Just a quick post to share a few Water Vole pics. Sadly the sun had largely descended over the yard-arm when I took these, and the poor light levels mean they are a little blurry and gloomy, but I still think it’s great to see a rare mammal so clearly.
The voles seem pretty calm around here, easily seen, so hopefully I’ll have better images soon. When I do, I’ll talk a little more about the largest of our voles.
Had to postpone my planned vole-photography session as the weather is less than ideal, but should return to that later this week. But today has brought a flurry of finch species, of which I’ve managed to grab a couple of images.
We already knew we had Bullfinch, Goldfinch and Greenfinch around, and we’ve seen Siskins too. But today we woke up to three very fine Lesser Redpoll on the newly-erected feeding pole.
They are delicate little finches, but their red caps and breasts were looking especially bright.
The trio hung around for about 45 minutes, flitting between the garden and a nearby willow, but we haven’t seen them since. Hopefully they are breeding nearby.
A more regular visitor through the day was this glorious Siskin:
He has been in and out most of the day, and even hung around while I wandered down the garden just feet away, running an errand or two.
Added to the Sparrows, Robins, Blue, Coal, and Great Tits, Greenfinches, Goldfinces, Dunnocks, Wood Pigeons, Collared Doves, and Wren, the garden is in fine birding form despite being very bare at the moment. We even had a brief visit from a bruiser of a Great Spotted Woodpecker:
All-in-all, a very good day. Hopefully more to come, as we had a good evening yesterday watching both Chiffchaff and Water Vole. I’ll try get some Water Vole pics later this week.
It’s been a while, but finally I’m moved and ready to kick-on with the blog.
I’ve been delighted with the wildlife prospects at the new place. We’ve found evidence of three old nests in hedges, and currently have a nesting pair of Blackbirds, and a Wren converting an old swallow nest into his own des-res. Plenty of other ‘pairs’ around too, including Blue and Great Tits, Treecreepers, House Sparrows, Dunnocks, and Robins.
We’ve got regular hedgehogs, at least one male and one female, visiting the garden. We’ve also got water voles in the river across the road, and bats on an evening.
Spring is definitely here, I’ve seen/heard my first Swallows, Chiffchaffs, and a Whitethroat.
All this is without really exploring the local area, getting any feeders up, or even doing any work on the blank canvas of a garden we’ve acquired. With plenty of neighbouring habitats, it should be a real wildlife bonanza in years to come.
This weekend I’m going to try document the wren/swallow nest and will share some images, and a bit of info about what he’s up to.
I’m also starting to plan for next month’s trip to Scotland, and will hopefully be visiting the London Wetlands Centre next month too.
Apologies for the month-long silence. I haven’t given up on the blog, just been busy, then unwell, then busy! Still not ready to get things running smoothly, but I’ll try make sure there’s at least one post a week from now on till I relaunch properly in mid-late April. With a new garden, a new birding patch, and a forthcoming trip to the Scottish Highlands, there’ll soon be a glut of good stuff to post about. I’ve also passed my driving test, so once I get a car that’ll see a lot more ‘field trips’ covered here.
The last few weeks have been wonderful, with the sights and sounds of birds thinking about nesting and breeding. Only a couple of days ago I was listening to Blue and Great Tits, Robins, Dunnocks, Blackbirds, and Wrens making all manner of “look at me!” calls, with a smattering of the birdy equivalent of “get off my lawn!”
Many birds are nest-building, and the local corvids can be seen carting massive amounts of material around. The magpies in particular are entertaining here, dismantling last years nest, moving it a foot away in the same tree, then starting again.
Not only that, but reports from the South coast suggest the first migrants are returning too. Spring is truly upon us…
Of course, this morning they’ll all have been in for a shock as much of the country wakes to a blanket of snow, with a really white weekend ahead. Hopefully not too many birds have laid early clutches of eggs. Hopefully not too many insects have emerged early from hibernation. Hopefully anybody who took their feeders down, figuring winter had passed, is getting food back out there. The birds still need it (I feed year round anyway).
I’m sure the real spring is on the horizon.
David
It does look like house move stuff will slow my blogging up the next couple of months. I tend to write on weekends, and at the moment weekends are a sea of paperwork, sorting the clutter, filtering, discarding and general planning.
That said, for the second weekend in a row we’ve had a pleasant surprise in the garden. Following on from last week’s Redpoll, we had two Goldcrests (Regulus regulus). Even better, I managed to grab a couple of pictures this time. Or so I thought.
Here is the cautionary tale. If you’ve been playing with your camera, make sure you switch everything back to normal afterwards. Otherwise, if you grab it in a hurry, your pictures may not turn out so well. Hence these results:
Honestly, there is a Goldcrest there! A little bit of work with some photo editing software makes it a little clearer:
They are fascinating little birds, migrating into the UK in winter from Scandinavia, even from Russia. People could scarcely belief such a tiny bird (Britain’s smallest at about 6 grammes) could fly such distances, so assumed they hitched a lift with bigger migrants. This led to one of their nicknames; The Woodcock Pilot.
Another nickname that may belong to the Goldcrest is “King of Birds”. This isn’t down to their golden crown, more likely it relates to a Greek/Roman myth. Apparently the birds decided to elect a king based on who could fly highest. The Eagle was all set for victory, when the smallest of birds popped out from hiding in his feathers and flew that little bit higher. There is some debate whether this refers to the Wren or the Goldcrest, and both carry notes of regality in their names with the Wren’s Germanic name meaning King, and the Goldcrest’s scientific name ‘Regulus’ also conveying royalty (meaning ‘petty king’ or ‘prince’, leading to the group name of ‘Kinglets’).
Wrens and Goldcrests relatedness has been a subject of some confusion, with Goldcrests sometimes referred to as the ‘Golden-Crested Wren’, which only amplifies the trouble we have in sorting out that Greek myth. But they are two separate families.
This was a pretty fortunate spot, as they tend to favour dense evergreens. Getting two out in the open like this was a real Saturday treat.
A combination of dubious weather and the need to run through miles upon miles of paperwork for the forthcoming house move has meant a quiet weekend, and nothing interesting to update on the blog.
That said, we did have a pleasant surprise in the garden yesterday. A tiny little bird flitting about acrobatically in the tree turned out to be a female Redpoll (Carduelis sp).
Sadly it wasn’t staying still enough to get a picture, or to determine whether it was Lesser (C.cabaret) or Common/Mealy Redpoll (C.flammea). But it was pretty pale, so I’d suspect a Mealy, probably in its first winter.
There’s probably a flock around somewhere, but I’ve not seen it. It disappeared sharpish when a Red Kite came low over the garden, but probably coincidentally as the Kite is unlikely to try catch a tiny, zippy little finch!
As promised, the results of my BGB efforts…
Yesterday at about 3pm I settled down with a cup of tea for an hour’s garden bird watching. It was an odd one.
For the vast majority of the hour, there was nothing. But in one five minute spell, simultaneously, there was:
3 Blackbirds (1 male, 2 female)
4 House Sparrows (2m 2f)
4 Long-tailed Tits
2 Blue Tits
1 Dunnock
1 Robin
I saw a couple of magpies too (nothing on the 21 I saw in a single tree the other day), and the dunnock and blackbirds popped back, but that was the count.
I’ve submitted my results HERE, and if you haven’t yet, there’s still time!
Incidentally I had a look today too, in the wind, post-melt. Nothing. Not a dickie bird (literally). Amazing how 24 hours could skew results that way.
Had a wander up through Wyke Beck Woods for the second weekend in a row. The light was much better, but sadly most of the birds weren’t coming out to bask in the sunshine. I put it down to sledging kids, and the guy taking a massive chainsaw to his hedge.
Anyway, we got welcomed to the wood by this Robin, singing his little head off:
It may seem robins sing for the sheer joy of it, but it’s actually all about territory. That sweet little song is telling other robins to stay clear.
Shortly afterwards we also spotted some Goldfinches up in the tops of some Alders. But a closer inspection yielded a pleasant surprise; not just Goldfinches, Siskins (Carduelis spinus) too. Sadly, they were at quite a distance, so not many good images. But here are a couple to give you an idea:
Between 10 and 12 birds in total, about half-and-half Siskin/Goldfinch.
There were plenty of over-excited Grey Squirrels, chasing each other all over the trees, often three at a time. Also saw (and mainly heard) Nuthatches, plus plenty of tits, Blackbirds, and Wood Pigeons.
Just as we left the wood to walk home, a Red Kite came low over our heads. I know I’ve featured them before, but just a few shots of this gorgeous bird of prey:
And the last one, just to show how tricky it is to get a soaring Red Kite in frame:
* Apologies for flecks and marks on the images, the melting snow played havoc with keeping the lens clean and clear!
In a recent MBOW post I mentioned how robins sometimes seem to be attention seeking. With that in mind, I loved this Stephen Collins cartoon in The Guardian magazine today:
Up Before the Beak, copyright Stephen Collins
http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/cartoon/2013/jan/26/2#
The WWOW this time is Raptor Politics, a website and blog devoted to raising awareness of illegal persecution of birds of prey.
It’s easy to think we live in a country where birds of prey are protected, and that all is well. But recent incidents make it quite clear that the law is not well applied, does not really go far enough, and punishments within the law are too weak to act as any real deterrent. It also seems to be staggeringly hard to make a persecution stick. In England, Hen Harriers in particular are in real trouble. Even the success stories like Buzzards are not safe, as we have seen before (when we had the ludicrous concept of public money being spent culling a protected species for the benefit of the profits of private shooting estates).
There’s a pretty well-funded and well-organised campaign against our birds of prey, and they tend to be pretty dishonest about their motivations. After all, if you are told that all this raptor protection (or corvid protection) is why songbird numbers are declining, it’s easy to think there is a case. But in reality, it’s classic ‘divide and conquer’, setting two struggling groups against each other, ignoring the real causes of decline.
I won’t go on much more about this, I’m sure I’ll be back on it the next time the government makes some wooly-headed decision that benefits their friends and damages our wildlife.
For now, let me just ehartily commend the webiste to you. Raptor Politics.
