Category: Birds

Garden Birdwatch

RSPB Big Garden Birdwatch survey form.

At 9.20 a.m., a great spotted woodpecker perches briefly in the crab apple so we decide to make that the start of our annual hour-long RSPB Garden Birdwatch. It’s just as well, because the woodpecker doesn’t settle, nor does it return in the next hour.

We record a dozen species; goldfinch are the most numerous with a maximum of ten in the garden at any one time and the coal tit, the last to appear, is the least frequent visitor of the birds on our list.

Pie chart of our top 10 birds, courtesy of the RSPB Big Garden Birdwatch.

Bean Sprouting

I’m ready to spring into action with the vegetable garden and, although it still a bit early to start sowing seeds, I can give myself a bit of practice by sprouting seeds indoors. In the past, we’ve tried alfalfa, one of the easiest to get going, but we weren’t too thrilled with the results, so today we bought a packet of mung beans for sprouting. We can always use beans sprouts, most probably in a stir-fry.

I’m starting them off by soaking them overnight and they’ll need rinsing and draining a couple of times a day for the next five to ten days.

The Kestrel’s Perch

As I sketch the view across Smithy Brook valley from the Seed Room café at Overton, a kestrel perches for a while towards the top of one of the trees in the copse at the top of the slope.

The fire extinguisher was the most interesting still life subject that I could find to draw in the doctor’s waiting room.

Breaking the Ice

10.30 a.m.: Most of the mallards and mute swans, along with a female goosander and a female wigeon, have gathered in a patch of open water on sunny side of the frozen Lower Lake at Nostell but increasing numbers of mallard are making their way to the corner near Sheep Bridge, where there’s a chance that visitors might feed them.

Not wanting to be left out, the resident swan family starts making its way over, keeping close to the shore where the ice is thinnest.

I think that it’s the male, the cob, that is taking the lead, pushing through the ice. He’s the larger of the pair and has a thicker a neck than the female.

Males have a larger knob on their bills than the females but I can’t see much of a difference between the two. Perhaps this is something that becomes more pronounced as spring, and the mating season, arrives.

When the Furze is in Flower

The old country saying is ‘when the furze is out of flower, kissing’s out of favour’, but the gorse has been in flower for a few weeks, at least one bush on Storrs Hill has been, where it overhangs a south-facing embankment wall.

The female great spotted woodpecker is a regular on the sunflower hearts: it prefers them to the fatballs.

We hadn’t seen the pheasants in the garden for months but the recent wintry weather brought a male in. He settled down in the shelter of one of the plants in the border as the rain lashed.

Woodpeckers Drumming

Quarry in the Menagerie area, Nostell Priory.

Nostell Priory, 10.10 a.m., 4°C, 39°F: The rival great spotted woodpeckers are drumming again, one in the middle of the Pleasure Grounds, the other, from the sound of it, from the far side of the Lower Lake. The first time that I heard it, I was likening the drumming of the nearer bird to the percussive sound of castanets but today I realise that a castanet is too clackety; the tree that this woodpecker has chosen resonates with the more satisfyingly hollow sound of a Chinese block; ‘tockety-tock!’, not ‘clackety-clack!’.

Also calling, a green woodpecker; we hear it’s ‘yaffle’ call a couple of times from the woods on the west bank of the lake but this morning we don’t actually see either species of woodpecker.

We’ve done well for seeing goldcrests this winter. In previous years, the few views that I’ve had of them have been of silhouettes amongst the branches of tall pines but this year they seem to have been more confiding, oblivious of our presence. This morning a single goldcrest is the first bird that we see as we walk out of the courtyard into the gardens, as it checks out the branches of a yew.

In the Pleasure Grounds a treecreeper is working its way methodically up the trunk of a tall oak. It ascends in a straight line; unlike the nuthatch, it doesn’t have the option of going downwards and this one isn’t even tempted to veer off sideways.

There’s a bright spot of colour on a dull morning as a kingfisher flies diagonally across the Middle Lake.

Goosander Central

You could imagine The Lady of the Lake emerging with Excalibur from the Lower Lake at Nostell Priory this morning. There’s a mist hanging over it, which melts away as we walk along the shore. In the shade of the trees, ice still covers half of the surface but it’s covered by a film of water so that mallards can stand about in groups in the middle of the lake.

Most of the Middle Lake is ice-free and eight drake goosanders have gathered in the middle of it, probably accompanied by as many females, but it’s difficult to make a definitive count as at any time one or more of them is likely to be underwater.

As we stand on the top of the banking, trying to count them, I’m aware that the lake’s resident pink-footed goose has started swimming towards us. As I lower my binoculars, I’m astonished to find that it’s waddling along beside us. While we were counting goosanders it must have walked up the near vertical banking!

Herons over the Viaduct

It’s gone midday but the gloom has never lifted. Two grey herons fly over the century old grey-brick viaduct.

A small group of long-tailed tits descend on the fat-ball feeder, leaving the sunflower hearts to the great tits.

Nuthatches

11.30 a.m.: In the woodland glade of the Menagerie at Nostell one nuthatch is chasing another. There’s an exchange of ‘tickety-tick’ type calls followed by a high-pitched repeated ‘Chuieee’ call.

What I take to be the male bird is posturing, following the female from tree-trunk to the bough of the neighbouring tree.

In subdued winter plumage, the yellow on the breast of a grey wagtail is a good match for the buff colour-wash on the buildings of the stable block that overlook the walled garden.

Crow Courtship

10.30 a.m.: Four carrion crows are foraging towards the lower end of the parkland below the Obelisk Lodge at Nostell. I’m guessing that there are two males and two females because two of them are bowing and cawing: rival males. This genteel approach to courtship doesn’t last long.

 The rivalry erupts into a scrap as the males go for each other. At one stage, one of the males briefly ends up on his back, defending himself with legs and beak. Despite the fracas, the foursome stays together as we walk off up the slope.

Robin in the Hedge

Low sun, cool breeze picking up, 39°F, 4°C: Just when I feel I need a spot of colour our resident robin perches amongst the hawthorn stems. There’s a constant chirruping of sparrows in the hedge.

In addition to the evergreen holly and the ivy, there are green ferny leaves of cow parsley in the shady corner by the bench. Creeping buttercup straggles along the bottom of the hedge. Gold-tipped feathery moss grows luxuriantly on old timber and a house brick.

The lath of old timber visible on the left of my drawing is from Barbara’s dad’s car-port which we dismantled when he sold his last car. We built a fence from the recycled timbers when we cut back the original, rather overgrown, hawthorn hedge. The hawthorns have sprung back from the stumps and the small hollies we planted have thrived; one holly in the corner has a stem that is five inches in diameter. I can see only three red berries; there are never many as I keep it trimmed back.

redwingYesterday afternoon a fieldfare was fighting off blackbirds from the golden hornet crab apple; this afternoon a redwing is tucking into the pulpy brown frosted crab apples. It doesn’t appear to be as aggressive as the fieldfare; it seems more content to share.

Winter Thrushes

There are thirty fieldfares on the south-facing slopes of grassland by the Obelisk Gate at Nostell. Redwings sometimes join them but today they’re amongst the trees nearer the house, probably attracted by holly and yew berries. Also on the parkland slopes, there are more mistle thrushes than we’d normally expect to see together: at least a dozen in total.

Foxglove leaf rosette.

The open parkland is white with frost so parties of wood pigeons are gathering on the sheltered rings of leaf litter beneath oaks and beeches.

The resident family of mute swans and the local mallards have gathered on a small patch of open water on the sunny side of the iced-over Lower Lake.

The drumming of a great-spotted woodpecker on a tree in the Pleasure Grounds carries well in frosty air, as does the manic laughing ‘yaffle’ call of a green woodpecker in Top Wood.