Yesterday I took half a day off from my labours to have a walk round my favourite farm for birds. The pair of kites I watched last year are beginning to work on their nest, but not with any great urgency, and I only saw one bird doing a slow, flapping overpass to see what I was up to.
On the way back I stopped at the edge of a building and saw a squirrel running around. Grey Squirrels are easy to photograph and I would not normally have bothered. They are the enemy after all: the colonisers wiping out our native reds. This one however, was in a frenzy of activity, running up and down branches, hanging upside down, rolling round on the ground, tail flashing to and fro; I froze and slowly raised the camera, shooting in motor drive every few seconds.
I was mystified by this behaviour until I saw the second squirrel but then guessed that this was some sort of display behaviour designed to impress what was presumably a female sitting on the wall, watching intently.
The antics of the supposed male brought him closer to me until within a few metres he stopped and gazed at me.
"Is this object a person? It doesn't move so perhaps not, but I'll just wait and see."
We faced each other, neither moving a muscle for a minute or two. Then I decided to move on and he quickly scurried off.
A few fields from the house is a nursery field for the pregnant ewes, and there were lots of new-born lambs. Once they've get used to this great wide, cold grey world, they begin to explore a little, and one goes over to a different family group to say hello.
The mother sniffs at him and then sends him packing, her twins watching intently. A little further on is a lamb only a few hours old, the umbilical chord still wet and the back legs messy. She comes towards me but then totters off back to mum, probing for the reassurement and comfort of the nipple.
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