After a much more cheerful day yesterday, with the sun out and a count, at one point, of no less than six butterflies in the garden, including this painted lady....
....today turned miserable, so I took a brisk walk in drizzly rain up to this fork in the road. I like this spot. Things happen here - like, three weeks ago, a red deer stag ran across the track close in front of me.
Today, the excitement was on a slightly lower scale - in fact, on a very small scale, because it was generated by this little bird. It's a chiffchaff which, to me, shouldn't be here. I've always thought of it. as migratory bird, one of the first warblers to arrive in spring, but this one is either rather late in departing or it's planning to spend the winter here.
A few minutes' research showed that chiffchaffs do overwinter just to the south of here, so perhaps it will stay with us - which in some ways would be rather good, in others less so as I won't have the pleasure of listening out for it in spring.
The song of the chiffchaff was laid across an almost constant calling of skeins of pink-footed geese, about a hundred geese altogether, which kept circling above the fields this side of the golf course, and....
....the very insistent chatter of this robin, reminding us that this fork in the road is HIS for the winter.
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