Today, the 5th August 2019, is the last day of the first Ashes test and England had to stay in all day in order to scrape a draw. By lunch time they had lost 4 wickets and so I decided to seek peace and calm by spending the afternoon in our woods with just my camera as company.
A wise move as it turned out because the inevitable happened but I did not have to go through the torture of listening to it.
Also I was rewarded by a new species at the woods, a pair of Linnets. The male has a red, sort of striped breast and does sing a bit but not like the little chap who used to introduce Going for a Song…. the precursor to Antiques Roadshow.
The female also utters a few twitters but she is just grey…
These two spent some time in the wood mostly flitting from one rather sparsely leafed Oak to another. These are Oaks which were there before we felled the Pines and which I instructed the felling man (lumberjack?) to leave behind. He said they would never make decent trees and I think he was right. But I was not interested in ‘decent’ trees, I simply wanted places where birds might stop off on their way through the woods and these tall spindly Oaks have provided just that. I have seen Tree Pipits, Great Spotted Wood peckers, Goldfinches, various Tits, Buzzards and many others make use of them and today it was Linnets.
Bring on the Yellowhammers and Tawny Owls…. both possibilities.
By the way (Linaria cannabina) because they are evidently partial to eating Hemp seed…..cannabis.
