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.