I’m getting pretty fed up with this wet and windy weather now – which doesn’t bode too well for my mood over the next five months. Today I needed to pick up a prescription from the GP’s surgery at Bidford, which is already a pain to access because of (sigh) the closure of Bidford Bridge for repairs. Off I trundled along the Roman Road, intending to turn east at Barton and go through to the next river crossing at Welford, but when I reached the crossroads the Barton/Welford road was shut as well – presumably due to flooding, though the sign wasn’t specific about the reason. Anyway, given that this blockage left me no choice but to turn west instead and loop round via Evesham, I thought I might as well take in Hillers’ bird hide en route.
There must have been predators around the woodland, because when I arrived in the hide the only wildlife visible were three hen pheasants, and even when the small birds began to return to the clearing they were antsy and reactive to any unusual noise. Every few minutes one of them would make an alarm call that would cause the entire flock to lift off and disappear to cover, and on one of these occasions the pheasants ran as well, and two of them that were making for the same patch of undergrowth physically collided with each other and went face down in the mud.
With all this kerfuffle going on, added to the fact that it was so cold and damp in the hide I couldn’t bring myself to stay very long, I didn’t get to take many photos, but I was quite pleased with the little set I captured of this male Chaffinch. While processing them this evening I was struck by the little upsweep of feathers behind his eye, which increasingly tickled at a memory from my 60s childhood. “Who is it?” I said to R. “One of the Addams family? Uncle Fester maybe?” He looked at me as if I’d come suddenly unglued – as well he might, because of course, Uncle Fester was entirely bald. The character I was trying to remember was Count Sam Dracula from The Munsters, commonly known as Grandpa.
R: C5, D12.
