Christmas Eve Egret

An egret has appeared again on the little stream running through the wood. This individual bird appears to be much tamer than the one that was here last winter, or, maybe it has become habituated to the presence of humans. Either way, for the first time, I have been able to watch it wading through the stream, though unfortunately, it did not catch any prey.

Primroses in flower

On a day when when we had the heaviest frost of the winter to date, I saw a small group of primroses in flower. This lane-side bank, usually has a profusion of these flowers in March, to have the flowering now reveals yet another example of how the extraordinarily mild autumn and early winter has thrown the world of flora into confusion.

Barn Owl - a first sighting here

Never expected that the first time I saw a Barn Owl in Kent it would be whilst standing on the forecourt of a service station.
The owl was over the other side of a very busy road and was filtering its way through the outer branches of some large trees. This took place at midday on a cold December day.
I frequently walk this area with my dog, but having been away for the last few days, this bird may just have arrived. Fingers crossed it stays. The environment is well-suited in many ways as it is traditional flood plain, with tufted grass meadows which should hold plenty of voles.

Black Mountains birds

On a day when the wind blew cold, you might not have expected there to be much in the way of bird life on the summits of the Black Mountains. This may have been the case, but the slopes of the ridges were full of birds.
Fieldfares and redwings abounded, though there was a clear demarcation between the two species. The redwings were feasting upon the hawthorn berries on the lower slopes, whilst the haws on the upper slopes were exclusively depleted by the larger fieldfares. It may be that the larger thrushes are more capable of surviving on the higher ground with less protection from the elements.
One surprise was the discovery of a plucking boulder, with redwing feathers, suggesting to me that the resident merlin had yet to forsake the area for the warmers climes of the coast.
One or two meadow pipits stuck to the higher ground, and my dog got up a snipe from a particularly boggy area.
Large numbers of buzzard and raven circled the valleys below.