Category Archives: Bird Watching

Christmas Cakes

Today I made a special trip to the farm to wrap the Christmas cakes once they had cooled thoroughly. It proved to be worth it, as I saw the heron again and took some better shots.

I then took more bird photos of varying quality, answered emails, wasted my life looking things up on the internet and entertained two visitors. Even if you add in the housework, Cash and Carry trip and tonight’s cooking it still doesn’t seem much work for a day.

I keep saying I will prepare in advance and write a list of jobs, but I never do. This must change.

Meanwhile, here are some photos. One is of the cakes and the other of a heron in flight. It’s tricky taking a flying bird with no viewfinder.

Flying heron

Birds at Screveton

12 Replies

So, from birds at Rufford to Birds at Screveton. It may lack variety but once you have a good formula for a a title why change?

It started off with pied wagtails at the top of the lane, followed by a heron on the small meadow. Unlike last week I did manage to get a photo of it stalking the field margin. though they aren’t the best of shots.

I saw a Yellowhammer when we arrived at the centre but it flew off in a flash of yellow and wasn’t seen again.Most notable birds of the day were a House Sparrow and a female Reed Bunting. Apart from that we had Blue Tits, Great Tits, a Long Tailed Tit, Goldfinches, Greenfinches, Pheasants, Red Legged Partridges, Chaffinches, Dunnocks, a Robin, Blackbirds, a pair of Buzzards, a Herring Gull and a small flock of Jackdaws.

Heron in the small meadow

Male Chaffinch at SCreveton

Female Reed Bunting at Ecocentre

Male House Sparrow on feeder at the Ecocentre

The frustration of the day was that I just couldn’t get any decent photos. Dog walkers, members of the group asking “What are you watching?”, sudden noises from inside the building, shooting next door, camera batteries that ran flat – you name it, they all conspired against a successful day of photography.

The short day and long shadows didn’t help either.

Birds at Rufford Abbey

9 Replies

The walk started with me scanning the treetops for greenfinches, which were calling loudly, though they were quickly chased away by Fieldfares. I couldn’t get a decent photo because the twigs prevented the autofocus from working. That was followed by a photo of a blurred dot over the abbey as I failed to get a good shot of a circling buzzard. Bird photography is a bit trickier than buildings.

We decided to walk round the lake, a route which includes walking through woodland. The first birds we saw on the walk were eating food someone had put out for them on a picnic table. We saw blue tits, Great tits, chaffinches and (something I’d hoped to see) a Marsh Tit. I’m sure it was a Marsh Tit, though Willow Tits are very similar in appearance. In fact, Victorian ornithologists didn’t even know they were two species until 1897. The glossy cap and white stripe on the beak (which you can’t see on this photo) are good pointers to it being a Marsh Tit.

Marsh Tit – Rufford Abbey

Great tit – Rufford Abbey

Further round, we crossed several bridges and took pictures of Tufted Duck, Coot, Moorhen, Mallard and Black Headed Gulls, though the light wasn’t very good and they were mostly blurred. many of the gulls were in their 1st winter, as shown by the brown feathers amongst the grey and white. I find I have difficulty with autofocus on subjects with white bits – the Coots all came out looking like the heads were blurred. I also had trouble with a Magpie and the heads of the Great Crested Grebes.

Teasel – food source for goldfinches

Black-headede gull – 1st winterERA

Small Lake – Rufford Abbey

On the main lake we saw Great-Crested Grebes in winter plumage and Greylag geese, finally walking round to the shop and tea room (where you can buy duck and goose food). We bought Bakewell tarts and tea, crumbling the pastry from the edge to feed the birds and provoking a minor riot.

Mill race sluice at Rufford Abbey

Great Crested Grebes on Rufford Lake

Greylag Geese

Bird feeding riot at Rufford Abbey

Adult Black-headed gull – winter plumage

When the boys were small (oh, how easily I fall into nostalgia mode) the Canada Geese were both numerous and aggressive, but these days there are only a few about, though they were quite aggressive in the pursuit of food from small children. There was also a small group of Egyptian Geese, which I always thought must have escaped from a collection somewhere. When I was searching for information for the link I found out they’ve been breeding in England for around 300 years, so it’s possible they might have been proper residents.

There also used to be a lot of rats around because people were over-feeding the birds. At one point the water by the tearoom used to be full of floating bread and the surroundings full of notices about not over-feeding. The current lack of notices suggests that people have become more sensible, as does the lack of rats.

You can currently buy duck and goose food from the shop for £3.50 a bag. Let’s say that at that price I’d rather be a seller than a buyer, as the bags don’t look very big. Next time I go I will take some of my own bird food. Once the cold weather takes hold the smaller birds will appreciate it, and are happy to comedown and feed. I may take a little bread too, but there really isn’t much danger of the ducks and geese going hungry.

The featured image is a Tufted duck – the white bits on his back are the water droplets from his recent dive.

What we did next

9 Replies

So, what have we been doing apart from egg-based humour?

Well, we ate doughnuts, made Halloween masks, and I tried to take a photo of a green woodpecker through dirty triple glazing. The doughnuts and masks were successful. The photographs weren’t, as the glazing and dirt mess with the autofocus. When I went out to try for some clearer photos the woodpecker (a) hid and (b) flew away.

Group photo with Halloween masks

Julia and Emma looking scary

Aaron, Alasdair and Dave (who is old enough to know better)

Green Woodpecker feeding on the floor

Green Woodpecker

Green Woodpecker feeding on ants

later I saw a kestrel perching on the brush shaft of the hooded youth statue. I got my camera, I switched it on…

…and got the Battery Empty message.

So I swapped batteries…

…and got the same result.

I then remembered that I hadn’t recharged them, because they’d run out late one day – too late to recharge at work and too stupid to remember once I got home. Bah!

Can’t really complain though, as we got great views of kestrels and a buzzard perching by the roadside on the way to work. The buzzard was on a fence post along the new A46, perching at about eye level. We couldn’t have asked for a better view.

Later in the afternoon we cleared some beds, played a Dracula-themed snakes and ladders game (Julia kept winning) and finished off Monday’s biscuits. They had kept well, and we really should have left them a few days longer, but you know how it is.

I can vouch for most of my biscuit recipes lasting three days. If you ever find me vouching for them lasting longer, ask yourself why they are still not eaten.

At least, having seen two small falcons today, Julia was able to make a quip about the coming of night and the fact that we would be having Orkestrel Manoeuvres in the Dark.

Pop music puns can be tricky as they are sensitive to the age of those listening, but for those of us who remember the band, it’s a quality pun.

Keeping busy

9 Replies

Sorry about the lack of activity over the last few days, we’ve been a bit busy.

Peacock on the roof

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

For instance, while I was talking to a visitor on Thursday afternoon, the peacock came to call.

On Friday morning we visited Abbots Bromley, home of the Horn Dance. There was no dance, but there was a prize-winning butcher. I bought a pork pie and a Moroccan lamb pie. They both had lovely crispy crusts and plenty of densely packed meat. As usual, I didn’t think to take a photo until they were gone. At the risk of being a bit of a Philistine, I did find them a touch dry, as I like a bit of jelly in my pie and prize-winning pies tend to be a bit too meaty for me. It’s probably a good thing I don’t do a food blog as I’d probably be frowned at for remarks like that.

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

After that we went to the National Arboretum. It’s the second time we’ve been and it was somehow less impressive than the first time, even though they have done a lot of work. I think this is because it’s now more cluttered and because a lot of the memorials now seem to be made from modern materials. We have to visit at least once more, so we will have to see.

We saw a Little Egret amongst the Canada geese, which was nice, and there were loads of dragonflies and damsel flies on the pond that cost £35,000 to build. Yes £35,000. To put it in context our butterfly garden cost £32.50 plus a lot of volunteer time and donated plants. I’m thinking of building a wildlife pond next – just need to see if someone will give me £35,000 to do it!

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

And yes, we did see a few memorials too.

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

WLA and Timber Corps memorial – National Arboretum

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

Detail from the memorial

These are for the Cockleshell Heroes, 1914 Truce (with game of football) and the Women’s Land Army. There is also a replica trench to commemorate the Great War, though I’m not sure my grandfather would have recognised it.

Fast forward to Thursday and Stupidity

10 Replies

After the delay in posting Tuesdays events I’m going to give a quick overview of Wednesday and then plunge into Thursday – a much more interesting day.

Chickens, eggs, butterfly count (which included green-veined whites), Canadian visitor, made a get well soon card, a volunteer called to see if they could help us with anything (as if!), a discussion on seeing tigers in Indian National Parks, a meeting (which I avoided), another meeting (which I didn’t) and a feeling that things could be better.

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

Move on to Thursday and I managed to take a poor picture of an immature Green Woodpecker through a dirty windscreen. We’ve seen a few flying and heard many more but this was my first chance to get a photo. Still, it was better than the one of the Green-veined White butterfly I took on my phone yesterday.

I then checked the office emails and found a gem from a local college.

To put it in perspective, we have them out on the farm for six days in a year. We charge £5 each (which we were told was all they could afford) so we take about £50 – £60 a day. If you cost it up strictly it takes about 16- 20 man hours to plan and deliver the visits, and we have to pay the farm rent for using the facilities.

The college sent us a letter once, telling us it could send lecturers out if we needed any help delivering education and they would only cost us £70 an hour. Yes, they would charge us more for an hour than they are prepared to pay us for a day.

I didn’t read the payment terms because I was spluttering too much, but I can tell you their terms. They pay at the end of the month following the month in which the service was delivered. We had a visit from them in the first week of June and we got paid last week. And they wonder why small businesses have trouble.

Today we had a 300 word email which contained this gem of a paragraph.

As a part of our due diligence process we audit our suppliers on a regular basis and will only work with organisations who also commit to the eradication of slavery and human trafficking. Our procurement appraisal process will incorporate a review of the controls undertaken by our suppliers and now also requires, from all suppliers, an annual statement of their commitment and actions taken to eliminate modern slavery.

I’m happy to eradicate modern slavery, but is this really going to help?

I will say no more.

Peacocks, birds and Painted Ladies

10 Replies

I could have added Red Admirals to the title, to make it a tale of Communist Naval Commanders dressing up to attract women of a certain sort. Bit I didn’t, so it’s just about butterflies. And a bit about birds.

A week, they say, is a long time in politics. Five minutes, as I was to discover this morning, is a long time in butterfly counting.

It was a glorious day this morning and I would have taken some photographs but I got caught up with something else, we had chickens to look after, then a visitor called and we didn’t get on with the count until lunch.

As I stepped out onto the decking I knew we had a problem. It was cool, overcast, and the numerous butterflies I’d seen in the morning had all gone. I suppose the totals were more typical of the actual activity of butterflies, as we tend to count on good days, when there are plenty of butterflies about, thus manipulating the figures by accident.

Count 1

12.30 – 12.45 Monday 1st August.

Temperature: 19 degrees C

Wind: 6 kph from the SSE

Red Admiral – 1

Peacock – 2

Small White – 2

No sooner had we finished than the sun started to break through, the temperature rose noticeably and, though the wind remained gusty, the butterflies emerged.

It was like one of the those Old Testament moments in a black and white film. There was no pointing finger and no portentous music, but there was a definite change in the sky and things started to happen.

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

Count 2

12.45 – 01.00 Monday 1st August.

Temperature: 21 degrees C (may have been more at one point, but that’s what it was by the time I got back to the weather station display.

Wind: 3 – 9 kph from the SSE (that’s a guess, but it was both weaker and stronger than during the original count).

Red Admiral – 3

Peacock – 6

Small White – 2

Large White – 5

Gatekeeper – 1

Small Tortoiseshell – 1

Painted Lady – 1

That’s quite a difference, in numbers and variety. If it had been a more gradual change I’d have missed it by going inside for dinner before the activity started.

Birds have been gradually coming back with goldfinches and blue tits on the feeders and pied wagtails on the grass. There are wrens and Green Woodpeckers in the trees. I have a picture of an immature bird that I thought was a dunnock, then a robin, then…

The immature ones can be tricky.

I’m going to take a chance and say it’s a dunnock.

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

New pictures on Individual Pages

9 Replies

I’ve just put some new pictures up on the individual pages, if you want to see what people are up to. As you can see from the featured image, which shows us at lunch yesterday, life isn’t exactly hectic at the moment.

Julia fell over last night when we were tidying up and bruised her hip. I call it her hip, from a sense of delicacy. Wherever the bruise is sited, it is causing considerable discomfort when she sits, and a lesson in why it is bad to carry hard objects in your back pockets.

When I suggested that the blog needed a photograph of the bruise for documentary purposes she was most uncooperative.

I really think she doesn’t take my social media work seriously.

It’s been a reasonable day for birds, with a wren hiding somewhere round the compost bin and scolding me constantly as I was working with the poultry. I’ve also seen the brightest goldfinch I’ve ever seen, so I’m wondering if it has just completed its moult.

Apart from that the big event of the day has been the constant laughing call of a green woodpecker coming from the trees between us and the road. As usual in summer I can’t see it because of all the leaves, but I’ve been able to hear it for several hours. The call is supposed to be a sign of rain.

As the sky is grey and there is a damp feel to the air I’m sure the bird is right. I do hope so, because some of the vegetables are looking distinctly done in by the constant hot, dry weather.

Of course, it won’t suit the farmers…

Monday Miscellany

4 Replies

We’ve just had fruit and ice cream – fruit from the garden and ice cream from a local dairy. That’s some of the fruit in the picture – I’ve been trying out the macro facility on the camera. It’s not as good as the old camera for close-up work and though the super macro setting produces great results it isn’t that good with butterflies, which tend to fly off.

The lavender in the allotment area is dying back but I have made a start to the Big Butterfly Count. Small Tortoiseshell (5), Meadow Brown (3), Gatekeeper, Large Skipper (2), Large White (2), Small White. I’ve done better, but I’ve certainly done worse.

There are a couple of pictures from the Friday trip too – a herring gull perching on a lamp post which has had spikes fitted to stop gulls perching and a bug hotel/pollinator nest box from the Sainsbury’s at Bridlington.

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

The final picture is of a jackdaw at Bempton Cliffs. Yes, a jackdaw. We spent two and a half hours travelling just over 100 miles. We braved idiot drivers, motorway roadworks and a fried breakfast, and at the first viewing platform someone was in raptures at the sight of jackdaws on the cliffs. I suppose it all depends what you are used to seeing; I thought the Tree Sparrows on the feeders were great at Bempton, but they didn’t rate a second glance from most of the people there.

An auksome day out

20 Replies

We had a day off today; it’s getting to be a habit. We decided on Scarborough again (well, Julia did, I just drove), but started off sooner and dropped in at Bempton Cliffs on the way. They seem to have spent a lot of money since we last came, with nice flat paths making it easy to walk round, even for a fat man with arthritic feet.

Unfortunately this also allowed all sorts of undesirables to access the reserve and get in my way. There was one particular woman who seemed to make it a point of honour to get in front of me and block the best view. When I got fed up and walked on she seemed to immediately give up and slip in front of me at the next good spot.

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

If it had been an episode of something by Agatha Christie the third occasion would have seen a body spiralling into the sea, hundreds of feet below. I can see the shot now…

However, that’s more of a comment on my favoured reading matter rather than the Bempton Cliffs experience.

We only saw one species of butterfly on the cliff top – ringlets! Would be wouldn’t it? They flew low, sheltering in the tops of the grass from the stiffish breeze so I couldn’t get a decent photo. The breeze was quite handy, as it was blowing out to sea, and taking the stench of fishy bird excrement with it. On a hot windless day, this can be a memorable part of the visit.

Here are some pictures – I’ll let them speak for themselves. Puffins are looking a bit dull after rearing a family – next year we will visit sooner.