Saturday 5 June 2010

Gratuitous Deer

A truncated morning's birding after an appalling piece of parenthood in which I only remember there is no suntan lotion on my 12 week old daughter after 40 minutes of gentle early summer birding. Fortuantely I get enough on a small dove that rockets past to identify it as my first Turtle Dove for Cuddesdon, so all was not wasted. The skies were full of yelping Common Buzzards and whistling Red Kites, but a late Whinchat or unfeasible Shrike evaded me. I flushed a couple of Roe Deer from the hedgerow, which reminded me of last weekend in which Richard and I went to central Sweden and used this Roe Deer as a measure of the size of the Great Grey Owl to it's left:


Conclusion: Great Grey Owls are massive! Why they feast on voles when it looks like it could easily handle a full sized deer I don't know. And yes, it did get closer:


Sometimes when you're birdless, you have to get your kicks elsewhere...

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