Morning Visitors.

It's been a wildlife day today but mostly not on camera. First thing this morning I glanced out of the kitchen window at the field saw some brown shapes moving in the field. First thought, ' It's warmer now so Sarah's put some ponies in the little field.' Closely followed by ,'Whoa, that's a group of stags!' I grabbed a jacket and my camera but the stags had moved on. One of them was probably the one I photographed the other day.

As I drove up the hill this fat wet pheasant was wandering about on the road. He was quite unconcerned and let me drive fairly close before he decided to take off over the hedge. Not a lot of intelligence there. They are captive bred and let loose for the shooting season so that rich ****ers can go out and shoot them down. (Can you tell I'm anti bloodsports?)

The clouds were hanging low over the hill tops again as I drove home with limited visibility past Shirwell. As I drove by Ashelford Corner a big hare ran across the road and up & over the hedge. We see quite a few hares on the higher roads, the rabbits tend to be right down in the valleys. Once we saw 2 hares in the field standing up and boxing each other. It's something that is often shown on nature programmes but I found it completely different and exciting to watch this behaviour in 'real life'.

Work has been fairly calm though I did get a bit stressed in the afternoon when I had 7 children sitting with me, all attempting to write simple sentences for some lift the flap books they were making and needing LOTS of support. The tummy bug is going round the children again and starting to hit some of the staff as well. I'm keeping my fingers crossed and making good use of my personal supply of alcohol gel hand wash.