Boxing Day: Pied Wagtail and Stoke Park Woods walk
I took the first picture in this photoset of a Pied Wagtail out the back this afternoon which it was nice to see again. We then did our first lot of time outside to exercise of this new tier 4 restrictions COVID-lockdown era for most of Hampshire among others. This precious and wild bit of woodland became one of our key locations for walks in the first lockdown, a daily exercise walk here in April in particular made one of our bank holidays this year on Good Friday as we took a brilliant walk around seeing the place beautifully carpeted in bluebells and other flowers as well as many of the early butterfly species well and birds a brilliant walk and standout moment of my year as I mentioned in my 10 wildlife/photography highlights blogs of 2020 the other day the first of two posts about my butterfly year and flowers, other insects etc. this year. So it was nice to be back today and it certainly gave me some key memories this bank holiday, going into a lockdown around bank holiday days although we’d obviously had two weeks of it before the Easter weekend makes me look back on the start of the year a lot. Today was a typical Boxing Day I must say with the quite grey and fairly dark scenes due to the weather so colours of a day I come to expect of this day with just a touch of rain. It was also lovely today to watch football before we came out a key point of any Boxing Day a big tradition and when I got home and also before make a start on writing out my calendars always a key post-Christmas task that is something I love doing among one one other the two calendars I made form my pictures from mid-2019 to mid-2020 which I got as my presents so today and yesterday it has been great to finally see them printed I am happy with how the pictures come out. I also made a start on Chris Packham and Megan McCubbin’s book ‘Back to Nature’ which I got as a present too I think I shall really enjoy that as a way to discuss general wildlife topics but also mark the locked down year it has been and what the Self Isolating Bird Club which I have enjoyed being a part of has done for so many. So it was a day to unwind and I felt very relaxed.
On the walk I took in some great varied scenes mostly woodland taking the second, third and fifth-tenth pictures in this photoset of various views.
Early on in the walk I was very delighted to see flying through trees the star bird of this location, one of my favourites the Jay. I have seen them so often in the past here and was happy to again. It was a great prolonged view where I could really get to see this special bird for me well. Being a little bit further back at first I reached for my long distance specialist bridge camera. The only thing with using this camera is it can sometimes be hard to focus through branches and does not deal with movement well. So I walked around a bit trying to get a clear view of the mobile Jay with the camera and I just couldn’t quite find the right moment to pull the trigger in a manner of speaking. But not only did the bird stay put, but quite rarely I suppose it actually flew towards me and relocated on a nearer branch and I managed the fourth picture in this photoset of it. Not perfect, but I was pleased to get this picture to remember the wonderful piece of nature I observed this Boxing Day. A great moment to include in my #12DaysWild social media posts the festive version of #30DaysWild the brilliant challenge the Wildlife Trust do in June which I took part in for the first time this year, but I began doing these in normal times for me in the reduced version they do over Christmas in 2018 so I am enjoying taking part in this again.
Other wildlife I enjoyed seeing on the walk today included, two of another of my favourite birds the Great Spotted Woodpecker flying over another great bird of the area, Robin, Woodpigeon, Mallards speedily swimming in the nearby River Itchen and a couple of Grey Squirrels another star species here.
A really nice Boxing Day I hope you all also had a good one or as good as could be.
