Sunday, October 30, 2011
Badlands
These naughty cows have apparently been attacking visitors to Swinley Forest, so they've been locked in the military area where they'll be used for target practice :o)
It's not clear if this was before or after several people were seen throwing sticks and stones at and generally harassing the cattle. I must admit I never encountered them myself while they were at large; but I've found that cattle with a wide area to roam in are generally less of a nuisance than those kept in a small field. Anyway, the good work they were doing by grazing the scrub has come to an abrupt end. The "people" were probably the loud-mouthed, foul-mouthed, litter-strewing desperadoes sometimes found hereabouts.....
......though not today. So I enjoyed roaming about the area I usually think of as "the badlands". There were new shoots of heather coming up on the burnt ground, some of them in flower; and birds included a mistle thrush, a flock of chaffinches, several meadow pipits and these four reed buntings.
Twenty or so crossbills were flighty and vocal and landed for a while in this wind-swayed silver birch. As they flew overhead the birds seemed to be twittering rather than uttering the usual hard "gyp".
A few siskins and redpolls were at the stream with a large tit flock containing a couple of goldcrests; the calls of these small birds (particularly the long-tailed tits) changing and rising with panic when a sparrowhawk flew over. There was quite a lot of noise from military goings-on which were, however, limited to a small area of Wishmoor.And no shrike anywhere.
// posted by Christine @ 1:19 PM 
