Tag Archives: green woodpecker

April birdwatch

Posted on April 26, 2011 | Leave a comment

The activities of the birds in my garden have changed significantly in the last 2-3 weeks. Until then I was seeing multiple blackbird, robin, starling, goldfinch, chaffinch, dunnock, blue tit, great tit, collared dove and house sparrow with less frequent visits by long tailed tit. Since then a pair of wood pigeon have virtually taken up residence in my back garden and hoover up all the bird food before the smaller species get a look in. There is still the occasional dunnock and blackbird on the ground and much less frequent visits by blue tit, robin, starling and chaffinch but the goldfinch have all but vacated. This is interesting because when I’m outside I regularly see and hear groups of goldfinch in the trees around the garden but something seems to be keeping them away from my feeder.

My friend Chris told me he had a songthrush rearing chicks in a nest in a tree in his garden and she fledged four youngsters last week, which is very early in the year, so hopefully she’ll fit in another brood this year. But his garden has been subject to the attentions of a sparrowhawk in recent months so he was worried it would catch the fledglings, but clever use of carefully placed hanging bamboo canes has successfully deterred the hawk and all four fledglings seem to have successfully flown the coop. Songthrush 4, sparrowhawk nil.

Continuing with garden birds, last week it occurred to me that the fat balls hanging in my front garden were requiring replenishment rather more frequently than usual so I guessed the nesting birds were feeding more often. The reason turned out to be rather more amusing:

One of the local rooks has worked out that these are edible…

…and that it can reach them. And it takes alot of fat ball to fill a hungry rook!

Slightly further afield in the hedgrows and scrub bordering the farmland around Histon it’s a very good time to survey the local wildlife. As I mentioned in a previous post many species of wild flower now including forget-me-not, yellow archangel…

Forget-me-not

Yellow archangel – Lamiastrum galeobdolon, this variegated version is an invading subspecies ‘argentatum’

…herb robert, cow parsley and periwinkle are all in bloom and lining the paths through the countryside filling them with a palette of colour.

And in the fields, trees and bushes there is an abundance of birdlife:

Corn bunting perched in the midst of a field of oil seed rape

The countryside is ablaze with the yellow of rape flowers right now and just occasionally a photographic opportunity such as this one arises. I’m not particularly keen on the vast swathes of rape but it created a lovely backdrop for this corn bunting which are becoming increasingly uncommon.

It’s not unusual to see and hear bullfinch in one patch of scrub near the church in Histon, which is a regular destination for my birdwatching outings. That makes me very happy because I used to see them all the time when I was a kid in the 1970’s but since the 80’s they seem to have been persecuted to near extinction in alot of the UK because of their fondness for the green shoots of commercial fruit trees. They are still fairly elusive but I managed to get this photograph of a male (just!):

Male bullfinch – the female has similar markings but they are not pink she is more pale grey/brown

And in the same field as the bullfinch linnet are in residence, as are willow warbler, chiffchaff and blackcap which have now returned from over wintering in Africa:

Blackcap male

Chiffchaff

…as are whitethroat:

A female whitehroat, one of a pair patrolling a patch of brambles in the middle of the field

This field is an amazing place, I reckon it’s approximately 10-12 acres and it comprises several habitats including open-ish grass, it’s sorrounded by some old established trees: oak, ash and horse chestnut with hedgerow joining up the old trees consisting mainly of hawthorn and in the field itself there are alot of ash and other saplings and some large patches of bramble. Consequently it provides good supplies of food and cover for nesting for a number of different species. Green woodpeckers can be constantly heard yaffling to each other:

…and birds of prey including kestrel, sparrowhawk and buzzard are regularly in the skies above. The green woodpecker are there all year round and are usually hidden in the grass so I’ll flush one off the ground only for it to disappear into a tree too distant to allow a photograph. So this is about the best image I have of one. Most of the common or garden birds are regulars here too, house sparrow, dunnock, blue tit, great tit, long tailed tit:

…and chaffinch

…blackbird, songthrush, rook, crow and magpie are all present every day. So a small area of mixed scrub an the edge of the village supports a wonderful number of our birds.

There’s lots to see by simply look up in the village too. On the way back from the playground in Impington with my kids today we cycled along a road under a tree as a jay emerged from a silver birch on the other side of the road and landed in the tree a few metres over our heads. We all stopped to look at it and marvel at it’s amazing colours, and it looked at us for a minute or two before flapping off higher up the tree.

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Posted in Birds, Buxhall Farm Histon, Countryside walks, Flora and fungi, Garden birds, Walks around Cambridge and Histon, Wild flowers

Tagged Accipiter nisus, Aegithalos caudatus, argentatum, ash, blackbird, blackcap, blue, bramble, bullfinch, Butteo buteo, Buzzard, Carduelis cannabina, Carduelis carduelis, carrion crow, chaffinch, chiffchaff, collared dove, Columba palumba, corn bunting, Corvus corone, Corvus frugilegus, cow parsley, crow, Cyanistes caerulius, dunnock, Emberiza calandra, Erithacus rubecula, Falco tinunculus, forget me not, Fringilla coelebs, Garrulus glangarius, goldfinch, great tit, green woodpecker, hawthorn, herb robert, horse chestnut, house sparrow, jay, kestrel, Lamiastrum galeobdolon, linnet, long tailed tit, magpie, oak, Parus major, Passer domesticus, periwinkle, Phylloscopus collybita, Phylloscopus trochilus, Pica pica, Pica viridis, Prunella modularis, Pyrrhula pyrrhula, robin, rook, songthrush, sparrowhawk, starling, Sternus vulgaris, Streptopelia decaocto, Sylvia atricapilla, Sylvia communis, Turdus merula, Turdus philomelos, whitethroat, willow warbler, wood pigeon, yellow archangel

Bad birdwatching

Posted on March 12, 2011 | Leave a comment

The title of this post is unashamedly borrowed from the book “How to be a bad birdwatcher” by Simon Barnes (The Times sports writer and RSPB columnist), which I started reading today while I was waiting for my son to finish his swimming lesson. Having discovered what was meant by ‘bad birdwatching’ I can’t think of a better way to describe my fascination with birds and wildlife:

“…the first aim of being a bad birdwatcher: the calm delight of the utterly normal, and the rare and sudden delight of the utterly unexpected”. Genius.

I’ll write a review of the book when I’ve finished it, but please don’t hold your breath, reading a book is a fragmented and necessarily slow process these days.

Please forgive my rambling but there is a point to this. This morning I was planning to head to the lake beside the A14 between Histon and the northern edge of Cambridge to look for grebes, geese, ducks and cormorants. However, in the course of the last week I’ve seen green woodpecker on several occasions in and around the carpark at work on Cambridge Science Park. As I still don’t have a good photograph of a green woodpecker I reasoned an early morning stroll around work may enable me to put that straight. So that is where I headed.

Initially there were no woodpeckers to be seen but on a dull grey morning the trees and bushes were alive with birdsong:

Robin singing his heart out in an alder tree. He wasn’t alone, plentiful dunnock and wrens were doing the same…

…as were numerous greenfinch, but this one clammed up as soon as I tried to photograph him. (Whilst taking this picture I was approached by a security man who said my camera looked like a shotgun. With the lens hood on at full zoom maybe a blunderbuss… but not a shotgun, surely!)

Cambridge Science Park is located on the northern edge of Cambridge bordered by the A14 to the north and the A10 to the east, it is around 1km in diameter and in keeping with the rest of this part of Cambridgeshire is as flat as a pancake. It was created in 1970 and some of the old trees and scrub remain between the buildings and the landscaping. These, along with small lakes and streams in drainage ditches form a good variety of habitat which is generally undisturbed.

I’ve worked on Cambridge Science Park for 15 years but I had no idea this WWII pillbox was tucked away in the undergrowth until yesterday. (The pole in front of the dog has bat boxes at the top so I was very pleased to see the proactive approach to conservation).

Consequently there is alot of birdlife, from kestrels and sparrowhawks to water birds – ducks, coot, moorhen – and songbirds – greenfinch, goldfinch, great tit and I’ve seen goldcrest and lapwing on rare occasions. There are plentiful rabbit too and as a result it’s not uncommon to see foxes out the window hunting for a meal.

The Science Park was vibrant with birdsong during my walk and as time progressed the sun came out and it got warmer. I didn’t see any unusual species but the sheer numbers and volume of sound made for a very enjoyable walk.

One of numerous dunnock livening up the Science Park with their Springtime singing…

…and one of a flock of long tailed tit

A male great tit feeding on one of several bird feeding stations

… a magpie

…and a moorhen

Lots of birdlife to be seen, and all within a 500m radius of where I work. But I still hadn’t seen a green woodpecker. So I decided to head over to the lake within 500m of the Science Park where I know there are waterfowl including greylag geese… and green woodpeckers.

The lake didn’t disappoint. There were moorhen, mallard, greylag geese, great crested grebes – and even a single green woodpecker which was flushed up from the ground and disapperad into some distant and inaccessible trees.

Male, left, and female mallard

Greylag goose

The greylag goose is the bulkiest of the Anser goose genus and is the species (Anser anser) from which domesticated geese originate. Studies of greylag geese led the zoologist Konrad Lorenz to rediscover the theory of imprinting – the phenomenon you are probably familiar with, of baby nidifugous birds (those which leave the nest at a very early age) imprinting on their parents, which can be a human being if that is the first creature they encounter after hatching.

Konrad Lorenz was an interesting man and a glance at his Wikipedia entry reveals he was an Austrian biological scientist, born in 1903. He graduated from Vienna University as a medic in 1928 and received his zoological doctorate in 1933. He joined the Nazi Party and indicated his support for their ‘racial hygeine‘ theories (one of the worst obscenities of the 20th century in my opinion), accepted a chair at the University of Konigsberg in 1940, joined the Wehrmacht as a medic and was shortly after captured by the Russians and eventually repatriated to Germany in 1948. He went on to study aspects of animal behaviour, later extrapolating these to apply to humans, and in 1973 he received the Nobel Prize for medicine for studies on social behaviour patterns.

Returning to natural history, there was a pair of great crested grebe on the lake which I were hoping were going to display:

But this time I was unlucky. When displaying, they swim away from each other then turn simultaneously and swim rapidly toward each other and when they meet they rear up in a necking dance before repeating the whole process. I haven’t yet been able to get photographs of this beautiful courtship ritual, but I’ll keep looking.

I said at the top of this post that there was a point to the ‘bad birdwatching’ reference. I set out yesterday specifically to try to photograph green woodpeckers which I think are spectacular. I only caught a fleeting glimpse of a woodpecker, and no pictures, but I had a lovely time looking and seeing all the other wildlife.

So I guess by Simon Barnes definition I’m a fairly shabby example of the birdwatching fraternity! But I’ll live with that.

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Posted in Birds, Garden birds, Walks around Cambridge and Histon

Tagged Aegithalos caudatus, Anas platyrhynchos, Anser anser, bat box, Cambridge Science Park, Carduelis carduelis, Carduelis chloris, conservation, coot, courtship ritual, duck, dunnock, Erithacus rubecula, fox, Fulica atra, Gallinula chloropus, goldcrest, goldfinch, great crested grebe, great tit, green woodpecker, greenfinch, greylag geese, How to be a bad birdwatcher, imprinting, kestrel, Konrad Lorenz, long tailed tit, magpie, mallard, moorhen, Parus major, Pica pica, Picus viridis, Podiceps cristatus, Prunella modularis, rabbit, Regulus regulus, robin, Simon Barnes, sparrowhawk, Troglodytes troglodytes, wren

Fen Drayton nature reserve

Posted on February 12, 2011 | Leave a comment

Before I tell you about my outing to Fen Drayton here’s a short update on the forest sell off. After denying they are backtracking, the Government has said they may reduce the amount of forest they are getting rid of. Plans to lose 15% of the 258,000 hectares of publicly owned forest are on hold whilst the government ‘re-examine the criteria‘ for the sale. I’m hoping this is government style smoke-and-mirror speak for ‘we’re deciding whether we should proceed at all‘. Time will tell. I think any reexamination is good news and maybe a sufficiently loud public outcry will force the powers that be to sit up and take notice of the vox populi on this issue, and maybe a few others too.

I didn’t manage a wildlife post last week, other events overtook me including the weather, which was blowing a gale at the weekend so I was struggling to see anything through binoculars and photography was completely out the question! So apologies for the omission. There were a few highlights from last weekend though: in a tree in the middle of a field behind Abbey Farm north of Histon I saw a pair of kestrels copulating – which is a fairly unusual sight but it’s good to know the local kestrel population should be increasing this year. Further round towards the Girton road was a big mixed flock of around 50 starling, a similar number of redwing and around 200 fieldfare feeding on the ground and as I was counting these a little egret passed over. I’d been told by a dog walker a couple of weeks ago there was one in that area but this was the first time I’d seen it for myself. Egrets are a comparatively recent addition to the fauna in the UK and they are slowly finding their way northwards in England. The first time I saw them was in the fish market in the middle of Victoria, the capital of the Seychelles, so they have very exotic associations for me and it’s great to see them so close to home.

I set off fairly early in the morning yesterday with my friend to head for Fen Drayton nature reserve which lies between Cambridge and St Ives. It’s a former gravel pit consisting of twelve lakes and ponds which is currently managed by the RSPB. There is a big area of water here interspersed with grassland, scrub woodland, some older more established trees and plenty of reedbeds. So it has a diverse range of habitats that are managed for wildlife and is therefore a good place to see birds.

Far Fen lake showing the varies habitat at Fen Drayton

Despite raining on the way up the A14, by the time we got to the reserve the rain had stopped, leaving complete cloud cover, so the light was very grey as you can see from the landscape shot above. Otherwise the conditions were good: mild, gentle breeze and the occasional, albeit brief, moment of sunshine.

The omens were good too when on the way to Fen Drayton we saw a hare running across a field, and on the approach to the reserve three bullfinch including at least two males were flitting along the hedge just in front of the car. When we were getting out of the car in the car park we could here a cetti’s warbler singing and three green woodpeckers rose up off the ground in quick succession just in front of us.

As we stopped to look at a group of tufted duck on the small pond north of Holywell Lake a jay which we had watched fly across the field appeared in some dead trees on an island in the pond and started stripping big chunks of bark from the tree, possibly looking for food it had stashed there previously. Jays are amazingly good at stashing and are aware that their fellow jays do the same and so will keep a look out to see if they are being watched. If they see another jay paying attention to their activities they will pretend to stashe and then fly off and hide the swag somewhere else.

Four tufted duck – one female and three males on the pond north of Holywell Lake. Note the piercing yellow eyes and the crest

Tufted duck are resident on lakes and we also get migrants visiting in the winter when they stop over on rivers and estuaries too. They’re omnivores and feed by diving to the bottom to sift food from the mud. I think they’re handsome birds especially when they turn their yellow eye to look at you.

Constant companions throughout our walk were chaffinch and great tit. They were present in numbers in almost every tree or bush I looked in.

Chaffinch male in a tree singing for a mate

There were a plethora of other small birds including blue tit, wren, dunnock, robin, goldfinch and long tailed tit. On a bright day it’s now a good time of year to look for and photograph birds because they are actively seeking mates and there are no leaves on the trees to conceal them.

One of a flock of around 7 long tailed tits whizzing through the trees – they’re fiendishly difficult to photograph like that so this is as good as it got!

There was almost a full house of the five common crows – jay, carrion crow, rook – but no jackdaw. There were quite a few magpies though:

This chap was bouncing around the car park

Coot abounded on all the lakes but the stars of the day were the ducks of which there were many species including our common or garden mallard, shoveller, tufted duck, gadwall and wigeon…

A single male wigeon on Oxholme Lake

… but the real star of the show was the goldeneye. There were displaying male goldeneye on Far Fen Lake but alas they were much too far away to get a photograph. They are also resident breeders with migrants arriving in the winter months too.

Mute swan were present on several of the lakes and a couple came over in flight too:

The A380 of the avian world…

And as with all good nature reserves the wildlife wasn’t solely ornithological. This beautiful little fungus was on a stem next to the path.

Dacrymyces chrysospermum – unfortunately I couldn’t find a common name for this resupinate fungus but its sumptuous colour against the green lichen on the tree stem is striking.

All in all Fen Drayton was a great venue for a Saturday morning wildlife adventure and I’ll be posting from here again before too long.

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Posted in Birds, Campaigns, Walks around Cambridge and Histon

Tagged Abbey Farm, Aegithalos caudatus, Anas clypeata, Anas penelope, Anas platyrhynchos, Anas strepera, Aythia fuligula, blue tit, Bucephala clangula, bullfinch, Cambridgeshire, Carduelis carduelis, carrion crow, cetti's warbler, Cettia cetti, chaffinch, coot, Corvus corone, Corvus frugilegus, Cyanistes caerulius, Cygnus olor, Dacrymyces chrysospermum, dunnock, Egretta garzetta, Erithacus rubecula, falco tinnunculus, Fen Drayton, fieldfare, forest sell-off, Fringilla coelebs, Fulica atra, fungi, gadwall, Garrulus glandarius, goldeneye, goldfinch, great tit, green woodpecker, histon, jay, kestrel, little egret, long tailed tit, magpie, mallard, mute swan, nature reserve, Parus major, Pica pica, Picus viridis, Prunella modularis, Pyrrhula pyrrhula, redwing, resupinate, robin, rook, RSPB, shoveller, starling, Sturnus vulgaris, Troglodytes troglodytes, tufted duck, Turdus iliacus, Turdus pilaris, wigeon, wren

9th January birdwalk

Posted on January 9, 2011 | Leave a comment

The weather on the 9th was dominated by two features: bright warm sunshine and a biting northerly wind. They were combining to make some brisk but very pleasant walking weather so I spent the morning exploring Guns Lane and fields north of Histon. Rowleys Meadow was very quiet, apart from the occasional blue tit (Cyanistes caerulius) or wood pigeon (Columba palumbus) and numerous unidentified gulls gliding over. Unusually, the only interesting sightings were a song thrush (Turdus philomelus), a pair of magpie (Pica pica) and a flock of hundreds of fieldfare (Turdus pilaris) which drifted over the field east of the Meadow – none of which were close enough to photograph.

Not long after emerging from the Meadow and turning north up Guns Lane the situation changed dramatically and the hedges were full of birdlife. Blue tit and great tit (Parus major) were busy looking for food and a pair of bullfinch (Pyrrhula pyrrhula) emerged from the hedge heading northward just as a small flock of approximately 15 fieldfare descended into a tree in front of me, remaining in situ until I was directly underneath, in pole position for some photographs:

A pair of fieldfare, and…

…a single one

Shortly after taking these pictures and moving on, a second pair of bullfinch rose out of the hedge. They may have been the same ones as earlier, but I’ve seen bullfinch here on numerous occasions lately so I’m hoping there are more than one pair in residence.

Having turned off the Lane and walked along the south side of a mature hedge containing some big old oak (Quercus robur) and ash (Fraxinus excelsior) trees, I was admiring the perfect symmetry of a woodpecker hole around 5m up an oak tree when I noticed an insect emerge from it. It turned out to be a honeybee (Apis mellifera):

A lone honeybee entering a woodpecker hole casting its shadow on the threshold

And several more toing and froing in the sunshine. I love the texture and colours of this gnarled old oak tree

I was surprised to see so much honeybee activity on a freezing cold January morning. The south facing hedgerow was sheltered from the wind and I think the bright sunshine had warmed up the tree sufficiently to waken the bees from their winter slumber. I was hoping they had sufficient stocks of honey to fuel them through their brief awakening before the cold forced them back into hibernation.

I carried on around the field looping back to Cottenham Road in Histon. The terrain on this route included alot of grassy scrub with patches of brambles and other low arboreal scrub consisting predominantly of hawthorn. A green woodpecker (Picus viridis) rose out the grass and dipped over the field to take cover in a tree and a group of five yellowhammer (Emberiza citrinella), which had been feeding on the ground, rose up and headed into another old oak tree which I’d passed by a couple of hundred metres back. As I about-turned to try to get a photo they upped sticks and returned to their original location on the ground where, where their amazing camouflage rendered them completely invisible even from a distance of about 5m, As I approached so close they again flew into the same old tree and as their place on the ground and the tree were a fair distance apart I decided not to disturb them again.

The landscape here looked as though it will be rich with birdlife in the Spring and Autumn so I’ll hopefully report more sightings as the year progresses

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Posted in Birds, Walks around Cambridge and Histon

Tagged Apis mellifera, blue tit, bullfinch, Columba palumbus, common ash, Cyanistes caerulius, Emberiza citrinella, European oak, fieldfare, Fraxinus excelsior, great tit, green woodpecker, honeybee, magpie, Parus major, Pica pica, Picus viridis, Pyrrhula pyrrhula, Quercus robur, song thrush, Turdus philomelus, Turdus pilaris, wood pigeon, yellowhammer

New Year Nature

Posted on January 6, 2011 | 1 comment

The most spectacular natural phenomenon to occur over the New Year period was, in my opinion, the partial eclipse on the morning of Tuesday 4th January. It commenced before daybreak in the orient and by the time the sun rose in the UK it was well underway. A very early-morning glance through the curtains in Histon suggested the cloud cover would scupper any attempts to view it from here. The eclipse was due to complete around 9.30am and with an immense stroke of good fortune the clouds parted to reveal a blazing sun low in the eastern sky at 9.05 so I ran around the house trying to find a suitable eye shield to view it through. Grabbing the chance of a breakfast time chocolate feast my daughter suggested cellophane wrappers peeled from some leftover Christmas confectionery, a stroke of genius on two levels. Alas, by the time there were sufficient to enable safe viewing, the image was so blurred as to be useless. So I rapidly retrieved some old photographic negatives from the attic and several layers of these provided an excellent filter for the purpose. We saw the partially occluded sun and I even managed to fire off a couple of photographs, so here’s the best one:

Partial solar eclipse at 9.15am on Tuesday 4th
January 2011 from Cambridge UK.

In terms of wildlife there have been a few highlights in the last week. I spent most of my walking time around Guns Lane and Abbey Farm north of Histon and the field to the west of the Lane, lying between it and Abbey Farm, known locally as ‘Rowleys Meadow’, is turning out to be a real treasure trove. A pair of kestrels (Falco tinnunculus) are in residence, usually found in the top of a tree which appeared in my ‘Guns Lane‘ post from the end of November last year.

Kestrel pair are regularly seen at the top of this particular
tree. The top one is a male and the lower individual a female.

A buzzard (Buteo buteo) has also been in the vicinity at least since New Years Day when it flew low over the meadow heading east and was spotted again on the 3rd perched in a tree further north along the Lane. I spent several minutes slowly working my way along the hedge to get into position for a photograph when a pair of mountain bikes coming the other way flushed it out. I’ll have to wait for my shot of a perching buzzard.

…so here it is making its exit with a fieldfare lurking in the bush bottom right

The most exciting encounter with a bird prey occurred on New Years Day whilst heading back from walking the dog in the Histon Fields. An orchard opposite my house has been home to flocks of redwing (Turdus iliacus) and fieldfare (Turdus pilaris) for most of the Christmas holiday. Approaching home at the end of our walk a female sparrowhawk (Accipiter nisus) approached at very high speed around 8 feet from the ground entering the orchard like a feathery Exocet! To be followed a split second later by a chorus of alarm calls as what seemed like hundreds of redwing scattered in all directions. I couldn’t see if she was rewarded with a meal.

Bullfinch (Pyrrhula pyrrhula) continue to maintain a presence on the lane, three individuals consisting of two males and a female provided a splash of colour in the tree tops on a grey day last week, and I flushed out a pair low down from a hedge further along the Lane. Flocks of long tailed tits (Aegithalos caudatus) are often chasing each other along the hedge and several days ago were accompanied by either a goldcrest (Regulus regulus) or firecrest (Regulus ignicapilla). It was most likely a goldcrest as firecrest are considerably more scarce and goldcrest are often found amongst flocks of tits. It was too close to focus binoculars on and the light was too murky to see the colours properly, so I couldn’t confirm the identity, but I’ll be keeping my eyes peeled in the hope of seeing it again.

Other species I see on most of my trips along the lane include a pair of green woodpecker (Picus viridis) , song thrush (Turdus philomelus), mistle thrush (Turdus viscivorus), redwing, fielfare and blackbird (Turdus merula)- five Turdus species which on several occasions have all been in the meadow at the same time.

Fieldfare in the top of a tree on Guns Lane

Waxwing (Bombycilla garrulus) continue to grace us with there presence. I’ve had a report from a colleague of a flock feeding on rowan berries on Kings Hedges Road, Cambridge, and my sister told me of a ‘treefull’ she’d spotted in a supermarket carpark in Kettering. Although a quick look in Garden Walk in Histon, where I saw them last week, suggested they may have moved on as there were none around and the trees and bushes had been virtually stripped clean of berries.

The heron (Ardea cinerea) is spotted around the north of Histon on a frequent basis, flying over and perched on numerous rooves including one behind my house which just happens to have a fishpond in the garden:

Grey heron sizing up a fishpond for an early morning raid in Normanton Way, Histon

It has some primary flight feathers missing on its left wing identifying it as the same one I posted about previously, feeding on pollock in my friends garden, then tapping on his window to ask for more.

Another friend of mine has reported sightings of blackcap (Sylvia atricapilla) and redpoll (Carduelis cabaret) in his garden in the last couple of weeks too. So there is a splendid variety of birdlife of all shapes and sizes to be seen now in a garden near you.

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Posted in Astronomy, Birds, Walks around Cambridge and Histon

Tagged Accipiter nisus, astronomy. eclipse, blackbird, blackcap, bullfinch, Buteo buteo, Buzzard, Carduelis cabaret, falco tinnunculus, fierdfare, firecrest, goldcrest, green woodpecker, kestrel, mistle thrush, partial solar eclipse, Picus viridis, Pyrrhula pyrrhula, redpoll, redwing, Regulus ignicapilla, Regulus regulus, song thrush, sparrowhawk, Sylvia atricapilla, Turdus iliacus, Turdus merula, Turdus philomelus, Turdus pilaris, Turdus viscivorus

Weekend field walks 9th and 10th October 2010

Posted on October 10, 2010 | 3 comments

This Saturday (9th October,2010) I was lucky enough to be accompanied by my friend David on a long walk around the Histon countryside. David is a zoologist and knows considerably more about the wildlife than myself, consequently it was a terrific walk and something of an education.

We set off around 8.15am and the weather was mild but very grey with 100% low cloud cover. Very soon after entering the fields we heard a jay making alot of noise in some trees bordering gardens at the back of the main road. As we passed a small sycamore tree a possible meadow pipit passed overhead and we heard a second flying past later on in our walk. Shortly after that a large flock of golden plover flew over at high speed and several groups varying in size from approximately 5-10 up to 70-80 were spotted in the air and on the ground in several other fields. Many evenings whilst walking at night last winter I heard birds on the ground making a short whistle consisting of a single note and had no idea which species was responsible. Our golden plovers in the air were making exactly the same noise so the mystery of the night time whistlers was solved too. A kestrel and a sparrowhawk made solitary appearances and a peer into an old tumbledown barn revealed a little owl – a good day for birds of prey.

The mild damp conditions of late have been ideal for fungi. Gorgeous bright yellow heads of the yellow fieldcap mushroom (Bolbitius vitellinus) lined the walk, all at various stages of growth from recently sprouted, just a couple of centimeteres tall with very rounded unopened caps, to old and nibbled specimens around 10cm tall and the caps more dull in colour and 4-5cm in diameter:

Recently emerged yellow fieldcap mushrooms

Older yellow fieldcap

A cluster of four mature yellow fieldcaps

We also found a ‘substance’ which preliminary inspection suggested the most likely identity was dog vomit! It occurred every few paces for several hundered metres wrapped around grass stems – suggesting a very poorly dog. When it was gently disturbed at the edge it had a powdery consistency and blew away in the breeze like dry Ready Brek. It varied in colour from grey/white to pale buttery yellow, so we concluded it must have been some kind of mould:

Mucilago crustacea – a slime mould. This stuff can move slowly to new food. Only at a snails pace, but don’t stand still for too long!

Toward the end of our outing as we headed back to the village a small flock of gulls consisting of a lone herring gull, a black headed gull and around 30 lesser black backed gull were beautifully contrasted against the dark ground in a ploughed field. Despite the grey weather it was a great day for wildlife.

After the nature fest on Saturday followed by just one or two small drinks with some good friends in the evening, I contemplated a shorter stroll this morning to blow away the cobwebs. But the weather was absolutely glorious and the profusion of birdlife resulted in another whole morning spent in the countryside. I heard six green woodpecker, one of which was exiting an old oak tree at high speed having been flushed out by a buzzard. A second buzzard appeared over the farmhouse with a sparrowhawk shadowing it right overhead but at much greater height. The buzzard quartered the fields and then headed off south west over Histon:

The unmistakeable shape of a buzzard. I love watching
big birds of prey so seeing two buzzards in one walk
was very special

Despite the weather no swallows were around today, I saw small numbers (less than 10) on Saturday and Sunday last weekend but we’re now heading towards mid-October so the last stragglers must be heading for Africa.

Many songbirds put in an appearance today which has been an unusual event since the harvest got underway at the beginning of August. Two yellowhammer, two corn bunting, numerous reed bunting, dunnock, blue tit, robin and a pied wagtail were all spotted today.

A corn bunting on the right and a male reed bunting sitting together and as I watched a female reed bunting arrived. Marvellous!

Yellowhammer

I was particularly pleased to see the wagtail, it’s the first one I’ve seen in the fields this year, whereas last year they were on display almost every day. I hope that’s not a nationwide phenomenon.

A lone kestrel and two sparrowhawks were up and about today so another good day for birds of prey. Also as yesterday, many skylark were extremely active playing tag and because of the lovely weather they were singing up high. I managed to go one better with the pipits of yesterday as I watched one fly up out of a small bush when disturbed by me landing in another one about 30m away in full view. The local churchyard rooks were omnipresent, digging out invertebrates in most of the fields accompanied by countless wood pigeon and carrion crows.

It was difficult to choose a highlight from this weekend, but as I sat on a tractor trailer in the sunshine making some notes a common darter dragonfly buzzed past and settled on an old plough to sun itself. It’s late in the year for dragonflies so that was good to see.

Mature male common darter warming up in the morning sunshine sat on an old plough

I shall post again soon about our local birds and hopefully next time I shall have seen the first winter immigrants such as fieldfare and redwing. Fingers crossed.