I have been particularly busy at work this week due to customer demands and staff absences. This has been made worse by the warm air and the blue sky taunting me from outside.
However, when taking a breather and having a look out across the car park and the small amount of green edging the site I spotted a couple of invaders – red-legged partridges. Now I realise that these are pretty common, but it was the pleasure that seeing them somewhere unexpected that made them special. They were running at some speed across the car park – spooked by the incoming lorries, at one point passing about 10 feet in front of my window. Added to that was the joy that pointing these out to someone else brought (especially as he thinks that I make the birds up).
Whilst I was trying to see where they had gone to I had the unexpected bonus of seeing my first Brimstone butterflies of the year dancing in the air near a pair of carrion crows picking up nesting materials.
Highlights like this almost make it worthwhile going to work.