Category: Birds

Song Thrush Anting

anting

8.30 p.m. The brown ants that nest under the paving stones at the end of the drive are running around excitedly on this still, warm summer evening, as they do when the flying ants (the queens and the males) are preparing to take off on their nuptial flights. This activity has attracted a song thrush which is sitting with its tail bent beneath it, enjoying an anting session.

anting

With all the recent ant activity, I was thinking the other day that it’s a long time since I saw this behaviour; in fact this might be the first time that I’ve actually seen it in real life, rather than in a wildlife documentary.

After the song thrush had finished, I went out to take a closer look at the ants and there were no winged ants amongst them. Perhaps they took flight earlier in the day, or perhaps this was a false alarm from overexcited worker ants.

When I first uploaded this post, I identified it as a mistle thrush but the arrow-shaped spots show that it’s a song thrush.

Great Spotted Woodpecker

woodpeckersWe haven’t seen a woodpecker at the bird feeders recently so I was surprised to see a juvenile clinging to the fat-balls this morning. I don’t ever remember seeing a juvenile in the garden before.

It flew off and climbed up the trunk of the crab apple. It seems keen on exploring, perching on top of a garden light and pecking at it, then flying to the runner bean poles and investigating those.

This afternoon it came back with an adult male.

woodpeckersThe male has a patch of red on the back of his head, the juvenile has the red cap. He fed the youngster – which seemed to be managing quite well by itself – until a wood pigeon landed on the top of the feeding pole, scaring it away. The male continued feeding for a few minutes. We’re soon going to run out of fat-balls again at this rate.

Swallows

swallowsswallowAt least a dozen swallows fly low over the pastures alongside the Balk, some of them nesting in the stables.

There’s a double yellow line of stonecrop in flower on a sunny, south-facing stretch of the concrete canal bank,
one line along the top of the bank, the other on the lower ledge.

stonecropThe green roof of an outbuilding in Netherton is covered in stonecrop but there it is showing predominantly the red of the succulent leaves rather than the yellow of the flowers.

song thrushTo judge by how many times we’ve heard them singing, it must have been a good year for song thrushes. I recognise them by their thrice repeated phrases. canalMany of these varied phrases sound familiar but I can’t quite place them as impressions of other birds. Sometimes they’ll insert an anxious mewing phrase that reminds me of a bird of prey.

Blackbirds and others are joining in a late afternoon chorus in a strip of hawthorns and trees alongside a canal cutting. The vertical wall of sandstone on the opposite bank adds resonance.

moorhenWe’re always listening for approaching bicycles on the towpath so we both automatically glance over our shoulders when we hear what sounds like a child’s hooter behind us; ‘pip, pip, pip, pi – peep!’. It’s a moorhen calling.

swanA moorhen swims alongside a mute swan nesting on a platform of vegetation at the edge of the canal. There’s no sign of cygnets this afternoon.

Goosanders

goosandersHorbury Bridge, 2.55 p.m.; A female goosander leads her seven young up the rapids at the foot of the old weir. As we watch the whole family disappears from view, giving the impression that mother and young have dived simultaneously. It’s the first time that we’ve seen a mother with young on the Calder.

Sandpipers

sandpiper preeningsandpiper feedingRiverside hide, Nethergill Farm, Langstrothdale, 3.45p.m.; A common sandpiper preens itself on a rock on the far bank of the beck then it sets off probing along the edge of the river.

It’s joined by a second bird, which trots off up the grassy bank while the first bird continues downstream.

sandpipersA pied wagtail perches on rocks in the beck, flitting out to take invertebrates from amongst the pebbles.

Blackbird feeding Newts to Young

blackbird with newt11.30 a.m.; The female blackbird has caught another smooth newt and is dealing with it in a corner of the lawn.

Blackbird with newtThe orange on the belly of the newt shows that it’s a male.

blackbird with newtHaving killed the newt she hops to the middle of the lawn in front of the pond then flies directly to the hedge where she’s nesting amongst the elder, climbing rose, honeysuckle and ivy.

dragonfly larva4.50 p.m.; it perches on the debris I’ve raked towards the edge of the pond. Watches for a minute or so then flits to the centre of the pond and catches a dragonfly larva. It takes this into the flower border to deal with, then flies over to the hedge then perches on the top of a gate-post next door before taking to it’s nest in the hedge, approaching from our neighbour’s side, rather than taking its usual route direct from the pond.

Blackbird catching Newts

blackbirdblackbirdOver the past couple of days we’ve seen a female blackbird resting in the middle of the blanket of duckweed that covers most of our pond. She’s not bathing or struggling to get out. This evening I realise what she’s up to.

blackbirdShe grabs a newt from just below the water surface in front of her and immediately flies to an open grassy patch at the edge of the pond to peck at it. I don’t see whether she eats it there and then or whether she takes it off to feed to her young.

blackbird blackbirdI’ve seen her stalking along the edge of the pond on the look out, I now realise, for any unwary newt that might surface. Our resident newts are smooth newts. Unlike the great-crested newts they don’t have special protection under the Wildlife and Countryside Act but would this female blackbird care if they did? I think not.

newtI’ve seen her once before with a successful catch which she took to the raised bed behind the pond. I could see her prey was a long and flexible creature but at the time I couldn’t positively identify it.

Pond Pyramid

pond food chainblackbirdThis female blackbird is at the top of a pond food chain, at the apex of a food pyramid, but she’s not the top predator around here; she runs the risk of being incorporated into the food chain of one of the local sparrowhawks or domestic cats. tadpoles

The newts are predators in their own right; I’ve watched them eating newly emerged frog tadpoles. The tadpoles, at this early stage of their lives, are eating the algae that grows on the clump of frogspawn.

From thin air, just add water . . .

pigeonI find it amazing that you can start with sunlight, water and carbon dioxide and in a few links along the food chain end up with a blackbird.

wood pigeon
wood pigeon

Although my aim is to build a little eco-system in the back garden, I do think that I ought to tweak the chances of survival for the newts by clearing some of the duckweed so that the blackbird can’t sit in wait at the centre of the pond.

Update

pond rakingTwo days later, on Saturday, Barbara spotted the blackbird catching a newts again, five in total. I spent five minutes raking the duckweed to the edges of the pond which should make it impossible for the blackbird to perch in the middle of the pond and give some additional cover to the newts when she is stalking around the margins.

Our Resident Pigeon

pigeonfoxglove6.05 p.m.; There’s a limping wood pigeon that has been a regular at the bird feeders for a month or more, so much so that it has trampled a ring of beaten earth around the foxglove beneath the feeding pole. However, as soon as I sit down at the dining table to draw, it turns its back on me then flies off to the wood.

Reach for the Rowan

rowan

In the front garden, the rowan is at its best in fresh leaf and blossom. The flowers have a sweetish musky scent and attract a variety of species of flies. Because of all that happened this winter, I didn’t get around to pruning the new growth of straight upper branches but I’d like to do that because otherwise it will be on its way to towering over the house. I’d like to keep it to the height that I can reach with my telescopic handled pruner, about ten feet or so.

I’ll check with my arboriculturist friend Roger that pruning during the spring won’t cause the sap to run, leaving a sticky residue that might result in fungal damage.

Buzzard v. Sparrowhawk

buzzardWhitley WoodWe glimpse a large brownish bird swooping up into the branches at the edge of a small wood in the Smithy Brook valley. It can’t be a grey partridge as they wouldn’t perch so high in a tree and it wasn’t small enough to be a mistle thrush.
sparrowhawkAs we walk on there’s a commotion; a buzzard is circling, gaining height and it’s in dispute with two much smaller birds of prey. They both look like sparrowhawks. sparrowhawkOne flies off down the valley the other returns to the wood while the buzzard heads off up the valley, presumably happy that it has shown them who is boss.

Grey Wagtails

locklock gateGrey wagtails are flitting about collecting insect food below the Figure of Three locks where an overflow channel stirs up the still waters of the canal.

wagtailThe bank behind is steep and covered with brambles and there are no midstream rocks to perch on so their technique involves at lot of hovering over the water surface.

wagtailGrey wagtails nest in rock crevices so the centuries old stonework offers plenty of possibilities for nest sites.