The Scatalogical adventures of Peter in the forest

A very boring morning on the patch relieved only by two things...

1) watching a very sick-looking juvenile European Goldfinch down the burn, and waiting for it to die, which it didn't;
2) walking up the cliff steps, with Common Blue butterflies all around, a Silver-Y on the wing, grasshopper chirrupping uin the grass and a single Common Whitethroat the only birdsong in the sunshine, and wondering when did summer creep up on us?.

Afternoon, had to get the kids out of the house to prevent an infanticide. They didn't want to go, until I said they could take my butterfly net and then zoom! Couldn't get them out the house fast enough. To Swannley Hill - Forestry Commission war zone, recently clear felled in large part.

Please Dad, can we kill something... can we can we????

I'm sure this used to be woodland.

Honestly, Peter and his collecting pot. If you say 'don't pick up the poo' once, you have to say it a thousand times. Dog Poo, Rabbit Poo, it all goes in his pot. He thinks it's dinosaur poo, so I guess it's my fault for screwing up his mind. Also feeding his juice to the 'tablets' (tadpoles) in the puddles.

Birds - not all what you expect of spruce monoculture, much more what you expect of open country, which is what it was. Yellowhammers very common, also Meadow Pipits, Winter Wrens, European Robins, Chaffinches, Lesser Redpoll, Eurasian Siskins, a single pair of Common Stonechats, also Common Bullfinch, lots of Rooks, a Common Buzzard, a Common Kestrel.