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.