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).