Bright days, dull days and nothing days filled February. During the dullest days, I was full of cold and, indeed only managed two patrols. It may even have been only one. When the sun shone, which it did at the month start, the views are clear, the trees are stark, the light is low and the shadows long.
Buds are at the branch tips and in March will begin to show leaf and begin greening up. The plantations will look denser and become more like the woodland they will be over the next few years. Skylarks are clearly heard and buzzards are about.
Lenny has been about the parkland and is known to many who have met him. On one day, he met us entering the parkland, below the house and walked with us over to the gate that exits for the Argyll monument. An hour later we walked up the parkland from the Rotunda to the house, and as we climbed the steady slope, away to our left there was Lenny, still at the gate where we left him. He is too fond of humans to be a herd animal - a vulnerable creature, too fond of people.
Ian, hard on the trail of a little owl, reached for his mobile phone to play the call of the bird. Lenny, on seeing the hand go pocketwards, was up close, hoping for a nice nibble. His disappointment was certainly not in evidence, as he hung around until we went throught the gate.
