The Joys of TQ71 U
4th November 2009, Wednesday
Once more a bounden slave in the trammels of Atlassing, I’ve been revisiting the Land of Codes and The Mystery of the Second Hour in the varied countryside on the edge of RXland between Sedlescombe and Whatlington. Very varied: I got two new habitat ticks viz Vineyard and Airfield.
As for the birds, it began straight away with Redwings bursting from the Yews in Sedlescombe churchyard and proceeded to multiple Nuthatches piping around a steep woodbank hummocked with centuries-worth of badger diggings (but none current, the clearest holes stuffed with Sweet Chestnut leaves). Other abandoned diggings are human, once in search of ore, the iron still seeping into orange streams which wriggle beneath Hazel coppice in the gills. Above a farmyard, half-abandoned half-gentrified, an unexpected Peregrine is upsetting the Bullfinches. Good, good - Yellowhammers in a stubble field; but the other clientele, out in the open, are crawling, swollen-eyed rabbits.
Grazing for Meadow Pipit & Skylark, maybe Mislte Thrush, a stream for maybe Grey Wagtail, big gardens for Blackbirds etc, conifers for Goldcrest…everywhere for Robins & Wrens.
My course weaves back and forth across the busy A21 along which I’ve driven so many times past these fields hardly daring to look to the side. The rush of traffic swells and fades according to the topography, sometimes punctuated by the elephantine trumpeting of the London train.
And just as I notice how the tallies in my notebook resemble carelessly bound stooks of ticks sprawling away from bird-codes, a little harvest of birds, I come across this village sign.
Not just a sign, but a Sign.
