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We're walking along the towpath by the rushy field with our eyes fixed on a bird on the power line pole. It has been making a high-pitched call - is it a Green Woodpecker or a bird of prey?
It is good to see partridges, they've been in decline in our countryside for many years. The tidying up of rough margins of fields and changing patterns of agriculture are probably amongst the reasons for this decline.
Richard Bell,
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MOLES have been busy in the wood. There's such a pile of earth alongside the top path that at first we wonder if somebody has been digging there. I drew the woodland mole in my 1987 children's book Deep in the Wood.
Also new in the wood are five car tyres rolled into the beck. Apparently one way of recycling tyres is to use them in the rubberised surfacing of children's playgrounds.
Great rolls of straw are trundled to a hay wagon piled up to the size of a small house.
Before we can find out, there is such a clatter of wings from behind the Hawthorns. It sounds like a horse snorting loudly - 'PFFFWUFFFFHHHHHH!' - but it surprises the three ponies as much as it surprises us. They gallop half-way across the field as a covey of eight Grey Partridges volley across. When we look back our mystery bird has flown.