lapwing
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Nature Notes
Winter Gold. The ninety-acre field could be a bleak prospect. High and exposed, it can appear a vast expanse of tilled mud: six-inch high rape leaves, little else. Squally showers come on biting gusts, shaking the new leaves to silver with a loud pattering. The mud is heavy on our boots. It seems an incredible, […]
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Nature Notes
Chalk Percolated Rain, and Rain Birds There is, at last, a hardening; a crust to the mud of landrover tracks, to the pocks of hoof and boot prints. There is still a thigh burning pull through gateways and wetter places. But suddenly, we are talking about harrowing and rolling. The winter rain’s pond in the […]
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Nature Notes
A Springing of Birds. In the last week, and in a whirl of birds, the season has shifted subtly, but importantly. At dusk, between Red Hill Woods and Enborne Street, the evening roost of hundreds of thousands of birds is underway, as it has been all winter. A bat fresh out of hibernation flits along the […]