A few bits and bobs

 

Pied Wagtails everywhere on our walk today

A white pheasant scurrying along the hedgerow, quite an unusual sight

These two pics are from Messingham Nature Reserve, our local reserve. The volunteers simply never stop clearing. The paths are cut wider than most roads and now the understorey of the woodlands are starting to be cleared. A lot of trees now show signs of strimmer damage and below was the sight that greeted us this week......just at the start of the breeding season. If they had to do the work, why wasn't it undertaken in the winter months ? I won't get on my soap box but you can see where we are coming from. 

Meadow Pipit

The trees in our local forest are greener than green, this pic certainly doesn't do them justice

Sorry, another moan !  A public footpath that is now a pond with the flood water pumped on it from the nearby farm. Totally unwalkable.

Goldcrest that refused to show us it's crest !

Tree Creeper

Lesser Celandine now in flower, a sure sign of spring

Lots of Chiffchaffs in full song, beautiful !

Beautiful blossom xx

The custodians of our countryside

The most abundant bird in Lincolnshire at the moment. It would be far better see the raptors that we should see (that we know are persecuted by the gamekeepers to protect their pheasants) than these shotgun fodder. How can this be called a sport.....you don't even need any shooting skills to be able to kill one of these pheasants. How can anyone miss and what pleasure can they get ?  We were talking to a fisherman at Toft yesterday who had been shooting recently and the dogs were stood down because they were struggling in the heat. He said that no shot birds were collected, just shot and left to rot. It's a disgrace.  

A newly released partridge that starved to death.  

Alkborough Flats, nicely ploughed right to the edge of the footpath. There wasn't a cat in hells chance that this field could be left as stubble.

Now this did make us laugh. Alkborough Flats, desperate to plough and get a crop in, after all, these fields have been under water for the best part of a year and it's been brilliant. The plough here didn't even make one furrow and it was stuck and sunk 2ft down in wet mud......hilarious.  The bottom of the site is now twinned with New Zealand, two sheep fields that are cut to within an inch of their lives with wet flashes that have never held water. The geese were arriving in large numbers on Friday so suppose the two tenant farmers will be doing their usual this year, driving round pipping and scarring the geese off. We did once ask one of them why they did that and the reply was "Well you wouldn't want geese on your front lawn eating all your grass". 

Are these really the custodians of our countryside ? We thing not. 

Pheasant

Just look at the colours. A bird thats totally overlooked.