Category: Birds

Freshwater Families

Newmillerdamswan familyIT’S GOOD to be back at Newmillerdam and on a morning like this I can’t resist at least trying to paint a lightning watercolour (below) when we stop for coffee and, as we set off back along the lakeshore, I’m tempted to try to photograph a couple of families of waterbirds.

Much as I like my Olympus Tough, it does struggle with anything animate as several seconds can pass between pressing the button and the photograph actually being taken, so there’s always an element of luck involved.

watercolour sketch of lake
Newmillerdam lake from Becket’s Cafe.

A few weeks ago we saw one of the mute swan cygnets tucked between the wings of one of the parents as it swam along, a wise precaution as some of the pike in Newmillerdam are enormous and would be capable of pulling a young cygnet below the surface. The other cygnet followed closely in it’s lake with the other parent bringing up the rear and keeping a watchful eye on the family.

I notice in this morning’s photograph that the male, the cob, is leading. He’s got that projection above his bill.

Counting Coots

coot family

I squat down to see if the coots near the boathouse will feed their young on freshwater mussels again, as they did last month. One of the parents dives down a couple of times but in the short time that I’m watching catches nothing. As I’m kneeling there a toddler, who has just picked up a feather, and his mum come and stand alongside us.

‘Can you tell me how many baby birds there are?’ she asks him.

‘One, two, three, four . . . and two mummy birds.’

‘They could be a mummy and a daddy?’ suggests his grandad.

‘Are you allowed to say that nowadays?’ I ask.

‘It’s not P.C.’ says grandad, ‘but I think with coots we can be fairly sure.’

‘Even a coot is entitled to life choices.’ I suggest.

‘We’re not doing mummies and daddies yet,’ explains mum, ‘just the babies.’

It’s good to hear parents and grandparents encouraging young children to explore the world of nature and not to put them off with too much health and safety.

This brood of coot youngsters have lost their ginger top-knots and the hint of red on their beaks that they had  a month ago and they’re now in the sober plumage of adolescent chicks.

Further up the lake we see a single great-crested grebe. We’ve previously seen a pair here and I hope that some day we’ll see them with their stripy young again.

Mussel-eaters

coot familyNewmillerdam, edge of lake near the boathouse, early June:

A PARENT COOT is introducing its brood to a new food; fresh shellfish. It dives and comes up with a small nutlike object which I soon realise is a freshwater mussel.

The young chicks are ‘tween-age’, no longer fluffy little infants with bright markings on their head and not yet in the sober black and grey ‘school uniform’ of older chicks. They’ve still got a sparse punkish ginger top knot while their bills, once bright red, have now faded to a fleshy pink, like lean bacon.

The parent turns the small shell in its beak before presenting the morsel to a youngster then dives again and in seconds pops back up with another bite-sized mussel.

After turning it around in in its beak it presents this reluctant to open mollusc to one of the chicks. The chick fumbles with it and soon drops it and another chick picks it up but also struggles with it.

The parent takes it back and gives it a few more turns in its beak, returning it to the youngster which makes an extra effort and, with some difficulty, swallows it whole.

It reminds me of the sort of scene you might get in a restaurant where a parent is trying to show their children the way to tackle some unfamiliar food. I still remember the steaming tureen of mussels, some of them still flapping their valves that was brought to the table when we were on a family holiday in an old-fashioned seaside resort in France. We were equally clueless about how we should tackle them.

Now Would be a Good Time

lapwing chickI’D JUST passed a sign warning people to take care because of ground-nesting birds during the summer months as I walked from Penistone Hill country park, Howarth, towards Top Withins via Harbour Lodge. I thought yes, they might well be hidden amongst the heather but with alarmed adults flying around making sure they stay under cover I’m not going to see any, but just 20 or 30 yards along the track over the moor I came across two lapwing chicks wandering around on the track.

As I approached them I took my camera from my pocket and switched it on, took three quick snapshots as I walked on by and left them hoping that the adults, of which there was no sign, would soon come back to them.

Nethergill

nethergill farm

So what happened to June? We had a week at Nethergill Farm in Langstrothdale, in the centre of the Yorkshire Dales National Park, not far south of Hawes. The Nethergill eggs are described as ‘very free range’ and, as many of them had been used to make a Yorkshire curd tart for the launch of the farm’s new field centre on the day we arrived, our half dozen were laid by special request. We were staying in a self-catering apartment called the Byre and as we walked upstairs in the evening we could look through a window into the barn and see the little red hen and her ‘sisters’ (there’s no cockerel, so that guests can sleep in!) settling down to roost, three of them tucked snugly onto the windowsill.

It was partly a research trip but mainly a holiday. The trouble with taking a week off is that we came back to what seemed like more than double the work, gardening and errands for mum. Add to that all the reading I’ve been doing and the research trips for my book and I’m afraid the diary has slipped.

red henI’ve just finished my monthly nature diary for the Dalesman magazine so that back in diary mode I’ve got so much that I could write about this month that it would take many hours. But for a nature diary I prefer to write about what has happened on the actual day so now would be a good time to draw a line and start afresh tomorrow and try and get back to a page a day format. To try to write a little every day, even if sometimes that didn’t amount to much. There’s always something going on.

Link: Nethergill Farm

 

Beware of Woodpeckers

woodpeckernestboxWE’RE A BIT concerned about the great spotted woodpecker that we’ve seen a couple of times by the nestbox by the back door. The blue tits have been busy but as far as we know there are no chicks in the box so far.

This morning the woodpecker perched briefly on the front of the box. It’s not that I want it to go hungry but we did invite the blue tits to nest here by erecting the box so I feel as if we have a duty of care.

blue titWe can’t keep an eye on it from dawn to dusk but if we see peck marks appearing around the entrance hole I’ll try getting a strip of metal cut to protect it. Just hope it doesn’t succeed in breaking in at a first attempt.

Blackbirds

blackbirds

THE CLOCKS went forward at the weekend so we’re now into British summertime, despite the low temperature and the strips of snow lingering on the hills.

It’s 8pm and as the light fades there’s a lot of posturing and puffing up of plumage as the back garden blackbirds emphasise their claims to the lawn. A single male claims the flower border while a resident pair forage around the shed and the herb bed opposite.

The males play cat and mouse, mirroring each other’s postures but keeping a few paces away from each other on a band of disputed territory along the front of the herb bed and down to the pond.

The bluster doesn’t bubble over into outright aggression and the shed pair fade away beyond the hedge as dusk drains away the light. They’ll be bursting into song to establish their claims again at dawn.

Chickweed

chickweedCHICKWEED is bursting into life on flowerbeds, covering entire beds where it gets the chance. wagroofIt’s an annual but it has the ability to overwinter and get ahead of the competition as spring arrives.

A wagtail trots about on a house roof in the morning sun.mallards
In contrast to this waterside bird heading for the houses, a regular garden bird, a male blackbirdblackbird, is down on the sandy bank by the river near a pair of mallards that are dabbling nearby.

frogspawn

Still no sign of frogs in our pond but that’s hardly surprising as despite the sun it’s still too cold. A neighbour across the road has a tiny pond that always attracts too many frogs and we transfer the spawn to my pond but the clump that had appeared there before the snow has now turned white, killed off by the heavy frosts.

frogThis weekend will be the test as at last the warm air will be able to move in from the south-west. I’m anxious to see the frogs return.

 

Ash Bank

Ash saplings
Ash sapling on the banking behind the Dam Inn.

treesWE SAW two great-crested grebes the last time we walked by the lake at Newmillerdam but I’m sorry not to spot them today. I hope they’re nesting in some hidden backwater. Much in evidence are the black-headed gulls, every one of them now in breeding plumage.

In our back garden this afternoon the grey male sparrowhawk zooms into the bottom of the hedge. Twenty or thirty seconds later he pops up again from our neighbour’s side arcing over so swiftly that for a moment he’s flying upside down.

Emerging unsuccessfully again from our neighbour’s side he leaves the hedge with nothing, sitting for a few minutes on next door’s sumac. If it wasn’t being anthropomorphic, I’d say that there was distinct look of grumpiness in his hunched silhouette.

He flies over the corner of the meadow to the wood, putting up a flock of goldfinches and sending the wood pigeons into clattering panic from the ivy-covered ash trees.

wood pigeonThe ivy berries on next door’s front garden fence must be at their best because for much of the day a wood pigeon is contentedly eating them.

blue titThe blue tits are showing an interest again in the nestbox on the back of house.

mole hill

With the snow gone and the pheasants and wood pigeons trampling the border beneath the bird feeder I was beginning to think that all mole activity had ceased. Late this afternoon the mole started re-excavating its tunnel system and we watched as it piled up the earth by the edge of the lawn, obviously coming very near the surface but never once showing itself.

 

After the Snow

wood

tree (horse chestnut?) in the snow in Ossett, 27th March.ALTHOUGH WE’VE had a covering of snow for a little more than a week it’s a revelation to suddenly have colour back in the landscape. The snowdrops have gone to seed during the time that they were covered in a little drift by the pond.

In the wood leaves of bluebells are greening the banks between the trees, while other slopes are still swathed with snow. In the fields on south-facing slopes the weeds and the oilseed rape seedlings are already established. This is a reminder to me that I must now start thinking about sowing seeds in our vegetable beds.

Biscuiy

When the thaw gradually got underway a couple of days ago, Biscuit, who had been tramping around discontentedly in the solitary comfort of his snowy field (the two ponies that he was bossing around were his temporary guests and he’s back on his own now) found the first corner of grass to appear by the old shed and lay there in a heap as if he was soaking up the sun on a beach.

His method of getting  back up again was remarkably inelegant, pausing halfway for a few minutes in a sitting position more typical of a dog than a pony.

nuthatch

The snow brought not one but two nuthatches to the bird feeders. As far as I remember it’s the first time that we’ve seen two in the garden at once.

cat and pheasant

The lithe young grey cat who I think of as being a Jerry was shadowing the cock pheasant. The pheasant strutted around with his usual imperious haughtiness but wasn’t unduly concerned. The pair appeared to be more companions than predator and prey but when the pheasant started pecking the bare earth below the feeders the tip of his tail started flick, flick, flicking and the cat adopted a kittenish fascination as if he just couldn’t resist the pheasant teasing him to join in a game.

Late Snow

redwingsIT SNOWS on and off through most of the day as we head towards what is predicted to be the coldest March weekend for fifty years. A flock of sixty or more of what I think are redwings heads north-east away from the band of snow that has been making its way up across the Peak District as warm air from the south-west rolls in and meets cold air from Scandinavia.

lapwingsLater a smaller flock moves in the same direction. Occasional groups of gulls and, at lunchtime, a ragged band of lapwings head in the same direction, away from the snow.

miniature daffodilsAfter stopping feeding the birds for a month we’re satisfied that if there are any brown rats around – and we’ve seen no sign of them – it’s not primarily our bird feeders that are attracting them. siskinToday great tits, blue tits, robin, siskins, chaffinches, greenfinches and pheasants appreciate the sunflower hearts on offer, each a little burst of energy for them.

Waxwings

waxwings

THE SILHOUETTE was enough for me to instantly identify the bird; slightly stubby and with a sharp crest; a waxwing. It flew off from the weather vane on which it was perched and settled on the apex of the roof of the nearby bungalow, joining six more waxwings which were perched on the television aerial and chimney pot.

They’re a reminder that although we’re already into the three months that the meteorologists refer to as spring, spring proper isn’t quite with us.

We’re having odd flakes of snow here today and a cold breeze. My thermometer is showing that it’s 5 degrees above freezing but the breeze makes it feel much colder. Cars coming down from the hills are covered in inch thick snow. Perhaps this is the reason that these waxwings have turned up here today in the Calder Valley.