Jog-schmog

After a very wet day with a pole chainsaw, well, a very wet morning - we quit at lunchtime and retreated to other drier tasks - I went to fill the Reserve's bird feeders on the way home.

Note: yes, I do find it rather odd that the birds are fed. I mean, I don't think the foxes, unlike my garden visitors, get hand-outs.

The route to the feeders runs past a footpath where I used to go with the dog. I took some lovely pictures of him in the snow here. He was chasing a hare - but would never get near them, so I didn't mind too much.

The sign for the path has grown into this glorious old oak.

It's like a signpost in Narnia or Middle Earth. Where's the Satyr or a Hobbit?

None of them but so many birds! I saw greenfinches, goldcrests, fieldfares and various tits as well as crows, magpies and jackdaws. And I heard robins and dunnocks. The Merlin app claimed reed buntings (likely), redwings (possible), treecreepers (probable), song thrushes (perhaps), blackcaps (perhaps), hawfinches (maybe possible) and little owl (I doubt it very much... will ask around).

I came across a tree I didn't recognise. The Seek app said alder buckthorn, which was used to make gunpowder. Apparently, it eases headaches, but not mine - which developed after too much work and a training day staring at a screen. The fieldfares flew from somewhere to rest in this tree before all departing as a group. Maybe they were eating the berries. I was sure I could smell fruit when near it but couldn't see the berries.

I picked sloes, hips, haws and wild apples for my mead.

As well as the signpost oak, there were other wonderful examples - like these two living as one.

I looked for acorn shells - but the acorns seemed to have gone, leaving only the cups.

Sheep graze in this field... I wonder if they eat them? Yes, apparently so - but they can be poisoned if they eat too many acorns.

The reservoir looked lovely in the late afternoon light - you can't see but the water to the left is covered in birds. Merlin recognised wigeon, mute swan, coot, black-headed gull and gadwall and alleged some kind of teal.

Me, I was more interested in the oak... and how the weather and the water running from branches to trunk paints its bark.

Such a lovely tree.