"Beer Is Good For Kestrels"

The harvest is well under way at Lodge Farm. I had a little chat with the farmer and he's quite happy, the yields look like being up on last year, though that wasn't brilliant.

It was cool, dull and blowing hard when I got out of the car. I didn't see much wildlife until I headed back. First a red kite swooped low over the farmyard then I caught sight of a kestrel skimming over the barley. The wind had really got up by then and I was being lashed by rain but managed the above shot as it flew over an adjoining field of wheat. I cowered in a barn half filled with grain for a while afterwards. Kestrel lager in Scotland is working with the RSPB. Beer needs barley and research has shown that if farmers sow more barley it provides the ideal habitat for kestrels to flourish. The farmer told me that the pair of kestrels using the box on the end of the barn have raised three young, I think my bird is one of them. 

I was nearly back to the car when a doe and a fawn ran across the field. When I trained my long lens on them I could see a pair of hares too. Lovely. :)

Today's poem is To Know A Poem By Heart by Nicholas Albery. I'm afraid I can't find a link to it. I'm not keen on it. It strikes me as rather contrived, trying too hard and trying to be clever. However I do like the idea of knowing a poem by heart. I used to learn poems with my children when they were at junior school as they recited them from memory competitively for the Cambridge Festival of Music, Dance, Speech and Drama. The three of us still love to drop the odd line into conversation when we are together.

PS I've amended my post re barley/wheat after the interested comments of PeninsulaLight. :)