Bog Myrtle & Peat

The past few days have really seen spring come into its own. While snowdrops and crocuses have been up for a few weeks, I always prefer to look at wild animals for a sign of change. Boxing hares and battling pheasants have been a major feature since the second week in February, and I am on tenterhooks to see the start of the real black grouse lek over the next few days. Rooks are flying back and forth with twigs, and badgers are starting to emerge after their lazy winter underground.

Today, though, I saw something that I have never seen before. Driving on a scenic route today, I was hoping to come across larger numbers of boxing hares, but it turned out that I came across something even more exciting.

To begin with, I wasn’t sure what I was looking at. Leaves and dead grass were being flung into the road from the verge, and it started to become clear that two moderately sized birds were at each others’ throats. They were french partridges, and as I drove closer, it became clear that they could not care less about me. The conflict quickly produced a winner, and I watched as the lesser bird was battered and partially plucked into submission. They flickered frantically, then settled in to a race on the flat between the roots of an old hawthorn hedge. What the lesser bird had lacked in bulk and fury, he made up for with a fine fleetness of foot, and the race passed speedily by within feet of my car until honour was satisfied and the winner stopped to blink at me.

With large numbers of partridges in the vicinity, perhaps it is surprising that I have never seen a fight like this before, but normally they are so well concealed in the undergrowth that maybe I overlook them. I will be keeping a sharper eye out in future.