Tuesday February 15th : Stow Maries Halt EWT Reserve : A Buzzard and a Red Kite were watched circling above a clearing near our work party lunch site this morning. The former seemed to be escorting the latter off its territory. Buzzards will often do this to rival pairs of their own kind. Rather than attack them directly they will seek to soar higher than the intruders, thus proving their superiority, the latter then drifting away unscathed to challenge them another day. It is probably a good way of 'testing the waters' before deciding to make a more serious bid for the resident pairs territory and it certainly avoids the unnecessary risk of injury.
The old railway bridge on the reserve still boasts (they havn't repointed the brickwork recently) good numbers of four species of fern, namely, Hart's-tongue, Black and Maindenhair Spleenworts and Wall Rue, although none are looking at their best at this time of year.