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glenatronToday's ride was most satisfactory - it was a bright, hot day, really summery. I walked down to the yard and as I headed over to get Zorro's halter I noticed a sparrowhawk being mobbed by martins and swallows above the barn.
Every time we moved into patchy dappled shade on the lane away from the yard we would be accompanied by Speckled Wood butterflies, escorting us through their hedgerow dutchies, while Zorro lunged for lace-like cow-parsley flowers whose pale tracery provides, it seems, a most piquant delicacy.
Riding through the woods on the east side of the common I noticed a very pale buzzard which I spotted in the same area last week. Buzzards have only really recolonised this part of the country in the last ten years or so after being wiped out from much of England by DDT before my time so it makes me happy to see them regardless, but this one looked a little different. Checking in a bird book last weekend I thought it might be a rough legged buzzard until I compared it with the very vague photo of it I managed to take and noticed it's legs weren't particularly rough. So probably just a light coloured normal buzzard I suppose. Still a dramatic bird to have swooshing between the trees ahead of you.
A little later on, as we passed the marsh, a hobby swooped brisk and low on our left, close enough that I could see the dapper slate of it's back and flying-cap head marking. These small falcons ( when a young noble was learning the art of falconry the first bird they would have would be a hobby, which is the origin of the popular use of the word ) have always been a draw to Thursley Common for birdwatchers and although I have seen them before this was the closest by a broad margin.
Meanwhile the long grass around the path was constantly rustling with the movement of lizards, mostly heard, one or two glimpsed as they wiggled briskly into the long grass from whatever surface they had been sunbathing on. I'm sure there were snakes around as well, but if I heard them as we passed they certainly remained unseen.
Riding through the woods ( once more with our speckled wood escorts ) I noticed a small blue butterfly fluttering between holly leaves at the side of the track. Not being as clear on blues as other butterfly genera ( I can identify a blue or a fritillary, but I can't always narrow things down within the genus ) I surmised it was probably a holly blue and called it a victory for the amateur naturalist.
As we got a little closer to home, slow in the midday heat on a dusty trail between pinewoods and wide spread sleepy houses, a crow with a white tail flew across the path in front of us. I'm sure there is some great folkloric inference to be drawn from this unusual colouring and doubtless had we endeavoured to follow we would have found ourselves engaged on some high adventure, perhaps required to joust against an indefatigable knight or rescue a fair damsel from some crumbling tower. But it was warm and Zorro had an idea that there might be some cow parsley a little further on so we chose to allow that possibility to pass us by for the time being.
Every time we moved into patchy dappled shade on the lane away from the yard we would be accompanied by Speckled Wood butterflies, escorting us through their hedgerow dutchies, while Zorro lunged for lace-like cow-parsley flowers whose pale tracery provides, it seems, a most piquant delicacy.
Riding through the woods on the east side of the common I noticed a very pale buzzard which I spotted in the same area last week. Buzzards have only really recolonised this part of the country in the last ten years or so after being wiped out from much of England by DDT before my time so it makes me happy to see them regardless, but this one looked a little different. Checking in a bird book last weekend I thought it might be a rough legged buzzard until I compared it with the very vague photo of it I managed to take and noticed it's legs weren't particularly rough. So probably just a light coloured normal buzzard I suppose. Still a dramatic bird to have swooshing between the trees ahead of you.
A little later on, as we passed the marsh, a hobby swooped brisk and low on our left, close enough that I could see the dapper slate of it's back and flying-cap head marking. These small falcons ( when a young noble was learning the art of falconry the first bird they would have would be a hobby, which is the origin of the popular use of the word ) have always been a draw to Thursley Common for birdwatchers and although I have seen them before this was the closest by a broad margin.
Meanwhile the long grass around the path was constantly rustling with the movement of lizards, mostly heard, one or two glimpsed as they wiggled briskly into the long grass from whatever surface they had been sunbathing on. I'm sure there were snakes around as well, but if I heard them as we passed they certainly remained unseen.
Riding through the woods ( once more with our speckled wood escorts ) I noticed a small blue butterfly fluttering between holly leaves at the side of the track. Not being as clear on blues as other butterfly genera ( I can identify a blue or a fritillary, but I can't always narrow things down within the genus ) I surmised it was probably a holly blue and called it a victory for the amateur naturalist.
As we got a little closer to home, slow in the midday heat on a dusty trail between pinewoods and wide spread sleepy houses, a crow with a white tail flew across the path in front of us. I'm sure there is some great folkloric inference to be drawn from this unusual colouring and doubtless had we endeavoured to follow we would have found ourselves engaged on some high adventure, perhaps required to joust against an indefatigable knight or rescue a fair damsel from some crumbling tower. But it was warm and Zorro had an idea that there might be some cow parsley a little further on so we chose to allow that possibility to pass us by for the time being.
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Date: 23 May 2010 18:45 (UTC)I did not know that! Thanks, I'm going to store that fact away in my brain attic for future use...
Sounds like a fantastic ride. And having seen the area that you get to ride in ... grrrr. One day, I will turn up, tag along and ruin such a ride. Hurrah!
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Date: 23 May 2010 22:05 (UTC)