Kestrels and a pheasant, South Norwood Country Park and Lloyd Park

Two female kestrel sightings today, in South Norwood Country Park and near to Lloyd Park, on the path down to Oaks Farm, the second was a magnifcent sight - the female perched on top of a telegraph pole until a magpie reached out along the wire and went to scratch her with his claws, she flew off in an imperious burst. In South Norwood country park the female was hovering very high. There was also a noisy pheasant, very easy to spot in the buff coloured reeds and grass, chiffchaffs, Dunnocks, chaffinches, shovelers, an acid yellow parakeet (never seen that before) goldfinches, a few long tailed tits, blue tits, coal tits, Canada geese, grey lag, which I find very handsome, noticeably high numbers of magpies, loads of crows, and very, very few people anywhere this Good Friday. We took a tram from Arena to Coombe Lane and walked down through the lovely wooded Addington hills back to Lloyd Park, from the 440 foot viewing area Windsor Castle and Heathrow Airport were easy to spot through binoculars, the weirdly located Chinese restaurant was open for lunch in the pine and birch forest wilderness, but only a few customers were visible. We also spotted in the distance the White house on Streatham Common, the Shard, London eye etc etc. The forest is huge and spills into the Surrey countryside, accidentally getting off at Gravel Hill we saw fields with cows, strange to think this is all a couple of miles from home. By Croydon arena a bad girl drove a 4 by 4 recklessly fast near us, there's a distinct edginess to this environment, you wonder if a gangland shooting is about to unfold in these ancient hills or a burnt out motorbike found smouldering in the woods...

 Above, South Norwood Country Park, below, near the top of the Addington Hills, a sign said Dartford Warblers and lizards  could be seen there, but none visible today...