Well, today has been hectic as it was June's birthday; December had a ballet exam and we were celebrating Father's Day. All of this meant that we didn't get out until mid afternoon, when we headed off to our local Wildfowl and Wetland Trust reserve.
Traffic was heavy on the A27 and what should have been a quick journey wasn't, so by the time we pulled in to the car park I was wondering whether we should give up and go home.
I'm so glad that we didn't. The very first bird I saw was a Cock Pheasant. In the car park. He wasn't behaving normally - he was backed into some long grass, pecking voraciously at the ground in front of him. I thought that a previous visitor must have thrown some bird seed on the ground and approached to investigate. The Pheasant didn't move back, or even acknowledge our presence.
Then we saw what was keeping him distracted - he had discovered an ant's nest and was feasting on eggs, grubs and ants. The ants were doing their best to defend their own, climbing all over their attacker, trying to find a weak point - they didn't seem able to find one - or, if they had, their bites weren't having any effect.
Leaving the pheasant to his dinner we left the car park and crossed the bridge to enter the reserve.
No comments:
Post a Comment