Christine's walking & birds blog

A red admiral butterfly was in the garden this morning. The plague of flies in the garden seems to be getting worse! I haven't seen birds showing any interest in these gnats and midges, but then they are out of sight most of the time. This one is probably a species of winter gnat.

At Dorney, a dead barn owl was near the picnic tables at the junction of paths near the black bridge.

A red kite floated towards me at the back of Monument Hill, carrying something long in its talons. A quick look through the bins showed something green, so it was almost certainly a grass snake. 

Judging from the evident contortions of the snake, I'd say it was still alive ; so it was possibly genuine prey, rather than a scavenged food item.