Brown Sea Islands

Me and the Golden Pheasant on the Brown Sea Island wildlife preserve.
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Getting to Poole and the Brown Sea Islands was half the fun. It is amazing to watch the British couch drivers maneuver their way through narrow alleys and twisted roads. We decided to sit at the top (and in front) of the double-decker bus for the best possible view, and there were a couple of times that Derek looked like he was going to die....

    We decided to visit Poole because it claimed to have the best sandy beaches in all of England. I am not sure if that is true or not, but they were pretty impressive compared to what I expected to find in England. The tide-line was also covered with thousands of little shells, and you had to tip-toe not to crush them...which was almost impossible!

We decided to visit Poole because it claimed to have the best sandy beaches in all of England.

Seashore at Poole.
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    The most exciting part of the trip was visiting the Brown Sea Islands, which is a wildlife preserve for the elusive red squirrel. I have been repeatedly told by multiple individuals that the red squirrel is going extinct because of Americans (and therefore me). The theory behind this is that the gray squirrel was brought to the UK by Americans and is now pushing the little and less clever red ones out of their natural environment...tsk, tsk, to those 'evil' Americans! And their gray squirrels too!

Seashells
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    We did see a few squirrels, but they kept their distance. The life of the party was the Golden Pheasant that watched us from the bushes...and slowly got closer until it ate from our hands. All of the birds were extremely brave since they had no natural predators on the island, and would get close if you had something tempting to feed them with. Apple turnovers and crackers worked well for us!