18/12/11

Last Thursday my boyfriend and I went for a walk around the "moors" near his house (It's more like peat land)

We saw:

• Swans
• BH gulls
• Coots
• Jay
• Fieldfares
• Redwings
• Robin

Yesterday I was doing fieldwork and had a great view of a green woodpecker! It had the sun behind it though and I didn't have my binoculars, but it was close. I'm surprised by how big they are.

I did field work again today and saw lots of flocks of tits (again, forgot my binoculars, why don't I learn?). I could only pick out the long tailed tits.

I also saw two roe deer jumping over a fence. The forest I'm doing my fieldwork in has sandy tracks, so I like looking out for the deers' tracks. Also, since I went to South Africa in September, I now find myself looking for tracks, signs and poo! I actually found IDing ungulate poo in Africa really interesting, and I became more interested in learning about the blesbok, tsessebe, waterbuck etc than the big characteristic mammals. 

Also while out surveying today I came across the coolest thing. There was a group of people training huskies, but they were training the huskies to pull them along in tricycle looking things instead of sledges. I've never seen it before, I thought it was amazing. I was also surprised by how strong and fast the huskies are (and noisy!).

Furthermore, when I pulled up at the car park this morning, a group of cyclists were leaving and a man from the group let me have his day parking ticket for free! (worth £4). I thought that was so kind of him :)

My boyfriend has been at his uncle's house today and said they had a blackcap in the garden! I wasn't aware we can get them here in Britain in winter, but apparently more are staying in gardens rather than migrating.