Thursday 1 March 2012

A rather pleasant pheasant....and my first proper day!

So today was my first day of actual wardening after lots of training fun! Admittedly this was spent mostly hammering posts into the ground and rescuing little wooden posts from trees, but the less said about that bit the better! :)

Greenham Common really is a wonderful place to work and I can't help but feel really quite honoured to work there; so much history in one place and so many wonderful wildlife-related adventures to come.

Today was a foggy start, so any sort of bird watching while we worked was out the window.....but that didn't stop us listening...mostly to the Skylarks :) Its easy to become a bit complacent when you hear birds every day, but I don't think I could ever get bored of listening to these iconic birds. While taking a break from the aforementioned hammering we spotted 3 skylarks darting around the pools at Crookham Common, we suspect in some sort of (very noisy) breeding display.

As part of my job I'll be helping to monitor the breeding of Skylarks on the Commons as well as other ground or near-ground nesting species, such as the Lapwing, Little Ringed Plover, Ringer Plover and Woodlark. Needless to say I am very excited and will keep you posted with how things go over the next few months.

Other birds heard today included a woodlark, dunnock, a red kite, robins and lots of other garden birds. I did have a rather odd encounter with a pheasant on the drive home....after slowing down at the sight of him...he stopped in the middle of the road, looked at me....then continued to saunter across the road at an alarmingly slow pace. If ever there appeared to be a bird that wanted to be run-over...it was him! Odd but rather charming!




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