Category: Birds

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.

Garden Birdwatch

birdwatch 2013siskingoldfinchAFTER LASHINGS of rain overnight and this morning it’s refreshing to look out on a green lawn rather than on the snow that has lingered for the past twelve days. When the rain stops at 9 a.m. there’s a sudden influx of Goldfinches and Siskins so we decide to start our one hour RSPB Garden Birdwatch straight away.

magpieI do a few distracted sketches but feel the need to be continually scanning the whole of the garden. A Magpie briefly touches down on the fence near the greenhouse and pecks at something – a spider perhaps.

nuthatchA Nuthatch, usually the most conspicuous of visitors when it flies in, bullying other birds from their perch on the sunflower feeder, flies in sneakily, hiding itself briefly on the other side of the small feeder.

wood pigeoncollared doveAs I add the colour to my sketches who should turn up too late to be included but a Collared Dove, which touches down briefly on top of the shepherd’s crook feeder pole, and a Wood Pigeon that waddles alongside the watering hole provided by the still half-frozen pond, oblivious that if it had flown in just 10 minutes earlier it could have contributed to our record of the biodiversity of our garden!

chaffinchFull list and maximum number recorded at any one time: Blackbird 2, Blue tit 2, Chaffinch 9 (as large a number as I ever remember having seen in our garden), Dunnock 2, Goldfinch 8, Great tit 3, Greenfinch 2, Magpie 1, Nuthatch 1, Pheasant 1 male, 3 female, Robin 2.

RobinsThe two Robins that we saw today, one on the ground by the hedge and one visiting the feeder, were tolerant of each other so presumably they are a pair. Two of theblue tit Blue Tits flew over to the nest box, so perhaps they will be nesting before too long.

 

Fresh Page

cloudsTHE START OF THE NEW YEAR feels like opening a new sketchbook; a fresh white page to fill with whatever takes my interest.

My Dalesman nature diary for JanuaryDalesman January issueThis year I’m going to be focussing on the Yorkshire Dales because I’ve just started writing the nature diary for the Yorkshire Dalesman magazine. My new feature gets a mention on the Dalesman website;

‘Wild Yorkshire
Richard Bell hits the ground running as he gets ready to watch wildlife in the new year’

That sums up the way I feel today.

This new monthly column is all the excuse that I need to explore a National Park that Barbara and I tend to ignore. If we’ve got only a day we tend to head for the Peak National Park, if we’ve got a few days we zoom through the Dales on our way to the Lake District National Park or we head for our favourite stretch of coast where the North Yorks Moors National Park meets the sea.
male goosanderIt’s one of those New Year’s days which make you feel as if a new chapter is opening. It’s bright, cool and breezy. We don’t seem to have seen much sun over the Christmas period or any that we had, I missed.

The river isn’t in flood but it is lapping around the trunks of the willows that grow on a low silty bank by the bridge. A male Goosander, looking as freshly painted as a decoy duck, dives amongst them.

pheasant

There’s some soft but insistent tapping on the patio windows. The cock Pheasant is back. I can’t tell whether he’s pecking at his own reflection or picking little fragments of spent sunflower seeds from the glass.

pheasant, great tit and blackbird

Diving and Dabbling

IT’S A COUPLE of weeks since we last managed a country walk so we’re glad to be back at Newmillerdam where I sketched the multiple trunks of this Ash on the corner of the Barnsley Road by the old watermill as we waited for our coffee at Becket’s Cafe (formerly the Waterside but recently revamped by the new owners).

Amongst a flock of sheep one has died and Crows and Magpie have gathered to scavenge the carcass.

There are at least 4 Goosanders on the lake, two males and two females. There could have been eight in total but their ability to swim together underwater and pop up together 50 yards away makes me think we saw the one group in two different locations.

A bird which I suspect we often miss spotting at Newmillerdam because it spends so much of its time diving underwater is the Dabchick. After a quick view of it diving we waited a minute or so and, unlike the Goosanders, it popped at the same spot.

Treecreeper

WE SPOTTED this Treecreeper climbing up the crab apple by the pond, meanwhile a Nuthatch had flown to take a sunflower heart from one of the bird feeders. Our delight at seeing these two infrequent visitors in our back garden at one soon turned to shocked horror as the Treecreeper hurtled like a missile towards the feeders then continued, hitting the patio window and instantly killing itself by, as far as I can tell, breaking its neck.

I didn’t want it to have died in vain so I picked it up to draw and also checked the internet and phoned the British Trust for Ornithology just in case someone might be studying the species and might have a use for a fresh casualty for analysis, but they didn’t know of any study at present, unless the bird had died of disease.

Length: 12.7 cm
Beak: 1.7 cm
Tail: 6 cm
Weight: 8 grams

Mobbed

1.10 p.m., Horbury; A BARRED brown Sparrowhawk is being mobbed by a flock – a ‘charm’ but I’m sure that the Sparrowhawk doesn’t see it that way – of about 20 Goldfinches over the trees by the Memorial Park. It swoops over the town hall then soars up towards the convent, pausing occasionally at the top of its arc of flight, as if it’s considering stopping to hover like a Kestrel.

Blacklight

The new Field Guide to the Micro Moths of Great Britain and Ireland by Phil Sterling and Mark Parsons, illustrated by Richard Lewington, has inspired me to have a go at setting up a moth trap at the end of the garden in my recently mown and hacked back ‘meadow area’.

Having asked a couple of friends who’ve done a bit of moth trapping – in fact one of them has done moth surveys for a living since since he left college – I’ve decided to go for the cheaper but more fiddly option of making my own moth trap.

The basis of this is a low energy flourescent blacklight; a 20 watt ultra violet light as used in discos.

Martins

As I walk down the garden to close the greenhouse, 14 House Martins are circling and chattering a hundred feet above the meadow. A reminder that autumn hasn’t totally set in although it won’t be long before they set off back to Africa.

I pick a couple of Supersweet tomatoes in the greenhouse and a couple of raspberries from the canes as I walk past, none of which makes it back to the kitchen.

Sketchy Impressions

First page in a new A4 Pink Pig cartridge paper sketchbook.

By the way, apologies for the scrappy drawings but there’s a reason for these. I’m out of the habit of regular sketching, particularly of wildlife subjects so I decided that to get myself back in drawing mode for the autumn I’d go back to the main method that I used for my Wild West Yorkshire nature diary in the early years, drawing the day’s wildlife observations from memory in as simple a way as possible, in this case fountain pen and watercolour crayons.

To get over the time that I spend sitting at the computer writing and revising text, I decided that I’d also write my notes in the sketchbook.

Writing by hand makes me slow down and think about what I’m writing and it usually turns out to be coherent enough not to need the revisions and tweaks that I always find myself doing when I’m typing my thoughts directly to the computer.