I've heard from a couple of sources about the owls that live along the cycle path...
Not just any old owls either, but long eared owls, the most owly of owls. I ran for three miles along the cycle path, eyes fixed on the hedges giving my gait a curious tilt, as if I had an internal balance failure.
Certainly the guy riding helmetless on a motorbike on the CYCLING path must have thought I was mad, as he clunked past me a couple of times.
Of course, as with the short eared owls of the Owl Road, I saw no owls, just spring flowers like snowdrop and very early crocuses, a fleet of pochard, and unlucky juvenile herring gull trailing a plastic bag from its legs in flight that made it look like a frigate bird.
I also decided to hop through a gate and explore "Ayres Rock" (thank you Nick Crouch!) - a spoil heap on the way to the rubbish tip. It was a bleak and barren place, but the views were great and the wind was giving a feeling of adventure, blasting across the grassland at a thousand miles an hour and cutting through my windproof running jacket like s scythe.
I returned townwards along a path that looked merely muddy, but was in actuality a total swamp. Trail running shoes wouldn't have been as much use as flippers. About halfway along - this is opposite the Owl Road on the other side of the path, I flushed a largish brown bird out of the hedge and it flew along the ditch.
Of its identity, I had no clue.
Si
Not just any old owls either, but long eared owls, the most owly of owls. I ran for three miles along the cycle path, eyes fixed on the hedges giving my gait a curious tilt, as if I had an internal balance failure.
Certainly the guy riding helmetless on a motorbike on the CYCLING path must have thought I was mad, as he clunked past me a couple of times.
Of course, as with the short eared owls of the Owl Road, I saw no owls, just spring flowers like snowdrop and very early crocuses, a fleet of pochard, and unlucky juvenile herring gull trailing a plastic bag from its legs in flight that made it look like a frigate bird.
I also decided to hop through a gate and explore "Ayres Rock" (thank you Nick Crouch!) - a spoil heap on the way to the rubbish tip. It was a bleak and barren place, but the views were great and the wind was giving a feeling of adventure, blasting across the grassland at a thousand miles an hour and cutting through my windproof running jacket like s scythe.
I returned townwards along a path that looked merely muddy, but was in actuality a total swamp. Trail running shoes wouldn't have been as much use as flippers. About halfway along - this is opposite the Owl Road on the other side of the path, I flushed a largish brown bird out of the hedge and it flew along the ditch.
Of its identity, I had no clue.
Si
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| Gang of pochard |
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| Science vehicle |
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| Science people |
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| Ayres Rock through the hedge |
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| Dense hedgerow |
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| Sun over the muddy trail |
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| Ayres Rock in the distance |
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| Lichen coloured |
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| No men at work on Ayres Rock |
 |
| Long grasses |
 |
| British Gypsum in the distance |
 |
| On top of Ayres Rock |
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| Ditch |
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| Swamplands |
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| Home to a foraging blackbird |
posted from Bloggeroid
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