Sometimes you just forget how good nature and the outdoors are.

On a normal ride last night I had the pleasure of watching a Peregrine Falcon hunting/searching for prey. It was flying about 20 feet in front of me and no more than 10-15 feet above. As I progressed (slowly not to scare him off) along the track he just moved along and kept the same distance. Go to the top of the hill, got off the bike and just sat there for about 15 minutes watching.
It was really good to watch as he was just sat into the breeze with the smallest of tail movements to maintain his position. Unfortunately the camera phone pic didn’t come out very good…

I had a barn owl fly beside me for about 40m as I was returning from a perfect sunset ride on the Downs on Wednesday.

Nature’s great 🙂

Honestly couldn’t agree more. I am useless at indentyifyng birds of prey but a large bird kept flying ahead of me in a bower of trees and then settled and watched me as I cycled past. Then at the corner of a field a whole host of bats swooping about catching insects at twilight. Later on the same ride 2 badgers in the middle of the track, massive like dogs, they ran away very fast when I came upon them. The final part of my ride goes past a river and there was a heron nightfishing and I always see rats running along the edge of the water. You really can’t explain to people why cycling is so wonderful.

always makes me smile to see a barn owl on an evening ride. Not so many about at the moment after a couple of harsh winters.

A few weeks back we got back to the car at Boulmer after a lovely coastal ride and were just sat there nattering away when my girlfriend pointed up and shushed me. About 15 feet above our heads was a hen harrier apparently hunting something living in the long grass (or possibly sizing us up for tea) For the next five minute we just watched it in silence until it decided to call it a day.

Have seen a marsh harrier a couple of times this week, which was cool as I’ve only ever seen one once before. There is a green woodpecker I’ve seen most days on my commute lately as well. Only seen a badger once, on a night ride – it popped out of the woods, ran across the trail and disappeared. Properly scared the crap out of me as it was massive!

I cycled over the Cross of Greet (Bowland) earlier in the year and there was a bloke taking photos of a scantily clad lady in the back of his Volvo V70 – does this count?

I must say that as a test of the load lugging capabilities of his estate car, I wasn’t impressed.
😉