Wednesday, October 29, 2008
This was on the path at home, and I've identified it as Jelly fungus, formerly known as Judas's ear. The fungus is often found on elder and Judas supposedly hanged himself in an elder tree, so the old name had some historical/mythical/literary resonance. With the renaming this is lost, which is a pity.
Wednesday, October 08, 2008
Caterpillar of the Pale Tussock Moth (probably)
An evening walk round the village brought goldcrest, chiffchaff and meadow pipit.
Friday, October 03, 2008
An early morning visit to Dorney Lake. I was still hoping for honey buzzard so I walked along the north bank of the main lake with just my bins.
A wheatear was on the grass with thirty meadow pipits.
Turning round as I walked towards the buildings end, I was lucky enough to see a whooper swan, flying high above the lakes on a south-easterly bearing. It entered Berkshire airspace over the River Thames - probably somewhere between Oakley Green and Dedworth.
There is a reference to a feral population on the Bucks Bird Club website (under Bird Pictures) so I won't report it to Bucks. On the Berks website, two previous sightings carry no Escape tag so I'll put mine on in the same way and leave it to higher authorities to decide on.
The only other time I've seen self-found whoopers in flight (in the UK) was in Scotland, in October 1999. I was descending from a hill-walk in the Ben Lawers range when trumpeting calls made me look up to see a ragged V of swans flying over the mountains. These were clearly wild swans migrating, and in fact they were on the right course for Caerlaverock on the Solway Firth. But wherever they were going they provided a memorable experience and a sensational tick for my hill-walking list.
As for today's swan - wild or not, it was a very nice bird to see on a cold and windy morning.
