Country Walks

Tuesday and Wednesday evening this week, 22nd & 23rd June, have been absolutely amazing here in Marlow. We have torrential downpours around lunctime but by the time evening comes it has all calmed down, the sun is out & the proberbial summer evening awaits. Trying to make the most of the long evenings we hurry home from work. On Tuesday we visited the local gravel pits. I am hoping to see a Little Owl as one has been spotted here a couple of evenings ago. The air is stil & the water is of mill pond quality and there is a good light for photographs. We hear Reed Buntings but cannot see them. We do get a good view of a family of Long Tailed Tits but they don’t keep still long enough to get a shot at them, it’s a shame because they are very close and they are very cute. The Terns are about to fledge and the parents are screeching around but again too far away. Further on we both jump out of our skins as the eerie bak of a very close Muntjac deer pierces the still evening air and a Kestrel sitting on the overhead wires, watches us walk past as we manage to bypass the Spade Oak and head off home. Good job as it is 20 to 10.
Wednesday we decide to go out a bit earlier so aroung 6.30 we go to Hambledon to do a quick circuit walk. It had been raining at lunchtime and down the first track Chaffinches were drinking out of the puddles. There were quite a lot of them so we watched for a while and to our delight they were joined by a Yellowhammmer. Round the corner and we spy some dark shapes in the sunlit field ahead. They turn out to be brown Hares and there are 7 of them here. We creep around the edge of the fied trying to get closer but spook one of them. Never mind it gives Ian an opportunity to get a photo or 2. Just then Ian spies a Fox creeping out into the field from just above where we are standing. A racket immediately starts up from some nearby rooks which then swoop & mob the Fox until he gives up and slinks back into the undergrowth futher up the field.
Accross the next field and we see about 6/8 Red Kites the sunlight is catching thier feathers as they swoop & turn over our heads. We see 2 more hares in the adjacent field. The sly is bright blue and little fluffy clouds are dotted around, which remind me of our holiday in New Zealand. Down the road and back across the fields we spot a Kestrel sat on a branch and get another good view of a Red Kite. It was a truly wonderful evening. Hambledon village was looking at it’s very best. The sun warming the stones of the pretty cottages and the bees humming in the gardens brimming with summer flowers. We congratulate ourselves on managing to walk past another country pub and reluctantly go home dreaming of a holiday cottage and no work in the morning.