Train spotting

I have lost my youthful enthusiasm for exotic travel and fabulous wildlife. The more I see of the British Isles, the more captivated I become. Why spend hours stuck on airport floors waiting for volcano-proof planes when there is so much to see here?

For once, I decided that I would not spend my train journey to London poring over papers and this laptop, but to watch the natural world instead. My laziness was rewarded by a terrific view of a large (probably dog) Red Fox sitting at the side of the track on the outskirts of Swindon station. Taking this as a challenge, I decided what else the London up line would provide.

Following the colour theme, my next mammal was the first of two Brown Hares that I saw lolloping through young wheat crops. The Mad March phase seemed to have given way to a leisurely amble. I failed to see any Roe Deer, possibly because bad habits broke through, and I tried and failed to speak to several colleagues by mobile phone instead of watching properly. However, at the edge of Didcot station a lovely Muntjac was enjoying a feast of trackside vegetation.

The Didcot to Reading stretch is becoming a great Red Kite zone and I saw four birds, one only feet above the railway bank, on this stretch. The Red Kite reintroduction programme has been a great success and the Chiltern colony is growing stronger every year.

The Thames beyond Maidenhead revealed two glorious Mute Swans that looked to me as if they were an ornithological item. Without straying into the dubious realms occupied by some political parties, these lovely native birds had a bigger wow factor than the raft of Canada Geese that were drifting along the Thames a few hundred yards downstream.

The irony of my morning wildlife "wows" is of course that I have spent the journey back from London typing sundry blogs about badgers, kite and muntjac! Not much to grumble about really, more a special privilege. But that is the joy of working for wildlife every day, especially in a county as beautiful as Gloucestershire.