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