It’s hard to believe that we’re already two decades into the twenty-first century.
Six long-tailed tits visit the feeders at breakfast time. They tend to come as a group either early or late. Before Christmas we had eight of them gathering around the edges of the two half coconuts, pecking at the fat as the light faded.
Too Many Swans
It’s that time of year again: the Mute Swans are starting to establish their territories. On Nostell’s Middle Lake this morning, the resident pair with their six cygnets are up at the top, shallower end of the lake but they’ve got competition because at the other end of the lake two pairs of swans are circling each other, wings raised in a threat display.
Twelve swans on one small lake isn’t going to work. In the next two or three months, the grown-up cygnets will spread their wings and leave, or be persuaded to leave, and the three rival pairs will have to fight it out.
There are another eight swans on the Upper Lake, one standing by the sluice that connects with the Middle Lake. Another possible contender in the contest to claim the territory.
Beneath the hollies near the house, the first winter aconites are beginning to show. A nuthatch investigates the branches of a lakeside tree.
A few gadwall have joined the regular mallards on the Lower Lake and we see a single drake wigeon there. Goosanders seem to prefer the deeper waters of the Middle Lake and we’ve noticed that they sometimes dive alongside the swan family. I wonder if they’re attracted by the chance of catching small fish that have been disturbed by the activities of the swans.
Small Tortoiseshell
On one of the colder days last month we had a small tortoiseshell butterfly fluttering around in the dining room and decided that the best place to release it would be in the cool shelter of our garage.
A few days later it had emerged and it perched motionless for a day or two on the outside of the up-and-over garage door. It must have eventually flown because I then saw it fluttering about at the back of the house, caught on a strand of spider’s silk in the top corner of my studio window. I released it and it flew off across the garden. Ideally I should have offered it sugared water, to allow it to replace some of the energy that it has lost.
There was no frost this morning and today a few insects were active. A tiny black fly drifts around in the kitchen and a small ichneumon wasp (or possibly a sawfly?), perhaps a centimetre long, climbs up the bedroom window. I catch it in a bug box and take a few macro shots as it goes through a grooming routine.
December was a warm month and I regularly noticed an orb web spider run out to despatch some tiny insect that had been trapped in its web in a corner on the outside of our living room window.
Keep & Barbican
Working in from the edges, I’ve finally made it to the centre of my Sandal Castle aerial view, finishing off the Barbican: an impressive internal gatehouse between the castle’s bailey and the Keep.