Feast of Pheasants?

Late this afternoon, I decided that a good long walk down the lane and carrying on all the way down to Whetstone Gorse would be a good way to clear my head (see last post). It was pretty cold and gloomy when I set out, and aside from plenty of corvids and a few gulls feeding in a stubble field along Springwell Lane it was fairly quiet until I got onto Whetstone Gorse Lane.

Before I mention the avian highlights, the most pleasing thing I saw was 3 Hares. We get plenty of Rabbits around here, but I don't recall seeing Hares so close to home before.

I noticed a few Red-legged Partridges and Pheasants, more than I usually see, so I started counting them. From one end of the lane to the other, I totalled 49 of the former and a ridiculous 111 of the latter, and I'm sure there were more unseen in scrubby margins. Seems highly likely that there has been a recent release - and by far the most compelling indicator that these were mass-reared was these ...

A crappy cropped image I know, but I saw 14 white Pheasants in all. Having never seen one previously I felt this was odd to say the least. Some, like the one above, were all white males with red head gear, others were just all white, and there was a couple of pale sandy/white individuals.

Other highlights were 72 Fieldfare, 38 Redwings and a Grey Wagtail over, and 2 Buzzards coming in to roost which threw the already assembled Rooks and Jackdaws into an even noisier fit of activity.

Here's some random lichen on a farm building wall, and a nice coloured late afternoon sky ..

Nearly forgot to mention, I ran a trap in the garden last night. But for a single Light Brown Apple Moth it was empty this morning.