The bats that nest in the eaves of The Rickety Old Farmhouse were out in force last night enjoying the late sunset and Saharan breeze. This morning its the turn of the woodpeckers to announce the arrival of Spring. The sound of their fevered hammering drifting up from the valley. The chorus from the finches on the bird table can't quite drown out their tapping . The finches operate a form of avian air traffic control. Eight of them feed, while others are stacked up, three layers high, in the branches of the acacia tree. The stacked ones ( can the goldfinches be noisier than the chaffinches ? ) trill their impatience.
We head into the orchard, through the gate and down to the little stream. Hares watch us. Five deer freeze as we cut through the wheat field. Quail and partridge fly off ,wings beating like fury. The PONs remain ignorant to all this. Badgers, deer and who knows what else have left scintillating scents on tree stumps. Our forward progress is of the fits and starts variety. Everything is carefully and lengthily sniffed. This is a morning for canine studiousness.
No less than six large, dead, moles in a pile under the last plane tree along the lane. The owls have been enjoying a communal snack. They are messy eaters. I'd always thought owls were solitary things but our local variety are clearly of the partying type.
To her masters horror Sophie wolfs down the remains of the moles and then turns on her back and rolls away contentedly. Nothing like essence of mole to scent a girls fur. I tell her this is not the height of ladylike sophistication but am ignored. Decorousness plays second fiddle to a good back scratch and a snack of dead furry things.
Easter eggs make it into the supermarket. Will the French ignore chocolate at Easter in the same way they ignored chocolate at Christmas ? Will heavily discounted Easter eggs still be on sale in May ? Angus. who is stoically suffering a Lenten programme of self denial hopes that he can return to processed sugar asap.
This cheerful song was played on the radio this morning : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7GQvdgT6Eh0
Another of those things I'd never thought about : https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/how-do-scientists-determine-colors-prehistoric-animals-180971807/
7 comments:
Ah Sophie - nothing tastes better than a sneaky snack.
We have had Easter eggs out since January.
January ?Are there no remainder Christmas Santas at that time of the year ?
The link to the article on fossils and colour is fascinating. Last year I visited an exhibition of feathered dinosaurs from China and the reconstructions had been painted an array of spectacular colours, part based on science, part on speculation (like so much in palaeontology).
Bertie however was more interested in reading about the mole remains...
Hari Om
Young Mr Rudd is a mighty fine OZ production! I too read the article with interest, but most of all am glad to see that things are very quickly returning to regularity at the ROF!!! (Eggs appeared here on the second week of January, as did the hot cross buns; no such thing as leftover choc in these parts, it seems.) YAM xx
What an amazing digestive system Sophie must have. Here's hoping the moles stay where they are and don't reappear on the new stairway carpeting.
Goodness, surely Sophie has reached a new plateau with this "feast."
I hope dead moles don't smell as bad as some things. My Siberian once rolled in a partially decomposed woodchuck. Oy.
Enjoying your natural history report of the morning's wildlife. Chaffinches bring to mind the line from Browning about "chaffinch sings on the orchard bough...."
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