With yet more overnight rain, and even heavier downpours sporadically throughout the day it seemed best to stay at home and catch up with the chores. Having completed my fatherly duties by collecting Nigel, Julie & Lee from Heathrow Airport, and returned the lambs safely to the fold it was not unexpected that I spent the rest of the evening with Bowie and Sheila. A lovely steak dinner, lashings of Bonamassa & Elvis Costello and even more gin & tonic it was a warm welcome home.
With only shopping and cleaning the fridge to report, it's back to yesterday and the wander with The Winger though another beautiful quarter of West Sussex.
Kingley Vale holds many natural wonders but the vistas alone are worth the visit.
Close to the car park stands this tree carved monument to earlier days.
On arrival we were just 7 bird species short of 100 for my visit, and despite the rain showers we were determined to reach this goal. Meadow Pipit was first to enter the log, but also in the same hedgerow we found
Yellowhammer,
Spotted Flycatcher and
Common Redstart (archive).
There were a number of Nuthatch calling from the trees which added 5 new species in quick succession, but for now Birds were superseded by Trees.
As the notice points out, here stand some of the finest and maybe oldest Yew Trees in the world,
and as The Winger and I wandered among them we agreed this was about as close as we'd ever get to being at an
Ent Moot (see Lord of the Rings).
This pair of trees were considered reference to a 'rock band', U2, get it?
Ever though there were a number of Jays squawking away among the trees we never did catch sight so, per the rules, they were not counted. However 'calling' for another direction did alert us to
Bullfinch, which was the last species of both the day and trip. Maybe we will crack the 'ton' when they pay me a visit (my rules).
We continued trekking through this beautiful Vale
noting some of the expanse of the Yew Forest
and before taking lunch at the Coach & Horses we found a veritable 'swarm' of Migrant Hawker Dragonflies.
Just a small section from the Stat Counter see UK pushing towards the 12,000 mark, Italy reaching Treble Figures while Japan hovers just below that threshold.
|
| Num | Perc. | Country Name |
|
|
 | 11903 | 70.17% | United Kingdom |  |
|
| 1298 | 7.65% | United States |  |
|
| 530 | 3.12% | Taiwan |  |
|
| 490 | 2.89% | Canada |  |
|
| 261 | 1.54% | Australia |  |
|
| 236 | 1.39% | Estonia |  |
|
| 188 | 1.11% | Germany |  |
|
| 155 | 0.91% | France |  |
|
| 140 | 0.83% | New Zealand |  |
|
| 120 | 0.71% | Netherlands |  |
|
| 108 | 0.64% | Italy |  |
|
| 95 | 0.56% | Japan |  |
|
