Thursday, February 28, 2013
The Blair Witch Project?
No, just a bit of Egypt Woods. I don't know why they set that rather annoying and very unscary movie in what I think was predominantly a birch wood. Let's see, can I find anything spooky here? The plate-like growths layering up the birch are a kind of bracket fungus. Hmm. I'm not screaming yet. On the main trunk is a kind of gall commonly seen on birch, the shoots erupting from it probably inspiring the name of witch's broom. The larger one to the left is more unsettling, resembling as it does a dark head, or maybe just a brain. Oo-er!
The treecreeper seems harmless enough, but check out the whistling or hooting mouth in the tree to his right. Yikes!
And this failed shot of a great spotted woodpecker (he moved round at the critical moment so that you just see a sliver of his blood-red underparts) has caught instead a horribly smiley tree trunk. Eek!
This is my eighth visit now without a lesser-spot encounter - and that really can drive you mad!
A large-ish flock of redwings was very vocal in Dorney Wood, keeping up a constant twittering in the tree-tops. Two meadow pipits were nice to see on the field adjacent to the woods, and a couple of mistle thrushes were more distant with fieldfares and a pale buzzard. Beyond them, three lapwings were wheeling in display.
// posted by Christine @ 11:51 AM 
