A day out

29 September 2011

Yesterday we had a day out and a very good day it was too.  Even being held up in traffic on the way home didn't cause any problems - in fact it led us to take a different way home and dropping into a pub where I had a really nice pint of Bass.  See, a good all round ;-)))

The plan for yesterday was drive to the London Wetlands Centre for a spot of birding and then off to Richmond Park to do some snapping.  We managed both - and got a year tick for Red Kite on the way down the M40.  We actually saw 9 of them during the day, very nice too.  The birding wasn't all that good really with no new species for this year's list but it was still good to be out in the fresh air.  Then we set off for Richmond Park.

This beastie was found at LWC.

Parking up we got our scooters out and off we went.  But even before we left the car park we had one of target birds, ring-necked parakeet.  I did get a shot of one but it's not very good at all, sorry.  OK, Londoners may be sick to death of them but here in deepest Dorktown they are not seen at all.  Off we went to snap the stag we had seen as we drove through the park.  It was about 400 metres away so it didn't take long.

As nice a lump of venison as you wish to see.

Once we were done there we headed off to the lakes to see if there were any mandarin ducks there.  Last time we went there we saw about 20 of them - not one yesterday though.  But I did see a kingfisher which peeved Jan cos she missed it.  Making our way around we also got a couple of Egyptian geese ...

 ... and the further on we came across a large herd of deer including a stag busy defending them.  

Once back to the car we set off home and were pleased with ourselves because we had missed the London rush hour ... opps ... ... ...

As soon as we joined the A45 off A46 at Coventry we hit solid traffic.  From that junction to the island at Binley, about 4 miles I think, we crawled along taking around 30 minutes to cover it.  Jan was driving at that point and she decided that we would turn right at the island and go home via Brandon and the back roads.  At that point I remembered a pub, The RoseyCombe ...

and that's where we stopped off for a drink.  We were both ready for one at that time anyway.  By the time we got home we both very tired but as we'd had a good day we were not worried about it.

Now this blog is about Dorktown News, but yesterday was a far better to report on than anything Dorktown can produce.  So we will be back the dross soon enough.