A Hoopoe just seven miles from home was far too tempting to be missed, so we headed to Corscombe straight after school today.
The Hoopoe really is one of my favourite birds. Not only is it absolutely magnificent, but it is a bird that evokes fantastic memories of holidays in lovely places, as well as being complete and utterly unique- there is nothing (in Europe at least) that looks even similar to it.
It has been frequenting a 'natural burial site' near the village for the past few days. Having never visited a natural burial site, I wasn't really sure as to what to expect. It turned out that it was perfect Hoopoe habitat, with a mixture of small patches of forest, large meadows and shortly-mowed grass path in an incredibly wild and untouched area. And loads of unmarked graves. It had a really chilling atmosphere- thinking about the large number of corpses hiding buried around where we walked. I wouldn't like to be there at night.
Corscombe Natural Burial Ground. A really beautiful place, but rather spooky. Much nicer than a graveyard though....
We found the Hoopoe almost immediately, on a small patch of grass in the car park. What a stunning bird. Sadly, it didn't hang around for long, as it flew high off possibly to one of the nearby meadows, but we couldn't re-find it.
Hoopoe, Corscombe, 9/5/14
What a great bird. And really close to home in a stunningly beautiful place. Nice.
No comments:
Post a Comment