Divine

So, they haven't forgotten me, the crows. And, even better, the Divines had all three fledglings still with them.

As for the Unbrave Three, yes - Four is also still with Droopy and Three.

I also saw the Driveways, but not any of the others. I think the Driveways watch me in the garden. More on the garden in a minute.

Before that, I had to visit the poplar.

On the way, i saw a hump in the field which I thought might be a hare. As i walked across, I realised it was a pile of mud but I saw deer prints. I'd seen plenty of muntjac prints but this was much bigger. I compared it to prints in my mammal tracking book and am pretty sure it's fallow deer. Which surprised me as I knew roe deer have been seen round here but not fallow. When I have seen big deer, I have not questioned the species. So maybe when I saw deer in these fields a tear or two ago, they were fallow.

The prints crossed the field from my copse to a tiny copse in the middle of this huge expanse of baby wheat. This copse is mainly oak and there is no understory at all. I don't know why. You can still see the ridge and furrow lines - probably not in the photo. Though they have been ploughed away from the surrounding fields. So, at some point, this was ridge and furrow, then trees grew and for some reason were allowed to stay in this tiny patch. Odd.

I wanted to stay longer but the light was going so I left and headed to the other copse, where I could see BUDS on the branches of my tree!

As for the garden, there's a very tame Mrs Blackbird, two jostling Mr Blackbirds, plus the robins and dunnocks and tits and the visiting jays. Two squirrels. No fox visits as yet, but I did see someone... well, maybe less welcome, though I can't say I don't find her cute....

She's made her own path into the fence line where I assume she has a nest. I wonder what's happened to the visiting cats?