An hours walk round Migrant Alley had me jumping up and down half way round, as a migrant WHIMBREL (91, 63) flew slow and low over, but i'd left the camera indoors, not thinking i'd get any photo opportunities, how wrong was I!
Whimbrel is a very exciting bird to see here, they have only occurred in 3 out of the 9 springs of recording on my patch. Its a species that's most welcome if i'm to reach 100 this year. Just 9 more needed now, but i'm well behind last year, when I had recorded my 100 species by 17 may, this despite seeing two species this year not recorded last ; the Tufted Duck and Nightingale. There again, last year was an exceptional one :-)
Back to today, and, well, it was a poor, poor afternoon. I visited the lakes side scrub, but turned around straight away as the Hadlow College were training Tree Butchers (er sorry Surgeons ) in the large Garden adjacent the lake, there were ropes hanging out of every oak, with noisey chainsaws cutting buck the best bits of the trees - there wont be much left of my patch at this rate :-(
My mood was dampened even more, when a big black bank of cloud rolled in and the cold wind and already struggling temperatures were joined by the rain, who would be a fledgling out in that! Talking of fledglings, as I left the Wet Woods to go over to Migrant Alley I found the first well grown MISTLE THRUSH Juv. of the year, another species joins the patch breeding list this year.
At Migrant Alley it was all those adjectives I keep using this year about the weather - horrendous, Dire, Miserable, etc etc, the cold wind blowing across the fields lashed the rain into my face, and took my breath away at times. Needless to say, I didn't record much, but..... as I was hiding in cover, in the north end scrub, I heard a noise behind me......
It was this little chap, why is he dryer than me ?
It was nearly dark under the tree cover, so the photo's are not very good, a shame, as I would like to have a decent set of Fox cub pics.
It cant be more than a few weeks old, he still has black legs.Cute or What! Now how could anyone hunt this down, to the point of exhaustion with a pack of dogs, then let them rip it apart? Did you vote for the Conservatives last week - shame on you.
14 comments:
Sorry Warren but hunting under the Labour Gov. goes on just as normally as it always has, with a Ban, as it will without a Ban under the Tories.
I've watched the Hunt on Sheppey every year, including this, hunting foxes just as they always have.
The Labour govornments law is still there, NO HUNTING WITH DOGS. Its like all of our wildlife laws in this country, someone has to prove the case and persue it, its our fault if no-one does.
Hi Warren.
Sorry to read that another part of your patch is being attacked with chain saws.
Great shots of Basil Jnr.As you said, what a cute chap, or chappess.
Great news on the Whimbrel Warren but i'll decline gracefully on the subject of politics!
It wouldn't matter what great things they were offering I wouldn't (and didn't) vote for them for that very reason!
What a lovely little cub it is, so glad you 'captured' it. Sorry to hear your patch is still being decimated :(
Well done on the Whimbrel :)
I most certainly did NOT vote conservative: bunch of barbarians to want such an horrific 'sport' bringing back. Not that it has fully stopped, as we have plenty of people in power who won't pursue the law as it should be pursued. Mind you labour were nearly as bad as Conservatives in the way that they shillied and shallied when the ban was trying to go through parliament. Having poultry I am fully aware of the fact that the problem occurs with the fox AFTER the hunt has been through, not before: they disturb all the foxes off their territory leaving them without knowledge of local food supplies and habitat.
Wonderful shots of that little beauty. What a wonderful end to a walk and great news about the Whimbrel. Sorry to hear about the lousy weather. We had sun again, but christ it was cold!
What beautiful pictures again. As you can probably tell from my avatar, I am a fan of foxes.
The fox cub photos are lovely,
shame you didn't have your camera to get a photo of the whimbrel, have to admit I had to Google it to see what it was, but must be very special to get you so excited.
Fox cub gone to my sidebar gallery Warren and my sincere thanks for letting it do so.
I won't get into the debate about hunting as you'll guess what I would have said.
Well done with the Whimbrel, Warren.
You already know my views on the subject of foxhunting. Why oh why do they have to take predators out of the foodchain ? They say there`s too many of em.
There`s too many humans, but they don`t do anything about that. I`ll stop there.
Oh my goodness...how lucky were you to have a fox cub approach you so closely. He's gorgeous and cute all wrapped up together. I can't imagine standing by and watching dogs rip one apart...
Isn't it always the way....no camera equals exquisite sighting. Maybe you should always go camera-less when you need to up that list!
Great news about the Whimbrel. I'd bring in Tory hunting if it was me.....
Great find with the Whimbrel Warren! And I'll add to the cute vote for the cub - very nice!
Aww how adorable! Foxes are so elusive here in SD it amazes me you see them so close up. I'll avoid the hunting subject since I'm an 'outsider'.
Post a Comment