Sometimes a day promises so much....
On a BBC forecast of fine weather West of the Severn I left home at 0530 Saturday for a day in the Forest of Dean hunting for Wild Boar.
I had an easy drive down and found my first spot to try without difficulty (a new site based on information received). On the barrier was pinned a notice: Wyedean Rally 13 February 2010. Feck a***. Half the forest closed off and half the rest full of petrolheads dashing from one stage to another. Rate the chance of finding a boar (at least one not doing warp 9 away from noise and disturbance)....?
I went for a walk anyway, since I was there: plenty of sign around, snouted up turf, barged fences, hoofprints. I discovered with pleasure that it is farly easy to distinguish boar prints from Fallow Deer despite similar sizes: Fallow prints are narrower and the tips much more pointed than boars. The latter also often show their dewclaws, which Fallow Deer hardly (if ever) do.
Crossbills were flying over calling quite a lot. Whether it was a few birds moving about a lot or a lot doing the opposite, I couldn't work out. Several very active tit flocks eventually resulted in one with a pair of Willow Tits in it (the majority of other birds in this flock were Long-tails, don't know if that is usual) but they were too fast in bushy conifers for me to get any shots. I did try!
Moving along slowly and quietly I found a Fallow doe feeding in the beginning of a firebreak and managed to set up without disturbing her. My first shot however alerted her last-year's fawn which was feeding a little closer to me in very deep undergrowth. It rejoined mum and I got a couple of shots of them before they made slowly off into the woods.
By now the first of the tight-wad bits of the rally crowd had begun to park their cars on verges along the road and make their way down tracks towards the trails to be raced along, so I decided to move on to Symonds Yat.
On arrival I discovered I had fifty quid in my pocket but no small change. A cup of tea and a sandwich later nobody with change of a tenner had rolled up so I had to drive out again and find a garage, buy some chocolate (life is hard) and return with fresh meter food. Actually it worked in my favour as Marion only eats Caramac and that can be hard to find, but the place I stopped had some to add to my stock of Valentine's Day prezzies. I will also give the Forest authorities a big thumbs up for charging £3 for a day ticket that applies to all the Forest car parks. Excellent value in my view.
Anyway back to Symonds Yat. The first of the locals was already installed at the watchpoint when I arrived to find it still cloudy and with a brisk cutting wind varying from NE to nearly NW, i.e. right in the face. Several times during the day we had brief bursts of sun, but mostly what we got was cloud, with clear weather clearly visible further into Wales. I ended up staying until nearly 1500 and very much enjoyed myself. I got some decent shots of Buzzards from above, a record shot of a high-speed Sparrowhawk (if I was a sprawk round there I'd keep the mph up as well: high threat zone!) and blips of Goshawk and Peregrine. Better blips of Gos than I had before - but that ain't saying much!
Mid afternoon I pootled off to Parkend Church, where apparently a huge flock of 100 Hawfinches had been seen in the morning. Twenty minutes found me just one, in a tree right above my head. It flew off just as I got onto it having found it by its call.
There were still vast quantities of rally fans everywhere and the sound of hot hatches screaming round the forest tracks, so after a drive round some areas where they weren't and locating a few likely spots for future attention, I set off home.
By now I was feeling quite ill, but I managed the 120 miles home without incident and found rather to my relief that Maz had run out of steam and was in bed. I collapsed in with her at 1930. At 2100 I lost the battle with my stomach and thereafter spent a truly horrible night.
St Valentine's day was rather quiet and slow in the Dixon household, very much two old crocks and a woolly alligator. Two slow walks in Fleet pond woods (Tansy loved it) didn't even yield a Grey Squirrel, but her closedown walk last night had a Red Fox scent marking by the wooden bridge over the brook. Again I managed to conceal its eyeshine from her, hope the fox appreciates the effort.
John
