Finds and sights

So, the fossil. Cool, eh? It's the second one I've found.

Good things come in twos: twice in the last week I have seen a kestrel carrying prey. One was over Leanne's house; the other was in front of mine - the bird flying from a wild patch opposite into one of the lime trees on the main road.

While running another time, I had to stop for the yellowhammers. They were flying out from under my feet then flapping around above me and then landing on the crops staring at me and cheeping. I guessed that the babies were vulnerable and the parents were seeking to lead me away. They were wonderful.

I'm sad not to have seen or heard the weasels again. Or indeed the garden fox and hedgehog. Instead, the garden has served up a more upsetting sight. A dunnock with, perhaps, avian pox. What's so touchingly sad about this is that when I first caught sight of the bird, she was lying down on the fence post sun-bathing, luxuriating in the heat, stretching out her wings. But then she saw me and turned her head back and forth and I saw the big tumour-thing near her beak, restricting her vision. She fluttered off - her flight seems impaired, but apart from that, she looks lively enough.

I love the dunnocks. They seem such pragmatic little birds, but at the same time they have their flirty flitterings and sweet singing. My birder friend Neil suggests that they may be particularly beset by illnesses:

Dunnocks have a host of regular afflictions, some of which are difficult to diagnose. They often suffer from a kind of skin disorder with bare patches around the eyes, dry flaky legs and feet and 'bumblefoot'. Sometimes they exhibit growths and like all birds suffer from the attention of mites and ticks all of which I suspect increase their susceptibility to other conditions. Some succumb but others toil on and survive...it's tough being a bird!

And that made me wonder if the little baldy dunnock had some condition rather than simply moulting.

A matter of unease rather than disease next... A heron faced a fish about twice his size.