Tag Archives: jackdaw

Scone Chronicles XXI

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It’s a bit late, but if we go back a while I can pull in a very nice afternoon snack and re-use some Puffin pictures.

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Puffin at Bempton – Sad-Faced Clown Contemplating a Life Devoid of Eccles Cakes

At the end of our second trip of the year to Bempton Cliffs we decided to see if there was room at the cafe. It had been quite crowded on the first visit but was slightly better this time, despite the presence of two coaches in the Car Park.

I just suggested a cup of tea, and asked a lady if we could share her table. As a result, my conscience is clear. It was Julia’s idea to buy the Eccles Cakes, and all the damage done to my weight control plan is a direct result of her dietary delinquency.

Tea and Eccles Cake
Tea and Eccles Cake
Eccles Cake

 

I like Eccles Cakes. They are available in supermarkets all over the country and they are crammed with dried fruit, sugar and fat. As they have dried fruit they must be full of fibre and vitamins too. What’s not to like?

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Puffins at Bempton – eyeing Up my Eccles Cakes

My all time favourite is the Sad Cake. My grandmothers made Sad Cakes. They are like Chorley cakes but more pastry and less fruit. The Chorley cake link includes information on Sad Cakes. I used to make them when we visited. I also used to make Rock Buns. I was quite handy in those days. I really must start baking again.

Eccles cakes are probably more palatable but sometimes it’s the association rather than the actual food that makes things a favourite.

There are many variations on the fruit, flour and fat theme. These include Welsh Cakes, Shrewsbury Cakes and Blackburn Cakes. To be honest, despite having lived in Blackburn I’d not heard of that one until this evening. It was a footnote on one of the links and is, it seems, stewed apple in a pastry case. Sounds like a pasty to me.

Anyway, the tea was good, the Eccles cakes were good, the company was good, the clifftop sea breeze was good and the Tree Sparrows and Jackdaws were fun to watch. A Jackdaw can fit a lot of bread in its beak. Five big pieces torn of the edges of sandwiches by the kids on the neighbouring table.

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Jackdaw at Bempton Cliffs

 

Monday Miscellany

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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.

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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.

Man v Jackdaw

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They found the fat balls I hung in the hedge so it’s time for the next phase.

Wilkos have these feeders in for £7, which is the cheapest I’ve been able to find. You get what you pay for but I can’t see that Jackdaws are strong enough to bend the bars so cheap should be good enough.

I’m going to try one and if it works I will buy more.The main worry isn’t if it works but if it acts like a sail in the wind as it gets quite windy out here and it’s quite common to find the feeder pole at an angle of 30 degrees after high winds.

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Meanwhile, I suppose I ought to consider alternative foods (as in the peanuts) and whether of not I have the right to feed finches and starve Jackdaws. For the moment though, as Monday morning is not prime time for debating questions of ethics, I will confine myself to trying to outwit them.

It may not be easy.

 

More birds

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I was feeling pretty downhearted when I returned to the farm this morning – what with an evening of admin balancing a laptop on my knee and the lack of birds yesterday there wasn’t much to enthuse me. And tghere it was!

In the hedge by the entrance we had a mixed tit and finch flock. Chaffinches, great tits, a greenfinch, coal tit…

It’s not easy peering out of the car into a hedge, but it was a good start. By the time I’d found the keys to the centre and put some more food out I’d added jackdaws, a robin and blackbirds to the list. A pair of mallard flew over as I started watching properly, a wood pigeon followed and dunnocks hopped around the base of the feeder.

To be honest I was a bit upset I hadn’t brought the camera, a feeling that increased when a reed bunting took up position in a bare branched apple tree by the vegetables, being joined moments later by a yellowhammer.

As I went back into the main room to use the telescope I noticed movement by the wilow arches – a goldfinch, followed by three more – a veritable charm of goldfinches on a grey day.

When I got to the telescope I couldn’t believe my eyes. A long-tailed tit on the fat balls, then another. In the end we had four at the same time. I’d heard them calling yesterday but hadn’t seen one.

What a turn round, but with no camera and no witnesses who will ever believe me after yesterdays grim showing?

This particularly true as after writing this I spent ten minutes straining to see any avaian movement at all, finally adding a blue tit, a pair of rooks and twenty five jackdaws to the list (the jackdaws were sitting on telephone wires – that’s how I managed to count them). The reed bunting came back and the dunnocks and blackbirds reappeared – with a white shoulder on the male, it’s easy to identify the blackbirds as the same pair. Several female chaffinches lurked in the hawthorn, pretending to be more interesting than they really are.

I’ve decided I like my job again…