Of Birds & Cake the Blog of Paul: Death on the Patch!!

Thoughts of heading down for another Seawatch, were dispelled by A) forgetting to set an alarm and B) sleeping in until half seven😏,Vague notions of going to Knepp were knocked on the head by Margie deciding to stay in bed!! So I headed for a quick stroll around the "Patch" It's nearly a year since I started "patching" although it's tailed of a bit lately I was hoping for some evidence of Spring Migrants arriving maybe even a Nightingale, although to be honest,if your hoping for a Nightingale you should really get your arse out of bed earlier.

Predictably I didn't find a Nightingale although there were plenty of Common Whitethroats, Chiffchaffs and 4 Swallows back at the place where they bred last year!!

Common Whitethroat

Common Whitethroat, finally a bird in Blossom could have posed a bit better TBH!!

Swallow

Other birds of note seen were, a female Bullfinch fly past, a singing Song Thrush, a close Heron, a showyish Skylark and a pair of Stock Doves.

Song Thrush

Stock Dove

Grey Heron

Ropey Church pic

Skylark

Today was more about the Mammals than the birds, with four Foxes seen, an amazingly showy Squirrel and group of three Deer

Fox

one of the Deer

Grey Squirrel

Ridiculously showy!!

The other three Foxes were in a field with some sheep, one of which had obviously died and the Foxes took full advantage, at first there were a pair of Foxes on the carcass, with attendant Magpies, I was at distance so headed down the footpath to get a bit closer, as I did another Fox appeared in front of me and trotted down the path before disappearing into the hedge! When I reached an area where I could once again see what was going on, it was interesting to see the pair had moved off and then while I watched the Fox I had seen appeared in the field and took a turn at the meat bonanza! I know it was the same one because it had no tail!! I was tempted to stick around for a while in the hope of a Buzzard or Red Kite coming in to get a piece of the action, but after 10 mins or so with no sign I moved on.

I don't know what the sheep had died of, clearly it wasn't the foxes (it was a big adult sheep, no way could a Fox bring it down and the rest of the Sheep and Lambs in the field paid no attention or showed any fear whatsoever) who had just taken advantage of the situation, Foxes divide many people, some hate them, a lady I spoke to today kept chickens and clearly didn't like em, others feed them and think of them like pets, both in my mind or equally wrong-headed, Foxes are a natural part of our Fauna they play an important part in the ecosystem, as many other scavengers also do, they will predate small animals and birds for sure, but that's nature, I admire their tenacity, cunning and survival instincts, personally I think feeding them is wrong, maintaining predator populations at higher numbers than the prey populations can support is always dodgy and brings unnecessary pressure on to their prey species. That said hardly anything round here is natural and plenty of Foxes meet unnatural deaths at the hands of Gamekeepers and cars so it probably just resets the balance a little!

I have no clue who owns the land or the sheep and no way of contacting them so left them to it! It is extremely difficult to find out who owns what, which is how they like it, but doesn't help in situations like this, even the lady I spoke to who lived locally had no clue!

A few pics of the action below, they are not gory but obviously they show a dead sheep so if your squeamish about such things don't look at them.

The pair, the Sheep behind seemed unconcerned by presence of the Foxes

Not sure this Magpie knows what it's doing

The Fox without a tail

Sneaking in

Magpie waiting for a chance

Keeping an eye out

An interesting encounter, nature's not all pretty birds and flowers!

The last sighting of note was a nice flock of Linnets and Goldfinches in the vineyard, flighty, as these birds usually are, but a bit of patience paid off and managed a few shots!! Nice to see Linnets they have been conspicuous by their absence during the winter!