Category: Habitats

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.

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.

Lime and Apple

limeThe hybrid limes in the Victorian gardens of Horbury are now in fresh green leaf and the apples are in blossom.

apple blossom

This blossom is a variety called James Grieve which is a cooker at the start of the season, an eater as it gets sweeter towards the end.

cinemagoercompassThe compass and the cinema-goer were drawn in odd moments this week.

Pitch Perfect

tent and pondThe wild is calling me and I’m back in my tent for the first time in two years.

tent flap
That rusty metal pole isn’t part of the tent; it the clothes post.

crab apple blossomAdmittedly I’ve only gone as far as our back lawn and pitched it overlooking the pond. The weather is fine and I don’t really need this little pop-up igloo of a tent but I need to practice putting it up and – the trickier part – folding it up and getting it back in its dustbin-lid sized bag

kingcupsWhen I first bought it, I was glad of it when drawing rocks on the beach at Whitby. It rained quite heavily but I was able to finish my drawing from the shelter of the tent however I could not work out how to roll/fold it up again.

cuckoo flowerThe life-guards of West Cliff, a helpful family by the Whalebone Arch, even a tattooed man who looked as if he’d be an expert at striking camp after a music festival were unable to help me and we drove home with the half-folded tent, like a restless Chinese New Year dragon, springing about in the boot.

This afternoon, for the first time ever, I folded it up in one go. The secret is not to try and understand how it folds up – that’s multi-dimensional thinking that would baffle Stephen Hawkings – you’ve just got to start rolling the naan bread-shaped collapsed tent from bottom to top and you’ll find yourself flanked by two small bicycle wheel-sized butterfly wings which you concertina into the bag, being careful to tuck in any overlapping canvas between the hoops so you don’t catch it in the zip fastening of the bag.

I look forward to using it again as I’m convinced that after six or seven years I’ve finally got the hang of it.

Private Fishing

heronHorbury Bridge, May Day Bank Holiday Monday, 9.30 a.m.; a heron gets up from the edge of the old weir and flies downstream. The sober grey livery, black wing-tips and ‘wing light’ white patches on the leading edge of the wings give it the appearance of an RAF transport plane. The ‘black goggles’ eye-stripe makes it look determined. Will it fly over the bridge or under the arch?

cormoranttreeIt veers towards the arch on the Horbury side and disappears beneath. Then we realise why; a cormorant appears and flies off up the river. The pool below the weir is evidently private fishing.

Looking down on the action from such close quarters, we get a better view of a cormorant than any we had in Scarborough last week.

Heron and cormorant were birds from another world in my school days; spectacular  images in the Observer’s Book of Birds in romantic, rugged settings.

Remembering Ardsley Reservoir

ardsley resSome memories of Ardsley Reservoir, north-east of Wakefield, from Brian Asquith, a reader of my booklet ‘Walks in the Rhubarb Triangle’;

Westerton Wood
Westerton Wood

From 1938 – 1947 my mother and father ran Thirlmere Stores, at the entrance to Thirlmere Drive (now a private house). From my bedroom window I looked out across what we called the Red Wood (you call it Westerton Wood) to the reservoir. During the war trees were felled in the wood and strung across the reservoir to prevent seaplanes landing there.

In the wood was a mine shaft with a wall around 10/12 feet high and we used to lob stones down it and they made a loud noise as they descended the shaft. The larger the stone the louder the noise. Apparently the shaft was sunk around the same time that the reservoir was constructed and the owners were not allowed to tunnel under the reservoir. This apparently ended in a court case which eventually went to the House of Lords. The mine owners lost and the shaft was never used.

Jowett Pond

ardsley laneThere were several ponds in the area, all gone now with the building of so many houses, where we caught sticklebacks. I seem to remember some stringy looking spawn with black hyphens in the middle rather than the spherical black dots of frogspawn which we took to be newt spawn. Later on I think we found it to be toad spawn. 

One of the ponds was what we called the Jowett Pond, in Haigh Moor Road, near the entrance to the reservoir but on a map  I have, dated 1938, it is shown as Jude’s Pond. Around the reservoir was a ditch where we used to find crested newts but I don’t know if they are still there. We had to climb over the wall surreptitiously as the reservoir was not open to the public in those days.

No doubt you know about Lee Gap Fair, which was a horse fair held at Upper Green, (the western end of Westerton Road, which started with a Royal Charter, in the 12th century and was still going when I was a boy.

The fields it was held in were built over many years ago.

The Rhubarb Asquiths

The Ardsley Reservoir page from 'Walks in the Rhubarb Triangle'.
The Ardsley Reservoir page from ‘Walks in the Rhubarb Triangle’.

I asked Brian if he was related to the rhubarb-growing Asquith family, or to the prime-minister of a century ago, H H Asquith;

Sorry I am not from a rhubarb family (we used to call rhubarb “tusky” – I don’t know if that is a West Ardsley word or a Yorkshire word).  My grandparents worked in the pits. My grandfather Asquith was a miner at Topcliffe pit (Tingley) in, I think, the 1900 census but in the next one for 1910 he was a screen operator, which usually meant you weren’t fit to go down the pit. My mother’s father was also a miner.

My father worked at Armitages Brick Works at Howley Park. I don’t think I am related to HH although, if asked, I usually say that I was born in the same town as him but he was born in the big house, which is now a furniture shop (probably a bit of poetic license), whilst I was born in a terrace house, near Morley park, which is still a terrace house near Morley park.

Link; My booklet Walks in the Rhubarb Triangle

Back to Langsett

wood sorrelnibbled coneThere are patches and small drifts of wood sorrel alongside the path through the plantation alongside the reservoir at Langsett. On a tree-stump there are discarded scales and the nibbled core of a pine cone, left there by a squirrel.

 willow warblerWe hear our first willow warbler singing as well as a resident wren.

 ducklingsA mallard duck is accompanied by ten ducklings and followed by a second adult female. She gathers her dispersed brood from our shore of the reservoir, where they’re foraging for insects or plant material on the surface of the water and they follow her in single file towards the far shore.

grouseRed grouse are calling on the moor and perching, as they do on rocks and broken walls.

There’s a sandpiper feeding at the water’s edge where the little river enters the reservoir on the southern shore and there more sandpipers on the stone embankment at the dam head.

The Mist in the Mirror

balconyteapotOnly a brief chance to draw the ornate balcony of Matcham’s Opera House in Wakefield before the curtain goes up on Susan Hill’s ghost story The Mist in the Mirror.

You might think that the teapot on the mantlepiece is part of the set but I drew this when we went back for coffee at Richard and Carole’s after the show.

bottleOnce again these are drawn with my new Lamy Safari pen.

Violets

violetsViolets grow like weeds at my mum’s house, in the borders around the edge of the lawn. It’s a long time since I sat out drawing in the front garden at Smeath House and I’d forgotten how peaceful it is here. Three rival blackbirds are singing from corners of the shrubbery. The variegated beech tree, planted by the mill-owning Baines family who built the house, shades the front lawn so that the habitat now resembles a woodland glade.

In 1960, when I was aged nine, I drew a sketch map of the bird life of shrubbery, lawn and house, including blackbirds, starlings and sparrows.

bluebellsThe bluebells – which I don’t believe we ever planted – look like natives. The bells hang down, while the more vigorous Spanish bluebells, which grow in the border in our own back garden, face outwards.

Common Whelk

whelkjuvenile herring gullThis common whelk shell plummeted from the sky as we sat by the harbour at Scarborough at the weekend, bouncing off Barbara’s leg then smashing into several pieces as it hit the concrete next to a stack of lobster pots. We didn’t see who dropped it but I suspect the herring gulls which were arguing amongst each other.

On the top left you can see the whelk’s siphonal canal. When it is hunting, the whelk’s siphon tube protrudes from this groove and swings from side to side as locates its prey using scent receptors.

Whelks produce a ‘purpurin’, a purple dye which is thought to immobilise their prey.

Keel worm cases encrust the exterior and some of the smooth interior of the shell.

A Peregrine amongst the Kittiwakes

peregrine peregrine perchingMarine Drive, Scarborough, 11.50 a.m.; Thirty kittiwakes set off towards the sea from the Castle cliff, then we see what set them up; a peregrine flies along at mid-ledge level then arcs out above our heads, loops over the sea and returns to the cliff. I’m ready to watch it hunt but it soon settles on a commanding knoll on the cliff-face, which could be a potential nest-site.

cockleboatThrough the little monocular that I keep in my art bag, I can see that it’s a slate grey male. It sits there, facing the cliff with its back to us, calling for ten minutes; a plaintive mewing. Is it hoping to attract a mate or complaining that the restless kittiwakes are hard to surprise this morning?

kittiwake v. fulmarA kittiwake chases a fulmar, constantly gaining height then swooping on it. Resembling a miniature albatross, the fulmar might win the prizes when it comes to effortless
gliding but the kittiwake is more aerobatic.

turnstoneA turnstone is doing just what its name suggests; turning over pebbles as the tide ebbs in the harbour. I’ve drawn it as all brown here but there are white patches on its head.

Turnstones peck for scraps around your feet on the quayside, behaviour that seems surprising for a wader.

Peasholm Park

juvenile herring gullspeasholm parkChiff-chaffs are singing in the wooded valley in Peasholm Park. The pagoda island is awash with pale yellow primroses.

gull11.50 a.m.; a juvenile herring gull has a yellow plastic ring no. 5B6B on its left leg and on its right a metal BTO ring. It’s one of a group of juvenile gulls attracted to food offered by visitors to the park. In the town, gulls swooping to pinch sandwiches and chips from tourists are seen as a nuisance by some locals.

mapbuilderI draw the Mexican style entrance to MAP (Military Adventure Park) from our table at the Peaches and Cream cafe, North Bay.

gull calling