A Walk in the Black (New) Forest - Horst Jankowski

It was a case of 'not letting the looks fool you' as the sun rose to wipe out the superficial frost, but there was plenty more of the solid slippery stuff beneath. On the strength of that and the lessons learnt from the previous days was to depart Parley Court Farm and head directly for the New Forest. One of Great Britain's premier National Parks planted (not personally) by King Henry VIII ostensibly to build warships, which is now generally a place of peace and quiet!

 Here Comes the Sun!

 Good start as we past Parley Pond there was a hunting

 CORMORANT
and where we turned of the A31 'trunk road' at Stoney Cross
we were not surprised to find a group

 NEW FOREST PONIES
an addition to the New Year Mammal List.
There was an opportunity to capture

FIELDFARE
 on video,

but a little precarious with some traffic obviously breaking the 40 mph speed limit.

 A little further along we needed to give way to a group of c5
INKY PINKY PONKIES
 before arriving at probably my favourite little nooks in the Forest

where we were met by a gathering of Waterfowl which contained
2 of our days 'target birds' both

MANDARIN
and
WOOD DUCK

 While an introduced species to our Sceptred Isles the
MANDARIN

is considered 'fair game' as an addition to the Year List but no

WOOD DUCK
ever recorded in Great Britain has ever been considered, by the authorities,
to be a true vagrant from the Americas.

Regardless of the status, they are fine looking Ducks and that is part of what brought me here!
While looking for the 'third' waterborne candidate, our attention
was turned to the usual throng of small (passerine) Birds.

 Among these

was a further addition to the

 Year List

MARSH TIT
while the others fitted neatly into the
Great to See You Again Category.

NUTHATCH

 COAL TIT
and

 female

 CHAFFINCH
 before a light whirring was heard from above, the first of the

 GOOSANDER

 seemed to be making sure

the coast was clear

before landing.

 Some of the exotics were perched

on the rapidly melting surface ice, preening as

c3 female

 
GOOSANDER

came in to land

and commenced 'fishing' operations.

Couldn't be certain, but it looks like a Tench they were fighting over?

Time for a quick look back over the shoulder before heading back to

Slight Return II

COWS 
with long horns

were now feeding from the hedgerows just before we passed by the

ROYAL OAK PUB

and an unknown

but certainly very expensive private dwelling!

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