Sunday 21 October 2007

Wild Geese


Twenty years ago Little Egrets lived in places like the South of France not in the bucolic greenery of central southern England, but now two live in Hungerford, this one flying over Freeman's Marsh in the late October sunshine today.
Nor would I expect to see a Greylag Goose here; I always associate them with wild empty saltmarshes and the call of the curlew, but thirty plus were honking their way northwards over the River Dun this morning in a great diagonal line to who knows where.
And Stonechats - I thought they lived on Cornish clifftops, but now we have at least three clacking away on the same marsh, two males and a female.
Needless to say West Berkshire Council have given permission for a marina and hotel to be built on this Site of Special Scientific Interest, and the owners are busy advertising for investors. It beggars belief.