ATTENBOROUGH + DCW
Our bird-oriented winter outings are developing a theme of wandering local sites, interspersed with occasional trips to more distant, out-of-county locations. This one was slightly out of the ordinary, in that we trespassed in to Derbyshire for much of the day, having begun at Nottinghamshire’s best known nature reserve. This meant missing out on the Cattle Egrets but a wisp of about 15 Snipe was a notable group and 48 species on the day was not a bad total. It included 78 Pink-footed Geese heading north-westwards and a couple of Ravens, the latter leading to a brief encounter with a lady, familiar with Edgar Allan Poe’s ebony bird and who could recite the first part of Chaucer’s prologue to the Canterbury Tales.
Several mixed-heritage bulls together in a field seems unusual. Three of them were having a sparring match with a bit of hanky-panky thrown in but there was no messing with this guy.
Plant of the day (though certainly not photo of the day) was a very nice Derbyshire specimen of False London-rocket Sisymbrium loeselii.