15 October 2009

Fauna and a bit of flora

I must be careful not to give the impression that I am aping Another Blogger by carrying on interminably about birds. So I will just mention that I decided on the last day of summer to go and look at the lower end of the (artificial) lake in the grounds of Johnny Churchill's Folly near Woodstock. Where I saw 30+ grebe, 12 cormorants, 2 herons, 2 jays, 2 buzzards, 2 kingfishers.

Like many places in England at this moment, it had a positively Exodic plague of ladybirds (ladybugs to colonials); mostly the sort with 18 spots, which I believe are an unwelcome foreign invasion ... is that right? A few of the black sort with red spots ('counterchanged', as we armorists might say). And just one, red, with no spots at all. Is that rare? Should I have kept it and sold it for millions? Some other blogger ... such as Fr Zootheblackandsaythered (or have I got that the wrong way round? No wonder some of my Masses are a bit strange) would know.

On the East front of the Folly a goodish (but not very movimento) bust of the Great Monarch, snitched by Johnny from the walls of Tornai. Sadly, the Sun King has lichen on his nose. I wonder if the republican regime currently rumoured to hold sway in France would care to have it cleaned off.

I don't go gawping round the interior of the Folly; there are enough Japanese and Americans doing that. But I did nip in to pay my repects to a nice (Mazzaoli) bust of 'Cardinal Borromeo'. He looks so very much happier than his neighbours, the Divine Vespasian (indigestion) and Our Lord and God Caracalla (chewing glass).

1 comment:

Rubricarius said...

Very interesting that the fauna around 'Johnny Churchill's pond you saw is almost the same to around me in London with the exception of buzzards.

Here we also, of note, have Little Grebe (presuming your 30+ were the Great Crested variety)and a small breeding colony of Little Egrets.