A mooch around the South Lakes
Back in the good old days we did some work on a private nature reserve with a few good mates. One of whom, Andy, revisited it with me last weekend to have a shuffy about to see what we could see. It was a mild day but without much sunshine so we struggled to find any reptiles in their usual places as we set off on our wander. Birdlife too was hard to come by but then it's that time of year when many of the summer birds have already left, the winter birds haven't arrived yet and the local residents are moulting and keeping their heads down. Only a Wren made it's presence felt. I saw, and I'm not sure if Andy did too, a Stoat dashing along the winding footpath about 20 yards ahead of us. I've not seen one for yonks - not since the now infamous 'Stork on the bridge' incident at WWT's Martin Mere reserve a few years ago. Odd snippets of sunshine between the clouds brought out some butterflies but as soon as cloud cover came back they quickly descended to ...