Nature still astounds me, I am being surprised to the core constantly; today was one of those times. But first, the picture below. A tug which Liz and myself saw the other week at Climping in the River Arun estuary, across the water from Littlehampton. The situation: well, a lovely warm late sunny afternoon, after a challenging walk across the fields and we were hot and tired, when we came to a steep estuary bank, we climbed it and found before us as we topped the rise the Wendy Anne 2, a tug boat, so with sandy grass tussocks, giving us soft places to sit on, then with biscuits, cake and hot coffee produced from our bags a sketch was a must.  So before us on the water was this rather grand if dilapidated tug boat. Now as a bonus several large (about 2 feet long) grey mullet fish were searching in circles for food in the shallows just six feet from me. I doesn't get much better than that. The only down bit, was that the coffee in the flask was getting cold!

Now about nature astounding me. Yesterday we were on a very old footpath between Purford and Old Woking, I looked up and saw a buzzard, which to the uninitiated is an eagle sized bird of prey and the way in which it was flying said that it was unhappy about something. Looking closer it was surrounded by about a dozen or so parquets (that doesn't look right and the spell check isn't helping); anyhow a small green parrot type bird of which many live locally. They were introduced locally when an individual released them into the wild some years ago and they seem to be very happy and are flourishing ( I believe that they all have up to date passports). I realized what type of bird they are by their shape, a bit like a very small green macaw, about the size of a black bird. Whatever, these numerous small birds had had enough of this buzzard  trying to eat them and they were what is called "mobbing" it. That is, when a crowd of small birds fly above the enemy and constantly dive at it, forcing it down to the ground. Obviously the buzzard didn't stick around for to long, it cleared of to find easier food. I don't blame him.

Oh well see you soon.

Duncan