Monday 7/06/10

Up early to a damp, humid and overcast morning. Went for a walk over fields cut and cleared for silage over the weekend. Large flocks of Starlings, Jackdaws and Herring/Blackbacked Gulls feeding amongst the pale yellow stubble. The starling flocks had plenty of light brown juveniles and were all in constant noisy conversation, taking off and wheeling off to new areas of the field as one. The gulls had brown youngsters with them too, the adults keeping stern yellow eyes on me. Watched two young Jackdaws push their luck with a couple of adults. The rather large youngsters kept begging for food and eventually the adults lost their tempers and flew at them, pecking and flapping. The stunned youngsters huddled together looking very forlorn.
Lucky enough to see three hares. The first was very big and dark and didn't notice me, seemingly caught up in a race with a low flying swallow, got to about twelve feet from me, leapt up in mid-air, turned round and raced away to top corner of field. The second was just sat in a gateway in the lane and quietly slipped away behind the hedge. The third was further down the lane hopping along ahead of me. The lane is awash with Cow Parsley, dotted here and there with Red Campion, amongst the grass there are plenty of Lords and Ladies flowering though they've got soggy and battered by the recent heavy rains.
Daft as it sounds, I had been getting worried about the lack of slugs and snails in the garden. (Everythings a meal for something else.) Plenty around today, lots of White Lipped Snails with their pale yellow shells striped with brown amongst the grass and Cow Parsley, and slugs and snails grazing on wet tree trunks up to about 3ft.