across the gap between the bushes. Linnets and Bullfinches, sotto voce, bob above the wood.
From the copse a commotion begins: Magpies chatter and Jays squawk, Blackbirds persistent in their alarms, a Red-legged Partridge splutters from the broom covered slope between. Wood pigeons clatter from the trees. The noise subsides.
Stock doves display, and above, Swallows' and Siskins' notes drop back to earth.
In a single willow Blue, Great, Coal and Long-tailed tits, Willow warblers and Blackcaps almost cover the stealthier movement of a Lesser whitethroat - a rare find - busily picking at flies. Its bandit mask against the bright of its throat.
And behind a Garden warbler bends the outer leaves of a beech - plain and lovely in its muted colours. Now a young Great-spotted woodpecker begins to smash into a rotten branch, the scarlet crown a shock on its pied body. It picks a fat white grub from the hollow it has made and manoeuvres it inside the chisel of its bill and swallows. It shuffles around the small dead branch, blue-grey legs clinging strongly, zebra-striped undertail showing.
Bees began to fill the foxgloves as the morning warms and a Nuthatch calls from a spreading oak. A House mouse creeps back to cover amongst the stones of an old ruin. A Goldcrest runs the gap between two trees, its thread thin call joining them.
Out on the brambly bank a Chaffinch sings and Rooks sail across a brightening sky: black and blue.
Down by the lake Moorhens and Coots peck the lawn and young Tufted duck are learning to dive on the water's silvered surface.
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