I am currently reading 'Magpie Murders' by Anthony Horowitz and was reminded of the childhood rhyme ..... one for sorrow two for joy .... and so on. I wonder what it would be for 200! For this was the number of Magpie I counted, before it was too dark to see, coming to roost in willow scrub one winters evening near my home.
Continue reading Murder, Mischief and Murmurations – Magpie, Raven and Starling
What better introduction to Spring than this quotation from the writings of Richard Jefferies.
"The bird upon the tree utters the meaning of the wind—a voice of the grass and wild-flower, words of the green leaf; they speak through that slender tone. Sweetness of dew and rifts of sunshine, the dark hawthorn touched with breadths of open bud, the odour of the air, the colour of the daffodil—all that is delicious and beloved of springtime are expressed in his song. Genius is nature and his lay, like the sap in the bough from which he sings, rises without thought". —’ Field and Hedgerow’: Hours of Spring. Richard Jefferies
East Anglia is one of the best birding areas in the UK; in particular its coast, which is for the large part not greatly built-up and has a fantastic mix of interesting and rare habitats like dunes, reedbeds, lagoons, estuaries, sandy cliffs, shingle and sand spits, saltmarsh, grazing marsh, woodland, heath and broads. I was […]