A wandering kind of day....

 

I had a few errands to run today, so decided to do a bit of nature watching along the way.

After a bit of shopping in Hayes I made my way to St Peters and St Pauls Church in Harlington. There is a war memorial there, which I wanted to photograph for a friend....

 

 

and whilst I was there I found a Great Spotted Woodpecker excavating a hole in a nearby tree...

 

There were also several Goldcrests calling, a Coal Tit, lots of Blackbirds including one with a white tail and a Heron flew over. Sadly this churchyard contained not one spring flowering bulb. It was just grass. There are a few evergreen trees and a couple of shrubs, but absolutely no spring flowers. Unlike the pretty churchyard at Cranford Park's St Dunstans.

 

From Harlington I made my way to Heathrow. I was last there on 4th February with my friend, Nathalie, looking for Peregrines. We were unsuccessful but we did chance upon a whole load of Bee Orchid rosettes. For more please take a look at my blog for that day. As I wasn't far from there today, I decided to have another look for the Peregrines, but again I had no luck.

I did see some Linnets though.....

 

 

and found a juvenile Pied Wagtail.....

 

The Bee Orchid rosettes were still visible. I had guess-timated on my last visit, that there were about 100. I was very wrong. I had a count up today and stopped counting at 200. If they all succeed in flowering, it's going to be a bee-utiful sight.

I'm not the only one that's paid a recent visit though. On my last visit three weeks ago, the rosettes had been surveyed and each one had a red, blue or yellow paint marker next to it. Today, all the paint markers had been changed to blue. I have no idea what this means but would love to find out......

 

 

The paint marker below was yellow three weeks ago, you can just see the remains of the original paint, but is now marked blue....

 

and this one below, was red.....

 

Having no success with the Peregrines I started walking back to the bus stop and saw a Buzzard flying over, a Muntjac feeding in one of the fenced off areas and a Fox in the same field. Unfortunately no photos of the deer or the Fox - both animals saw me before I had a chance to raise my camera and they scuttled off in to the scrub.

 

From Heathrow I headed over to Cranford Park. I wasn't expecting to see a lot today. It was very overcast with quite a chilly wind. However two Robins have taken up residence near the wood circle, so after sprinkling some cheese out for them I managed to get a couple of photos.....

 

 

I also saw more Goldcrests, heard another Coal Tit calling, had a Red Kite fly over, saw a distant Kestrel, heard the Skylarks but couldn't locate them, heard Redwings but couldn't locate them, and saw lots of paired up Marmite Parakeets.

The shot below is dreadful - I've had to lighten it considerably -

 

I spent the rest of my afternoon following Muntjac tracks. They really do have a large range. They've been seen all over the park, and the tracks I followed today took me from one side of Cranford Woods all the way through to the other side and round to the back of St Dunstans.

 

So not a lot to show for my wandering kind of day, but according to my 'Fitbit' I've walked over 13km today.