"The river. Its my world, and I don't know any other."

Hopefully you can see little Ratty in these pictures.  Well, perhaps he isn't the famous character from Wind in the Willows as this is not actually Toad Hall, but Pulborough Brooks in Sussex.  Instead we shall call him Barry.  It is not every day you get to see the illusive water vole so this was a great treat during Sunday's visit to the RSPB reserve near Storrington.  We were in a hide, hence why I could take pictures without him disappearing.  There has been a huge decline in water vole populations over the last few years due to habitat loss and the introduced American mink which predates them.  So rock on Barry!

We were also privileged to see this Water rail close up from the visitor centre window.  You don't normally see these little fellas but the staff there had been putting feed out. Not quite as legitimate a birdspot as it should be but who cares!

The final good spot of the day was a lovely pub at Bolney on the way home!

Beauty and the beast

So right now it couldn't be raining more but that is a good thing.  Earlier in the week we've had some lovely warm sunny weather and signs of spring have been emerging.  I could plaster a load of photos of lichens on here but I've found that not everyone finds them as interesting as I do strangely.  So I've bunged a couple of ladybirds in to make them more interesting!

During the same survey in Brocks Wood at college, I picked up a leaf from the ground to help me identify the tree.  The leaf was curled up and much to my utter horror I touched something soft...

Gerrrroossssss! I do not know what creature left that little surprise for me but I assume it is a spider's egg?  Fortunately no one was around to hear me shriek and launch it into the woods! I obviously then had to find it again so I could take a picture.  Der.

On another survey this week I found this pretty cool fungus called Yellow Brain Fungus...