Thursday 30 September 2010

Life and Death on Wormwood Scrubs

A poor Red Fox
It's been a bit of a manic few weeks for me - what with a touch of traveling and a shed load of writing. I've also been trying to keep an eye on The Scrubs, although I have dipped on two separate Ring Ouzels (my favourite bird as a lot of you may already know).

I had a great session on Sunday morning though when I scored at least 500 passage House Martins, 250 Swallows, 130 Meadow Pipits, 2 Yellow Wagtails and a high flying Hobby that proceeded to dramatically stoop at great speed onto some unfortunate and unseen prey item. We also had a pair of low flying Peregrines that gave us a great aerial display including some talon-locking. It was brilliant to see all that literally a couple of miles from central London.

This morning I discovered the above depicted fox that must have met with an untimely death during the heavy rain last night. It was undamaged bar some cuts on one of its back legs - no doubt as a result of some pecking by our voracious local Carrion Crows. Poor little thing.

Today was my last session down at The Scrubs because tomorrow morning I will be on Tower 42 (although it is promising to be a dismal day filled with rain and grey clouds) and on Saturday morning I will be between the sticks. Later that evening I will be on a plane heading for The Azores. Now that will be an adventure!

Oh, and by the way, I managed to catch up with the Hyde Park/Kensington Gardens White-winged Black Tern. My face was saved!

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