It's been a busy day. We've done loads. I think it's because we actually got up early, then went out before 11am. Amazing.
Morning
We took an early morning trip up to Danbury Common to look for stuff. Any stuff would do, or so we thought. Unfortunately, the first stuff we found, well, I found, with my foot, was the largest, wettest dog shite either of us had ever seen. It was huge, like somebody had taken a small pack of great danes, fed them laxatives, pointed them at the path and squeezed really really hard. If I owned a bear and it created that turd, I'd be impressed. Massive. My foot, and this beautiful pile coincided with stunning pin-point accuracy. I cannot begin to describe the smell. Not a good start. Danbury Common probably has more dog shit per unit of ground then any other area in Essex; most of it had more shite than ground. God awful. Still, there was enough wildlife there to keep us going. It's a quiet time of year for a forest walk, but the butterflies were plentiful, with the highlights being a brimstone, small copper and a couple of things up in the oak canopy I'm pretty sure were purple hairstreaks.
A male yellowhammer sang constantly from the top of a tree in a small clearing and felt slightly out of place, while a small mixed flock of bits held a couple of garden warblers. Further out on the common we watched a recently fledged brood of willow warblers being fed by frantically mobile parents.
Afternoon
Most of the afternoon consisted of exciting wedding planning activities, and one of these took us over to Orsett. Yesterday, at the usual site, a little owl was busily engaged being really damn cute on the fence. Today, I took the camera, just in case. Good decision. It was slightly too far away for the pictures to be amazing, but it's still a little owl. Any day is a good day if there's an owl in it. Other wedding plan activities took us to Tilburys East and West (way nicer than Tilbury proper) and finally back to Grays. Not much doing on the river today, a dozen or so common terns and at least 8 yellow-legged gulls the best around.
Evening
In the new flat, we're just less than ten minutes drive from Rainham, so really there's no excuse not to go when something fun turns up. (And when the car park is open, of course.) While the roast was in the oven and the Girl was busy watching a film I spent an hour watching the wood sandpipers in front of the new hide, with a couple of green sandpipers thrown in for good measure. Happily, the stumpy stock dove is still alive and kicking too.
That's about it.
shitpost
Morning
We took an early morning trip up to Danbury Common to look for stuff. Any stuff would do, or so we thought. Unfortunately, the first stuff we found, well, I found, with my foot, was the largest, wettest dog shite either of us had ever seen. It was huge, like somebody had taken a small pack of great danes, fed them laxatives, pointed them at the path and squeezed really really hard. If I owned a bear and it created that turd, I'd be impressed. Massive. My foot, and this beautiful pile coincided with stunning pin-point accuracy. I cannot begin to describe the smell. Not a good start. Danbury Common probably has more dog shit per unit of ground then any other area in Essex; most of it had more shite than ground. God awful. Still, there was enough wildlife there to keep us going. It's a quiet time of year for a forest walk, but the butterflies were plentiful, with the highlights being a brimstone, small copper and a couple of things up in the oak canopy I'm pretty sure were purple hairstreaks.
A male yellowhammer sang constantly from the top of a tree in a small clearing and felt slightly out of place, while a small mixed flock of bits held a couple of garden warblers. Further out on the common we watched a recently fledged brood of willow warblers being fed by frantically mobile parents.
Afternoon
Most of the afternoon consisted of exciting wedding planning activities, and one of these took us over to Orsett. Yesterday, at the usual site, a little owl was busily engaged being really damn cute on the fence. Today, I took the camera, just in case. Good decision. It was slightly too far away for the pictures to be amazing, but it's still a little owl. Any day is a good day if there's an owl in it. Other wedding plan activities took us to Tilburys East and West (way nicer than Tilbury proper) and finally back to Grays. Not much doing on the river today, a dozen or so common terns and at least 8 yellow-legged gulls the best around.
Evening
In the new flat, we're just less than ten minutes drive from Rainham, so really there's no excuse not to go when something fun turns up. (And when the car park is open, of course.) While the roast was in the oven and the Girl was busy watching a film I spent an hour watching the wood sandpipers in front of the new hide, with a couple of green sandpipers thrown in for good measure. Happily, the stumpy stock dove is still alive and kicking too.
That's about it.shitpost
0 comments:
Post a Comment