Rain, snow and Christmas kingfisher

Well I think I have learnt that I am not good at keeping the nature blog once it gets into high summer and the garden season is busy - though there were the seeds of several entries that never made it. However, I am going to use this entry to summarise what I might have put in, had I made any entries..............

We haven't been to the reserve since the August bank holiday weekend, and on the Monday,went late in the afternoon/early evening with the hope of seeing the barn owls as dusk fell - and indeed, as we walked back along the path, the owl flew off from its perch and we had a good close view. I'm always so pleased to see it - it looks so graceful as it flies with those slow, languid, wingbeats. We went up to Coniston at the end of August/beginning of September but hit the bad weather which they had been having all August and though we did a few walks, the weather was bad enough (with some torrential rain) for us to come back home a bit early. We didn't see any unusual wildlife - but the trees on the estate were magnificent.

I saw more jays than usual in the lovely warm Indian summer that continued as I recall through much of October, prologing the summer season in the garden - and also giving sightings of buterflies, especially Painted Ladies, well into the autumn - and particularly on our echinacae (is that how you spell it?) in the garden which they loved and which reflowered in October because of the warm spell. I also encountered a fox one evening cycling back from work in October (not the fox...), the first I had seen since the winter. It was a very red, bushy fox that I assume was probably a dog fox from its size and a very beautiful animal.

November brought a month of rain, however. Though when I did get out on one walk (round trip past the nature reserve and across to Little Linford) my friend and I saw at least four if not five little egrets perched in trees. They're pretty conspicious!

December brought snowfalls before Christmas, which are unusal and bitterly cold weather. On the 20th, having woken up to some more snow overnight, I wondered what the black and white feathers were in the tamarisk tree very close to the kitchen window - and then as it moved realised it was the very first spotted woodpecker I've ever seen in the garden. I don't feed the garden birds because of the cats - but am now wondering whether as the cats are pretty old, I might start and see what we might attract.....

There was still some snow and ice lingering on Christmas day, and Jim was telling me about a diving duck he had seen which I thought might be a goosander though he said its wings were quite bright salmon coloured - so we had a look at the river on Christmas afternoon (he'd seen it on Christmas morning) and as we stood on the bridge looking towards the weir a kingifsher came and perched on a post in the field - the first I had seen this year around here.

On boxing day (when the weather was much milder and birds could be heard - it had been very quiet during the very cold weather) I noticed too that the meadow pipits were back in Bury Common.

Minsmere: birds and puffballs

I visited Minsmere on August 9th. Probably not the best month to go - but a lovely sunny day. I spent a few hours there - not ever having been before and was impressed both by the reserve and the area and the helpful advice and information from the volunteer wardens/helpers. I did get to see some Marsh Harriers - there were three flying that were visible from one of the hides, and the others in the hide were able to tell us more about them - that one was a young male etc. They were not particularly close but we had good clear views and saw two of them them passing prey to each other during the flight.

Not a good time to see bitterns as the reeds are so high, but I did look for possible sights of birds flying over - but no luck. I also got to see avocets which I have never seen before - so much smaller than I had imagined! And the same goes for the ruff I saw. It's odd how you build up a picture of a bird in your mind and then they are rather different. I'm sure this is the case for people with puffins - which I had seen as a child in Wales so knew they were small - but you always forget just how small.

Other birds around included a godwit (black tailed); lapwings; a sandpiper which the volunteers were excited about as they thought it might be a wood sandpiper. (I would not have known it was a sandpiper myself - I'm afraid that the brown waders all look a bit similar.........); oystercatchers and various ducks. Walking to the reserve from Dunwich where we were staying took us along the beach and past all the sandmartin nests that are in the cliffs there.

An exciting non animal find that we were unable to do anything with was a field with several (yes several!) puffballs in - so large that for a moment we wondered if they were sheep. However, unfortunately there was no way to get into the field so sadly, we weren't able to gather the puffballs.

Egyptian goose - June 23 and 24th

I have got our of order by not managing to put in my blog from France - and need to check the date of this one but in the weekbeginning 22nd June, saw thee egyptian geese by Willen on my cycle in - and they were still there the next day. After that they left. I had to look them up but they are very distinctive and identifiable with the pretty brown ring round the eye

There has also been a barnacle goose with the canada and greylag geese at Willen for a little while

Red kite day 5th July

Very exciting morning - saw a red kite above our garden. Checked the BTO site and there are none recorded for Milton Keynes - though given how near they have been coming did expect to see one sooner or later!

Lot: 17-19 June

Wednesday 17th June

It has been a very hot day. We did a different walk around the gorge of Alzou today. Again the views of the gorge were wonderful and today we saw the ravens and ac ouple of kites. Then we walked up through woodland onto the plateau.. Apparently the plateau is carboniferous limestone – hence the amazing flowers. There are wild sweet peas, orchids, a very pretty convulvulus, and many flowers I recognise or half recognise but don’t know the names.

There is a pretty black white and brown one which is very common and which we also saw in the alps a few years ago We heard and saw stonechats up on the common before returning to the gorge. Now it is 9.30 and the sun has set but it is still warm and a cuckoo is calling. We have also seen jays freaquently and often closely as we have walked to and from the gite.

Thursday 18th June (or 19th? losing track)

An unsuccessful walk today from the book – mainly on roads. Little wildelife to be seen, except as we sat by the Oydisse (spelling?) I saw a kingfisher fly by. In the evening we walked into R for a meal and walked back the long way reaching the gite about 10.25. when it was just about dark. The sounds on the way were wonderful – calls we couldn’t identify – possibly a frog (but not the marsh frogs); some bats were seen; some very disturbed hoopoes. Jim heard an owl later though I didn’t. What looked like a kestrel flew past me quite close and very fast. Friday 19th June Again I watched the small bird that I had thought might be a siskin. This time I checked on the I-phone again and saw it couldn’t be there was no black bib/head and it had a short stubby beak and matched the serin – which I had never even heard of.

Week in the Lot region continued 14th-15th June

Sunday 14th June 1.30

Hoopoes and other birds This is a very rich place for wildlife. I think the jays we glimpses last evening may have been hoopoes. Certainly there are hoopoes here – one perched on the wall not far away as I was eating my breakfast . The heat vanished overnight and it was a cool morning – fleeces needed. We decided around 10am to walk into Rocamadour – which, like Hospitale is very touristy as it is a pilgrimage site and the second most visited site in France, apparently. Nevertheless it is impressive with its mediaeval buildings clinging to the site of the gorge which is wooded and rocky and peppered with caves and holes so that the whole site is alive with swifts swallows and martins. Some of the swifts may be different to ours at home. Walking up the little lane from the lower part of the village we watched what I’m almost sure were spotted flycatchers. Sat on a branch with speckled chests – the birds (there were a pair) flew out to catch moths and butterflies with great ease and expertise, and then flew back with tails bobbing up and down. They had very thin beaks. Then we saw a redstart – again a thin beak, very handsome dark slatey face and eyes, ligheter patch under the tail and noticeable red patch in flying. He flew on and off the ground ahead of us. In the tree, a blackcap? Pale underneath – larger than a sparrow. Perched on top of a branch – and seemed to have a black head but hard to say given our view. The song sounded very like “do-it”. We saw another kite walking back to the house. I had to think about what kinds of kite there are other than our lovely red one (no bird books with me – weight on the train!) and seem to remember seeing kites in India years ago which I think were black and also in Northern Spain. Near home we heard a purring/whirring call – no idea what it was but would recognise it if I heard it again. Then on our evening walk we saw a very large black beetle with antennae twice the size of its body that flew onto the trunk of a tree.

Monday 15th June

There was a thunderstorm today, though little thunder – mainly torrential rain so we stayed at the gite. A hoopoe spent a long time feeding on the lawn and we could see the crest fan out – lovely. There was also a treecreeper, goldfinches and more recently in the heavy rain a great spotted woodpeckers. Around the garden there are blackbirds, chaffinches, great and blue tits and starlings and at least one redstart. I also saw a grey wagtail that did not look like our pied one? Pied with a bib, but mainly grey and with barred wings and light grey underneath. Then on the telegraph wire what I’m fairly sure was a pied fly catcher – seen from the back; mainly black but with a white patch. A very pretty redstart has been back – an amazing bird 0 this one has a very red chest – not just under the tail. Treecreeper; pied flycatcher; goldfinches Tuesday 16th June We walked in the Azou gorge today – walking from the gite towards the roald and along some lovely lanes till we reached a path down to the gorge with wonderfjul views. Cuckoos called constantly as we walked the lanes but weren’t present in the gorge. From the gorge we heard (but didn’t see) ravens and heard what I’m pretty sure were peregrine calls coming from the top of the gorge cliffs – an ideal peregrine nesting spot but though we both scanned the cliffs we could not see them. But in a different part of the gorge we did see a peregrine chasing a buzzard. I’m finding it difficult to sort out my martins and swifts here! I think there are sand martins in addition to the house martins are possibly other kinds of swifts too. The martins are brown rather than the dark blue-ey black of our own house martins but as they are always on the wing, hard to see properly. We had lunch sat on a bridge to a ruined mill over the boulders of a dried up river and watched a lizard moving around. It never caught anything substantial, but kept eating small things. Back at the gite I have just seen (6.40) a small yellowy-green striated bird sit on the hawthorn in the garden. It is definitely not a yellow hammer – perhaps a siskin? I need to look it up. The head is not as yellow as a y h but otherwise it is similarish – with a yellowy pale breast, striated and a si-si-si call. My quick look on the RSPB site on J’s I-phone suggested it might be a siskin? But not sure as yet. Cuckoos are still calling again at 9.30.

Week in France in Lot region 13th June - peregrine and frogs

I kept a diary to put in my blog when I came home but of course didn't do it straight away - so here it is. This also means that other entries are now delayed but will try to catch up...

Saturday 13th June: Peregrine in Limoge and the landscape near Rocamadour

I am sitting outside our gate at 9.45. It is still quite light though starting to get dark now the sun has set. It’s been very hot – 100 degrees was predicted – not sure if it reached that but may well have done. We stayed at Limoge last night, having taken the train there. The day got off to a great start. I left our hotel for a short walk around 7.50 this morning and headed for the station which has a tall tower (cupola? I guess). The swifts were circling nearby so I looked through the binoculars to see if I could see where they are nesting and spotted a young peregrine on the ledge. It looked a bit scruffy and as I watched walked round the ledge (very carefully) so I cou ld see its yellow feet. There were no more birds, so I think it was the last from the nest. The photo shows the tower - but not the bird as on that day the camera was not working :-(

I, and then Jim too, watched it on and off till about 11.15 by which point we had sorted out our hire car and were moving luggage. I wondered whether parents would come to feed it, but remember the warden telling us when we went to see the sea-eagles in Mull that when the chicks are ready to fly the parents stop feeding them – to urge them out. I wonder if it is the same thing here?
I looked often but did not see any adults return – but did get wonderful close views by standing on the crossing near the station. But the camera was not working! (It turned out the batteries needed changing…..). Alas, when we looked at around 11.45 after half an hour’s gap, the bird had gone. Odd to think that one moment it was there, then no sign at all! No bird hanging around nearby – or flying nearby. So we were really lucky to see it.

After an early lunch we drove down to the house we’ve rented near Rocamadour - in the Lot region. On the way we saw a dark kite fly over as we drove. Although it was brown rather than black these are apparently black kites.

I have never been before but after a few hours can see why it is a popular place with the British. We’re staying in a house near a hotel – outside the village on the side of a valley which is teeming with birdsong and crickets singing. Just at the bottom of the valley is a small pond, surrounded by marsh and full of frogs calling – which I’m pretty sure are marsh frogs; of which there is now a small colony in Romney marshes in the UK. These are large frogs – up to 7 inches or so and not terribly attractive – and their colonisation of part of the UK is a it worrying as they are quite aggressive – out compete our European frog, I think, where they move in. Their calls are lovely though – and the first time I heard them I thought they were birds.

We walked up the lane around 8.45 and saw several jays and heard a couple of cuckoos calling. At the to of the rise on the other side of the small valley, the trees get quite dense and are mainly oak (scrub oak?) but interspersed with rocky clearings with orchids, wild thyme and sheep. Now at 10pm there is still some light and I just heard the cuckoo again. Most of the birds are silent now but a few birds are calling, though the sounds are mainly crickets (or similar) and the frogs.

I’m wondering whether there might be owls here. There is a new sound I can’t identify, a kind of ooo – eee with the eee higher. And it seems to me the kind of landscape where there could be nightjars.

A moorhen's egg?

I found this egg shell - and a number of other parts of eggs and part of a destroyed nest on the ground near the path near a pond at the Linford Lakes nature reserve. The second photo is of the same egg but this time on our table in the garden. The photo does not show the background colour very faithfully - it is a beige kind of colour not as white as it looks. I looked it up in my bird egg book and given its position and that it looked as thought the whole nest had been predated, thought it was very likely to be a moorhen's egg from a nest near the ground that had been predated.

Three good things....and garden wildlife

This is how our poached egg plants (liminanthes douglasii) looked over the Bank Holiday weekend - it is a wonderful plant that is not in flower very long, and is an annual that I just allow to set seed in the vegetable garden and then pull out. It attracts hover flies to start with and then a little later on, as above, it attracts bees. The honey bees in our garden have not been doing so well so it is lovely to see them looking well and feeding on the poached egg plants.

Over the last three days, I've had three "sightings" that I've enjoyed. The first, on Sunday, was the hares again. I say again - but who knows if they were the same hares? However, they were in the same place, so it seems likely to me. But this time, there were three hares - or rather, six pairs of ears. It was rather difficult to see the hares properly as the corn is now growing quite fast (much better than my own sweet corn I might add) and so most of the hares could not be seen - except for their ears. But once I had seen them, I did see their heads and some of their bodies as they moved around.

Then yesterday, cycling home after some much wetter conditions than of late, I saw some black and white birds on the cricket pitch at Willen village. This is where the magpies congregate - in very large numbers. (They must be increasing at quite a rate I think - we used to look out for the second when we saw one when I was a child - now I frequently see 10 or 12 or more at a time...) But these were not magpies, they were oystercatchers. Nothing unusual about that - except the location. Willen, in my experience, does not host many oystercatchers. The last I saw locally was one flying over Bury Common in Newport Pagnell about a year ago. These two were probing in the wet grass - and were still there this morning.

My last treat was as I was leaving work at the Open University around 6.30 and noticed a brown squattish bird as I was cycling past the football pitch. Looks like an owl I thought and started to carry on.........then realised that this was a bit unusual and also wanted to see whether it was indeed an owl. So I turned the bike round and went to walk onto the pitch. The bird had been quite still - and I wondered if it was injured - or fairly newly fledged. As I got a bit closer it flew off into a nearby tree and undfortunately I had no binoculars with me, but it was clearly a tawny owl - I supsect a fairly young bird perhaps not long out of the nest. So it was quite a happy person that continued their cycle home through the grey early evening - and then on the lane, I saw and heard a chiff-chaff. Again nothing very unusual except that I am only just starting to learn about warblers. I've always found small brown or greenish brown birds tricky to identify - like lots of other people - and as for warblers, have never even tried, until I paid some attention to a radio 4 programme last year that was about warbler songs. And I think I do now recognise a chiff chaff call - and the bird calling certainly looked like one to me. So a good few days considering it is fairly wet and miserable - though the rain was desparately needed for the garden.

And on a different note - here is some of the wildlife from the garden

Migrants and hares

Can’t believe it is so long since I made an entry. We are now well into the gardening season and so the garden and work is keeping me busy. I think I need to do more frequent short blogs. So, thinking about migrants, having seen my first swallow and martin whilst walking in Yorkshire in April, there seemed to be quite a gap until I saw them again here. I didn’t see my first swallows here until the 25th April with the house martins arriving a few days later on the 28th (at least that is when I saw them). As we get few house martins around here in Newport I tend to see them when cycling past our lake at Willen. Then the swifts finally arrived on the 9th May. I was gardening when I heard a familiar screech and looked up to find 3 flying overhead. It's hard not to think that they enjoy their "fly-by"s enormously. There do seem to be fewer of all these birds, however. What I did not expect to see locally was a wheatear, seen in our local common on the 10th May. I always associate wheatears with high ground and see them when we are walking in more mountainous country: I remember seeing quite a few walking on walks in Weardale a few years ago. So I guess this one was on its way somewhere, though I think I also read that they are now being found in places they didn’t used to go…. A week earlier I had a lovely clear view of a pair of reed buntings perched in one of the hawthorn trees.

Though I look out for birds – as these are more often seen, seeing mammals is particularly exciting. On Saturday, the first day of the Bank Holiday weekend, I was walking on the common and decided to put the dog on the lead as I was heading for the edge of the cornfield where he is often tempted to go off hunting. The field attracts birds eating the grain but also has a copse at the back where there are foxes and we often see pheasants – and to make it more exciting (for a dog) there is a rabbit warren just near the field boundary. I was so pleased to have him on a lead as two hares started to run towards me and I thought they had gone to ground, but a few moments later they moved back across the field and I was able to watch them for quite a long time. I wondered if they were males – they were very large, and whilst they didn’t do box, one spent quite a long time standing on its hind legs. Wonderful.

In the afternoon we went to the Linford Lakes nature reserve. It was still hot at 5pm – and a bit early to hope to see the owls, but it was a lovely walk around the reserve which we seemed to have entirely to ourselves and was completely peaceful, just punctuated by birdsong. Many of the pathways have been planted with comfrey which has naturalised and was full of bees. The reserve itself (an ex gravel pit) is a mixture of small and larger pools and lakes, and a variety of woodland – and seems to be a very rich habitat. A cuckoo was calling from quite close and from one of the hides we watched the cormorants flying to their roost, one by one. The “near” hide has a good view of one of the owl nest boxes, so I imagine that on a visit earlier in the morning or later towards dusk there would be a good chance of watching the owls (assuming the next box is in use) taking food back to their young.

North York Moors

I went walking just before Easter on the North York Moors: the last part of the Coast to Coast walk that I have been doing with friends over the last few years in chunks. This time we walked from Northallerton to Robin Hood's Bay so much of this weas over heather moorland.

On the first day we were walking mainly in the valley (Vale of Mowbray) and then the walk heads through some woods and up on to the moors, through a forest with wonderful views acroos the valley - and possible to Middlesborough.
It has been good to hear the calls of the lapwings and curlews again - and we've seen or heard a number of meadow pipits and red grouse and I also saw a tree creeper. But the highlight was the roe buck that I saw on the second day, in the wood about two miles from where we had stayed overnight. The buck was lying down in the wood just off the path, and near enough to get a very close view. Using the binoculars I could see the markings on his face and muzzle, the very dark eyes (looked black to me) and black nose; greyish brown face and double grey velverty antlers which were quite upright. He could see Matthew and I but seemed quite unperturbed and stayed lying down at the edge of the wood facing towards us.

Much of the walking after this was on moorlands. We stayed the following night at Beakhills farm, Cringle Moor - just off the path. Although there were not many trees around, we heard tawny owls that night - and Julie cook, who owns the farm and runs the B&B told us that she and her husband noted the date each year when the curlews come back - and it ranges quite a lot. There were certainly plenty of curlews around - and apparently a goshawk that had taken many of the pheasants in the rearing pen. For the first part of the walk as we left we still had views over the Vale of Mowbray - but soon that disappeared as we headed acros the centre of the moor to walk across the heather mainly on the old railway track to reach Blakeley Ridge. There was very little wildlife here - a possible ring ousel (as I was at the back all I saw was a blackbird sized and coloured bird flying off from the back - but it is unlikely it was a blackbird at that height and in that environment). From our B&B at Blakeley Ridge we could see lapwings and partridge in the garden. The next morning was another walk across the moors (very very windy) but with wonderful views later on until we came down into the village of Glaisdale (and an excellent pub - though unfortunately we had needed to eat our lunch up on the moors...) and then on to spend the last night at Grosmont. This is a very pretty valley - our final walking on a pretty estate lane - where we saw black pheasants, a weasel rushing across the road - and my first house martin of the year. Our final day took us once again onto the moors and into worsening weather (though it was never as bad as forecast). This day's walk took us onto the final coastal stretch which was very pretty walking, but not particularly rich in bird or animal life, allthough I saw the first swallow I have seen this year. It was a good walk, but rather longer than comfortable - we needed to get to the end by 4.30 in order to make our train. So that is the end of our 190 walk from the West to the East coast.

Spring down by the river

It has been glorious weather all week and many trees are now coming into leaf. On my usual dog walk I have been hearing and seeing skylarks for a while now, and although Bury meadows can get busy with walkers the skylarks are fortunately still there, although the meadow pipits have now left.

On days like today, with the river still and reflecting all the trees it is sometimes hard to remember that this is just a stone's throw from the city, although the hum of the M1 rarely stops. My circular Saturday walk takes me down through the fields to a path by the river, where we sometimes see kingfishers, though I have not seen one for some time - and certainly not this year. Today there was a lone egret wading through a pool in the field beside the river and I was able to see it quite well through the binoculars though as you can see the basic camera with its small telephoto was not able to capture much - though I tried! In the photo above it is flying away....and hard to see that it is an egret indeed. I love seeing the egrets. They still seem to me to be exotic birds that until recently I didn't associate with Britain. They have been around here for about 5 years now I think and nest in the trees on the island in the nature reserve near Great Linford I think. The most I have seen at once is 3.

Just after the egret flew off we saw a hare, though I didn't get much chance to see it for long as the dog chased it. There is a bit of a conflict between dog walking and nature - and if I notice a hare I will put him on the lead. He would not be able to catch a hare - but will still give chase, and indeed once the hare has gone he will come back to the scent and follow it again with a lot of excitement.

The rooks were pretty noisy this morning - the small rookery is in full swing. And their noise is much better than that of the motorway. It's surprising how much wildlife there is in the area down by the river given that it is mainly farmland, but in fact it does have a mixture of arable land and pasture - and ungrazed fields that get flooded (which is where the snipe come) and an area of woodland at the back. Corn is sometimes grown in the field, making it attractive for pheasants at the end of the season.

I was sent a message from the BTO list a while ago with the following message and url:

The list for your home 10km square is here:
http://blx1.bto.org/birdtrack/anon-portal-with-gridref-to-list.jsp?ref=SP84&siteName=Your%20Home

This gives a list of bird species seen for a 10km square around your postcode - I thought this was a great resource - very handy to check when you think you have seen something to see whether it has ever been seen around your area - and of course, something to add to.

Frogs and blossom

As I noted I missed when the frogs started spawning in our garden pond, but on Sunday I checked their activity again and found that a considerable amount of spawn and quite a few frogs - though it was too cold to hang around trying to count. My experience of the frogs in our garden is that they are quite shy. Whilst from a distance I can see a lot of turbulence as they are active this time of year in the pond - as soon as I draw near they tend to dive under the water. So I persisted a bit to get the photo which I liked as it looks as though the two frogs are about to hug......anthropomorphic or what.

The other event - or rather annother event in the garden is the apricot blossom. The tree is in the greenhouse and usually the blossom comes in February, but this year with the very cold winter it is later. And also perhaps because I delibrately left the greenhouse open in the icy patches in an attempt to kill off overwintering pests. So I hope there are some bees around to pollinate it and to ensure some lovely apricots later in the year

Upland birds and water birds

We spent the weekend in Conwy, which is a great place for seeing waders, (and buying Welsh books – from Llandudno and Caernarfon – see my forthcoming Welsh blog) as the estuary has quite extensive mudflats when the tide is out. I now know that oystercatchers do not stop feeding at night as we could see and hear them after dark, and I also watched one feeding this morning – and realised I had not done that before. This particular bird was finding mussels (which are plentiful in the harbour) and seemed to be dunking them in the water before prising out the mussel and eating it (it seemed to be almost slurping it up in its beak- think of a person eating spaghetti and you will be close). Other estuary inhabitants included many curlews, shelduck (see photo) and redshanks.

We later went to Caernarfon and walked along the Abershore towards the Foryd – which is now a nature reserve, although we didn't walk very far into what is now the reserve – hence we did not go to the hides. But there is quite good birdwatching just from the small road that runs along the shore: Caernarfon is opposite Anglesey so this is the far end of the Menai Straits with a number of sandbanks off the shore. There were large flocks of curlew, oyster catchers (nervous as usual), a couple of shelduck, brent geese, a small number of wigeon and redshank. I didn't notice any turnstones although there are often small flocks along this shore. It was a fairly grey and pretty windy and cold day. On bright days there is a good view of Snowdonia and Snowdon itself can be seen from this small road, but not on Saturday.

We later visited the RSPB reserve at Conwy although had rather little time as by then it was nearly 4 pm. It looked like a very good place to go back to – but annoyingly can only easily be accessed from the A55 – even though it is within walking distance of Conwy. We saw a couple of goldeneye ducks – other than that there were coots, lapwings and wigeon.

Walk round Conwy mountain
There is a lovely walk out of Conwy (around 6 miles) which goes up Conwy mountain and then returns by crossing the Sychnant pass and coming through a nature reserve and past a small upland lake then farmland and back through the town gate into Conwy. It was a beautiful day (St David's Day) and as usual around Conwy we saw a number of buzzards and ravens. We heard stonechats but did not see them – but did spend a long time watching a kestrel perched not very far away on a rock. The walk goes up to the ironage fort on Conwy montain (though we did not go that far today) and has wonderful views of both the estuary and the castle.

Toads and frogspawn-now on time

We met the chap in the photo at the top (can't see to get blogger to put the photo where I want it...) on our way back over the fields coming into Conwy. And I wondered whether there would be frogspawn in the garden pond on our return - but stupidly forgot to look until this morning when I was walking to the greenhouse to open the windows (yes it is early March but the lettuce and salad seedlings are coming up and so the greenhouse needs some air). And indeed we now have frogspawn. I have kept an eye on when the frogs spawn each year, and after the very cold weather in February they seem to have gone back to the beginning of March, although it doesn't vary enormously. Last year, however they spawned early after a mild period in Februar which was then followed by very cold icy weather and the pond froze and the spawn died. Apparently frogs only lay spawn once - so if this happens it is a BAD thing for frogs who are already in quite a lot of trouble :-(

Kestrels, buzzards and a goosander

I have seen a kestrel on my last three cycle rides home from work: the first two times flying low over the river - and quite fast, and tonight perched in a tree. There is at least one - so probably a pair? in the small wood between Willen lake and the riverside park. Although they are not uncommon birds, I think they are elegant, beautiful birds. We don't have a great variety of birds of prey around here - although I'm sure red kites will be in Milton Keynes soon (I believe they have been seen on the outskirts). Interesting how much changes over time. When I was first in MK, (1976) I never saw buzzards - although there may have been buzzards nearby (e.g. Brickhill). Now we have at least one pair in the woods not far out of Newport and it is not unusual to see them nearby or even circling above the town occasionally. On Saturday I walked through the old cemetary in Newport and spotted a buzzard flying over the field nearby - and on Sunday in the same spot there was a goosander in the river. My husband told me a while back he had seen what he said were strange ducks - which dived - in the river but I couldn't work out what they were from his description. Now, having shown him the illustration in the book we're pretty sure that's what he saw. It was really good to be able to see the bird (a female) so close. Although there are often small numbers - usually a pair - on Willen Lake, they tend to be fairly shy and not too close to the shore.

Pipistrelle

Surprised to see a pipistrelle bat in the bright sunshine today - around 1.30, near the university playing fields (which are quite near the river). the temperature has risen quite a bit so I imagine some bats have woken up and are sufficiently hungry to hunt in the day time
Also found a diary (birds rather than wildlife more generally) of this area - at least until the author moved away - see
http://www.cmp.liv.ac.uk/birdseyeview/diary.php?year=2004&month=03

Snow still hanging on

Although we have not had a significant fall of snow for nearly a week, there are still patches of snow (or rather ice) on our footpaths and redways - in places still extensive enough to make it pretty slippery. I decided to drive to Willen Lake this morning to walk the dog there and check out the paths - to see whether it looks cyclable for going to work tomorrow. It wasn't and isn't - and I was surprised to find that much of the lake was still frozen. I spent a bit of time in the hide - but not a lot to see apart from a largish flock of lapwings, standing on the frozen lake - and coots. I do think lapwings are very striking as they wheel around in the sky when they are disturbed. I still think of them as birds that I am used to seeing in fields by the see and on moorland though. But given that they are declining I hope the Willen/Milton Keynes flocks are doing well. And there are certainly a lot of coots around.

And herons. There were between 6 and 8 - difficult to say - in the trees on the island in the lake, presumably they nest there? I haven't really noticed them before as unless you are specifically looking at the island and in the right place, they would be hard to see, especially as some of the trees they are in are conifers.

What a difference a week makes……..

Last Saturday (31st Jan) we visited the hides at Linford Pits (this is part of the now nature reserve where the barn owls and short eared owls live). It was bitterly cold, but very bright and sunny. From the hides we watched various ducks: mallard; gadwall; wigeon; pochard; teal and tufted ducks and snipe in the reeds – and we could see a fox curled up asleep on the opposite bank. Their coats must indeed work pretty well for anything to be able to sleep in such cold weather.

But this week it has been snowy, with sufficient snowfall on Monday to make cycling to work an option I did not feel like taking, and just as the cycle paths looked as though with another day they would be clear we had another substantial fall on Thursday. Much of that melted, but Friday brought further snow which although much has melted from the town, is still a few inches deep in the field. Interestingly, thyme (see picture) seems to cope fine with the snow and there has been sufficient to use in the garden all winter.

The river is still flowing but the shallower stretches of water in the hollows in the field have frozen over and indeed two such ponds have joined up, making a new feature in the field. A couple of meadow pipits were wandering over the ice on the frozen pools and I wondered what they might be finding, as they mainly feed on inverterbrates. It is only in the last couple of years that I have noticed them in the fields nearby. I have always thought of them as moorland birds that I have seen on my upland walks – but then noticed a flock of what looked like meadow pipits in the field near the river near where I walk with the dog (see the photo) And indeed, a bit of reading up revealed that they often spend winters in farmland.
I have put breadcrumbs, cheese, sunflower seeds and the odd worm I could find on the table in the garden. I don’t usually feed the birds as we have two cats – but in this weather the cats spend all their time safely indoors. We have seen a blackbird defending the new feeding station and a robin feeding but little else – I would imagine it would take birds a while to find, check out and use a new source of food (unless they are very bold – like black-headed gulls, which don’t come into the garden).

Shovellers on Tongwell lake

Walked around the lake yesterday - a beautiful sunny day. We usually walk down one side and on to Great Linford, but this time walked round the whole lake (which is not that big). Although a couple of weeks ago there were pochard, commorants and probably a variety of ducks (I had not checked carefully) today there were mallards, many canada geese, coots and some moorhens, no commorants to be seen and one pair of shoveller ducks.

Weather

For the past week or so, perhaps a bit longer, the weather has been a mixture of wet, cold and windy and sometimes all three at once – with some breaks of cold sunny weather. One of the good things (and bad things...) of needing to walk the dog and opting to cycle to work is that I go out in weather I would no doubt avoid if I were not doing these activities. What I see and hear on rainy days seems to be a bit different from what is around on sunny days. So, in the last week whilst cycling to work I have seen a number of herons, some quite close that have opted not to fly off; the usual multitude of magpies (are they the world's most successful bird?), pigeons, crows, rooks and black headed gulls, etc (forgetting for the moment about the ducks on the lake), but, have not seen or heard the usual green woodpeckers.
There has been little to see on my walks down to the river. Woke up today to very heavy rain as predicted, but it did ease off and so I set off with my canine friend on a very muddy and claggy walk. As with the cycle rides, little to see, so more dependent on what can be heard. I have tried on various occasions to learn more bird songs, but using a CD, out of context, does not quite cut it (and gets very boring). However, I was aware of a lot of great tit song; coot cries and flocks of rooks were taking advantage of the very wet field to feed on. No herons; no egrets – not even any ducks.....
It occurred to me that if I were walking near the coast after bad weather I might see birds that had come or had been blown inland because of the weather. My first sighting of a chough was in a street (near the harbour wall) of my home town, Caernarfon, walking around on an outside window sill – and indeed was fairly tame. Here is a photo (not mine) that I found when I was musing that in Welsh they are called red legged crows

Musings on what to record and a sitting fox

Cycled to work again today. This is a kind of phased return to cycling after an enforced gap of over 4 months after breaking my wrist. Given that a) it is hard work getting back into it and b) it is often icy at the moment and I don't want another fall, I am easing in gradually and not cycling in the dark any more.

So this morning was pretty cold but bright, with some icy patches (but they were small, luckily and easily avoidable) and as I cycled up Tongwell Lane I noticed a kestrel perched and mused about whether to write a blog entry about it. It strikes me that if 'diary' type postings like this are to be helpful in tracking changes over time, we should also record more common events. We tend not to notice that, say, we haven't seen sparrows, for quite a while. For example, I'm pretty sure I have heard fewer and fewer cuckoos each year recently - but as I haven't documented it I can't be sure. But there is some balance to be struck. Can't be recording every pigeon and magpie (though the world does seem to be more full of both, now I think of it). And a subjective element. As I really like kestrels (and other birds of prey) and enjoy watching them, I will tend to make a note when I see them.

Cycling this route takes me past Willen Lake, and this morning as I turned on to the redway along the lake I saw what at first might have been a dog sitting in the middle of the redway just about 15 yards ahead of me. Quite quickly I realised it was a fox (this was about 8.25, I guess), but it was very laid back; assessed that I probably posed no immediate danger (yes I know that's a bit anthromorphic) and slowly walked into the hedge. But what really fascinated me was that 10 yards the other side of the hedge a woman was walking a dog off the lead which imagine had not got any notion that a fox was there or would have given chase, and just before I saw the fox, I passed a dalmation nosing around - again seemingly oblivious. I have had foxes do this 'casual' walk away from me before, though I have to say if you have a dog with you they are usually not quite so casual. But it was a good thing to see on a cold morning when my feet were freezing.

The lake also gives the opportunity to see lapwings. Not that these are unusual either, but, they are a declining species, and one I particularly love as I associate them with the fields not far from home in North Wales where they were very common at that time (quite a long time ago, I guess). The species I most associate with the rather marshy land close to the sea near where I lived is the curlew, and sadly that is also in decline, and I rarely see them in MK. (In fact I don't think I ever have). But I'm pleased to see I saw and heard loads when I was back in Caernarfon the October before last, along the Foryd Bay (now a nature reserve) and also whimbrel.

Snipe but no owls

Away this weekend on my Welsh course, so no walks......But I did look for the owls on Thursday afternoon, around 3.45 and walked through where they usually are for a while, but nothing. Just However, I flushed out a snipe a bit earlier when walking the dog. I would like to be certain that these are snipe, but they fly off very quickly. But the conditions are right - i.e. not when it is icy but when it is soft enough for feeding (and often after a lot of rain) and the flight pattern looks right, and what I can see of the size and colouring. But they don't hang around!

Owls and foxes

The idea of this blog is to record some of my (mainly) local wildlife sightings - which are usually when I am walking the dog - or occasionally cycling. But I may also comment on anything interesting seen elsewhere, away from home - or even mundane..........

2009 has got off to a good start. On a circular walk on New Year's Day which takes in the Linford Gravel pits not too far away from my house http://www.milton-keynes.gov.uk/hanson_centre/home.asp Jim and I decided to stop and see if we could see one of the barn owls that are often sighted there. This was around 11am but Barn owls are often seen in the daytime, sometimes when the days are short as in winter and also when they need a lot of food to feed their young. No sooner had we said this than we spotted a barn owl flying low over the grass, hunting, and stopping to perch, every so often. See barn owl photos (not mine - next time perhaps! on http://www.birdguides.com/pictures/default.asp?f=189138 Just as we were watching the owl perched on a post, Jim asked me what the movement was below - was it a cat jumping? It turned out it was a fox, and both posed beautifully: the owl on the post and the fox below - not that we had a camera with us. On the next leg of the walk we also saw the little egrets that nest nearby. I looked up barn owl habitat when we got back and it turns out they need grass that contains litter - i.e. dead grass that builds up above the soil, thus creating ideal conditions for voles, which are their favourite prey. Grazed land and arable land is not good for voles - though farmers may strips near the edges. And owls need a considerable acerage of such land to hunt. But the land around the old gravel pits has been managed with nature in mind - and this seems to be working well.

I returned to the site yesterday afternoon around 3 - and again the owl was hunting. But I was in for another treat - flying just behind it was another owl, and talking to someone who was there taking photographs and also birdwatching, revealed that it was a short eared owl and that there are around 3 of them that are sighted there. Indeed we had seen a number of people with binocuolars and telescopes a few weeks back and wondered whhe at they were watching. I have seen short eared owls (I think!) years ago, in the peak district on the moors, but never round here. The guides suggest that they look very similar to long eared owls but the latter never hunt during the day. It was certainly a very attractive bird.

And to crown the day there was a third owl event, but this time not a sighting but a hearing. We have not had tawny owls around here for many years, but I heard some in the distance on Christmas night, and last night, heard them again much nearer.

It turns out that the tawny owls I heard are probably those nesting in a garden of a house on Wolverton Road, just round the corner from our house - I was talking to a fellow dog walker today on the common who has a house there with many mature trees and he told me that owls used the nesting boxes he put up for the first time last year.

I saw another fox today - walking through the stubble field beyond the common. I stopped to watch and even saw it hunting - jumping up and pouncing, though too far away to see if it caught anything. It was a very handsome russet colour with some yellowish patches on it. Also saw a flock of lapwings (flying overhead), herons and a kestrel.