Upon my arrival a Jay flew over the car park followed by a flock of thirty Starlings. A few vapour trails punctuated the blue between the clouds. A waning crescent moon hung in the sky. It was a day of muddy footprints and expanding puddles, with dew on the ground in places. One Field Maple wore more Branching Lichen than leaves. Although there were firm Sloes upon the hedgerow, they would need a hard frost before they would become palatable by birds.
Entering the Large Copse I notice sap running from a less healthy-looking Black Pine. It was at a disadvantage being shaded out by its neighbours. Seed keys, awaiting wind dispersal hung from Ash and Sycamore. From Taskers Meadow I spied the fluffy white rumps of two Roe Deer beside the reclaimed landfill. I was later to see a further half dozen in fields one and two. It was good to see significant leaf cover on Elms at the Copse / Meadow boundary as they indicated good healthy trees.
Two Honeysuckle flowers were noted amongst Bramble. A distant male Pheasant called out as I entered the Drove. Shortly I was to discover significant field edge scrub clearance. The good work reclaimed grassland, widened paths revealed walls. A significant stretch of wall was cloak in Old Man’s Beard which, at this point, was probably helping to keep the wall up. Briefly the scent of Fox reached my nose, then a Great Knapweed flower was seen. Basal leaf rosettes of Spear Thistle had colonised a last winter’s scrub clearance patch.
In field 3 a good flush of Scentless Mayweed bloomed, whilst in the one quarter of pond water, Flag Iris leaves protruded. Some six Chaffinches landed in thorny branches beside the water.
Near the coastal ridge Jackdaws “chuffed” whilst Worm casts decorated the bare soil of a desire line path. Amongst the undulating quarried landscape, I reflected how modern quarry work although tough certainly had been even harder in the past. The wind tickled grass blades into dancing.
A Hoverfly “buzzed” above me as I descended into the gully. Some three score of Starlings danced in the air, going from a linear to a bulbous mass. They swept rapidly groundward sounding like a giant sweeping stunt kite.