Like the Curate's Egg, Not All Bad - Part I

With important (to me) pending things to do in our previous home town of Weymouth and with no signs of a ‘weather window’ it was a case of having to

Grasp the Nettle.

Grasping Friday seemed no different to any other but turned out to be about the wettest day of the year with the rain proving far beyond persistent but we soldiered on. Such a drive always entails a stop at a number of ‘hot-spots’ along the way but have to report that not a Canon shot was fires at any of the creatures shown and the report leans on a little journalistic licence.

The first of these stops was at Lane End, close to Bere Regis, where in days now sadly gone the short cul-de-sac would have been alive with

YELLOWHAMMER

but on the day no more than c2 sodden individuals in the Hawthorns. Another reason for their decline is that the lady of the nearby house would feed them daily, so no wonder gone are the days! Not an action we would ever usually consider but given the rain we drove the length of the track to find at      Okers Wood

just a single

MARSH TIT
Next stop the view from

MONKEY'S JUMP (self taken)
as recommended by Bomber as having seen lots of birds there only a few days ago, which is one of the vantage points overlooking

MAIDEN CASTLE

one of the largest and most complex Iron Age hill-forts in Europe. Its vast multiple ramparts enclose an area the size of 50 football pitches (that’s half the size of Wales to you and me), with the site being home to several hundred people in the Iron Age (800 BC–AD 43). Excavations in the 1930s and 1980s have shed much light on the development of the hilltop, from its origins as a Neolithic enclosure over 6,000 years ago, through many centuries of modification during the Iron Age, to the building of a Romano-British temple here and a good job one of my Royal Navy Oppos was just passing in his helicopter at the time! Only the claimed 'calls' of

GREY PARTRIDGE
from this spot so time to move to the

Crop Fields
where one or two

CORN BUNTING

were, as usual, performing but looking no way as glamourous as these and where also above the

SHEEP FIELD with TUMULI
the smallest flock of

GOLDEN PLOVER

on record put in no more than a cameo appearance.
The view from the crest of Ridgeway Hill, which under clearer conditions would show
Weymouth laid out before us, was a none starter but had cleared a little by the time we reached the lower level at the village of

BINCOMBE

Similarly, a stop at the Radipole Lake Tennis Courts to look for Waterfowl was a 'no go' so onward the main car park there were representatives of both

COMMON GULL

and

MEDITERRANEAN GULL
lay in wait

This is what the Meds will look like when once again
Spring and Summer
visit us - which seems a long way off.
We will try for a Continuation tomorrow and Many Thanks for tuning in, a Bagfull of Hits yesterday!