The calling of a Green Woodpecker the first sound of the patrol, as I walked along the path two of these youngsters flitted across, undulating up and down as they moved and called.
Emerging from the wildflower meadows 30 or more Goldfinches, the flash of the white and gold wing bars and tinkle of their calls identifying them very easily. It is always great to watch the flocks as they rise and fall. The flock moving between the seed heads of Hogweed, Greater Knapweed and Wild Carrot.
The fields are still a mass of flowers with Tufted Vetch in abundance, the purple flowers on the stems now accompanied by their green pea like pods. Bright yellow flowers of Bird’s-foot Trefoil contrasting with the dull red of Red Bartsia which in places is lining the footpath walkway.
Calling from the top of the Blackthorn scrub was a Stonechat, the sound so distinctive, as is the bird when seen well, this however was a youngster so not as well or brightly marked as a male.
From overhead the call of a Bullfinch seeped down, followed by another, these two white rumped birds disappearing into the pale yellow flower laden Old Man’s Beard which is clambering over the hedgerows. Also hidden in this mass were a couple of Chiffchaffs and a Willow Warbler, as they stood side by side on the stem their differences became fairly obvious.
On a downland bank two Roe Deer browsed, there coats now a gorgeous rusty orangey-brown, virtually identical to the colour of the lichen on the trunks of the Blackthorn and of the Bracken now starting to turn. Yesterday I watched these two animals as the male stalked the female around a small patch of land while a youngster looked on.
Up the path it was the march of the Greater Bloody-nosed Beetles with 4 trundling across. Soldier Beetles on the Wild Carrot and a Magpie Moth just by the centre.