Birding Return

 

It is such a strange sensation returning to blogging, and indeed strange returning to nature watching after a near half year away. Mid-May was my last blog post, since then a combination of booking too many events during the summer, writing my daily blog (now ended), becoming membership secretary of the Richard Jefferies Society, joining the John Moore Society after being invited to be a guest at their AGM and unplanned hospital fiddling's by surgeons, somehow the summer passed me by without a single day out watching wildlife. And then like busses, this weekend I partook in two days back-to-back outdoors. Steart Marshes on Saturday and WWT Slimbridge Sunday.

I have something of a love-hate relationship with Steart Marshes. Every time I've visited I've seen maybe 5 or 6 species of bird, mostly dark specks miles away on the mud of the Bristol Channel. This reserve is best at high tide, therefore on Saturday I found myself there just before a very high 4.7m tide. That brought the birds in, but they are still an awfully long way away from the various viewing platforms dotted about.  Not that I was complaining as Saturday was warm and sunny after a night of torrential rain. 

Starlings are now beginning to gather with small murmurations taking place as I walked about. Good numbers of gulls, lapwing and mixed corvid flocks much in evidence too. I could hear redshank somewhere but never really saw them, small flocks of meadow pipit and linnet too. Overhead a solitary skylark sang, which was welcome for mid October.  In total I walked about 5km, the most I've walked for months and it felt good to be out again watching the numerous dragonflies buzzing around me.

To be honest I had planned to do a morning sitting still and watching, but on this perfect autumnal day, walking continuously was the end result of my endeavours. I even abandoned thoughts of sitting watching the River Parrett from a welcoming bench half way through the ramble. The river was full, that was a high tide indeed.

Once again the rain came overnight Saturday and it hammered down, as it seems to do every two days at the moment. Sunday dawned dry but everything was dripping wet. I was on a pre-planned visit to Slimbridge with my ex-NHU radio friends. We'd arranged to go to Bredon Hill to look for ring ouzel, however the forecast was for Storm Ashley to barrel herself across the countryside today - Bredon is not known for offering any shelter so we rearranged to visit Slimbridge (the café, facilities and watertight hides a bonus at our advanced time of life). I got to Slimbridge at about 9.30am and, though overcast, it was very pleasant, not least as a flock of redwing seep-seep'd across the car-park. I've been hearing them for about a fortnight at home. 

My friends arrived half an hour later (I'd not seen the email saying 10am start) and we set off. I'm assuming the media attention for Storm Ashley meant that the fear of Armageddon conspired to keep everyone away - Slimbridge was gloriously quiet all day.  Birding wise it was excellent as always, 50+ snipe just metres away from the Rushy hide, where good numbers of black tailed godwit, pintail, mallard, redshank, coot, moorhen, teal, wigeon, greylag and Canada geese were enriched by a passing marsh harrier, lapwing and starling. It is still a little early for the winter swans, mid November is when the Bewick's return.

We then wandered up to the Estuary Tower where high tide at 11am was bringing everything up onto the fields, including Storm Ashley. We'd only been there about ten minutes when I noticed Wales disappearing behind advancing rain. At that point we were on the open viewing platform at the very top and had been having superb views of three spotted redshank. Within five minutes the rain began, joined at the hip by very strong gusty winds. A squally front was on it's way through - so squally that the fire alarms in the Estuary hide were triggered, not once but twice. We hunkered down and sat it out, it was like being inside a huge washing machine, it's a long time since I've seen such violent rain bursts, the hide windows were dribbling onto the floor which soon became quite wet. But then as quickly as it arrived, the rain front left and the sun came out, remaining with us until 5pm when I left. 

Slimbridge never disappoints despite being a focal point reserve. The captive areas, such as the avocet-ruff-redshank combination above are fascinating and great for allowing families to get close to birds. But it is the wild areas which bring in a lot of interesting passage migrants, we even found a greenshank, in amongst some redshank. Actually that was one of the highlights of the day, in one single view, redshank, spotted redshank and greenshank next to each other. Another highlight being a fence hosting 30+ rooks, one perched on every post facing the wind and sitting it out.  We were told that a curlew sandpiper was out on the estuary somewhere, we never did try to find it, but did see the Ross hybrid Snow goose which has been about for a while.

All in all though it was a very good day and a very good weekend being out again. I was tired though by the end of the day at Slimbridge.  I've been used to comfy chairs, afternoon naps and tartan slippers for too long this year. But it felt good to be getting buffeted out there, sun blasted or pummelled by rain. It must have good as it had the affect of inspiring me to write again after all these months. As my consultant said to me over the summer, sadly you are now medically classed as a geriatric, things will happen to you. Well that may be the case, but it's good to be alive, even if I continue to struggle to get my socks on in the morning.

The Quiet Woods

Last weekend Julie was at Lydney Park in the Forest of Dene for an Equine Psychotherapy workshop, which apparently from all accounts was fantastic. Anyway I thought as I don't know that area very well, I'll offer to drive Julie there and back each day and that will give me 4 hours a day to amuse myself, with a spot of walking-cum-birdwatching.

Safely dispatched on Saturday I headed off to a place called Tidenham Chase. I've had to look up some facts and figures, but this area of Gloucestershire sandwiched between the River Severn, and Chepstow in Wales was a real gem of a find. It had a real feel of isolation, yet as the crow flies, just 15 miles from Bristol.

Parking the car I headed into the woods which have recorded woodcock, nightjar, crossbills and other classic boreal avians. Today though, and as is oft the case in mid winter woodlands the birdlife was sparse and hard to see.

I didn't mind, the day was sunny, mild (for December) and I was just enjoying the walk, when all of a sudden I came across these free range pigs. This is how pigs should be kept, not indoors. The gentle snuffling and grunts told me they were happy pigs, if a little dirty.

There is something magical about being in a silent wood in mid-winter. There is a heady presence of silence everywhere, mainly as the birds are mostly silent at this time of the year. Yet this silence is just a smoke screen for life carrying as normal, if we just look a little harder, such as these flies, grabbing as much warmth from the suns rays as it is possible to do in mid December.

The views up here across the River Severn to "mainland Gloucestershire" were stunning, and if you are wondering that's Berkley Nuclear Reactor on the distant shoreline.

Tidenham Chase seems to actually be an amalgam of smaller woodland areas. This area, as was most of the Forest of Dene, was a mining region, so there is much evidence of past exploitation of the coal reserves underground. At an adjoining woodland called Parson's Allotments, I stumbled across this monument.

And try as I might I can not find out what this monument is about. The inscription said VP 1837-97 (or was it 1867, it had some damage to it). Was VP the Parson of the woods name? I'd be interested to know more.

I did see some wildlife of course. This buzzard idly flew up from the woodland floor and sat looking at me. Which helped me enormously as while watching the buzzard, I noticed a small number of marsh tits flitting about, 3 or 4, but on looking at one of them, one had a very sooty black head, was this a willow tit? It's so hard to tell them apart without song. The marsh tit's did call, but not this sooty black chap, so I can't be certain but my hunch was 3 marsh and a single willow. Quite possible as around these 4 birds were half a dozen blue and great tit. Mixed tit flocks are a very familiar sight in the winter, although long tailed tits, of which I saw many by the pigs, do not seem to be as sociable.

This active hole was also a nice find, woodpecker possibly, but given the damage to the tree around the hole itself it is more probably being used by grey squirrels as a winter site, but again maybe little owl, other birds, even bats, if abandoned.

And so I wound my way back to the car after a glorious 3 hour ramble in December sunshine; it wasn't spectacular, just a pleasant walk in silence.

Sadly the next day, Sunday, brooded dull and the threat of rain in the air. Again Julie safely installed in her Yurt, I headed inland this time to the area around Nagshead, the RSPB site. To begin with I decided to have a wander about the area before visiting the reserve. I have to admit something here, in that I just headed off without really having a clue where I was. Even carrying a map was pointless as I didn't really know where I'd started from. But that didn't matter I was following old forestry tracks so couldn't really get lost.

This hole intrigued me. Ashamedly I've done the classic faux pas of not scaling this. It was about 4-5mm across and on a sandy substrate. I wonder if it is an oil beetle chamber, or mining bee, though a bit late in the season for them. I asked a few colleagues and they're a bit stumped too. Any ideas out there?

No mistaking this jay. I'm a huge fan of all corvids, and jays just fascinate me. But (my incompetence not their ability) I've never ever managed to get a descent photo of one. They're off faster than I can get the camera ready.

A lot of lichen can be found in the Forset of Dene, such as this fairly common Ramalina spp. The forest semed to be good for lichen, presumably due to the ancientness of the area's woodland, and of course being on the west, slightly damper conditions. The forest's longevity is partly due to it's proximity between Wales and England, so, as with many border areas, they weren't developed. Also the low-impact mining which carried on here needed timber for the mine shafts, so there continued a continuity of tree cover rather than clearance for agriculture. You can read more about ancient woodlands and their epiphytes here.

Plenty of squirrel dreys around here too, sadly not the reds, and another interesting sight of some cracking Stereum spp. fungi on stacked logs, which was good to see being left here in a Forestry Commission plantation.

I finally made it to the RSPB's Nagshead reserve just as the rain began to become more frequent. But I was here and decided for one last push and so tramping again through silent woods, I reached the hide, in excitement of possibly seeing mandarin ducks. Absolutely nothing, not a single bird within 100 yards.

But on the way back a nice collection of sulphur tuft fungi on a tree stump. So again the woods may be silent with birdsong, but if we look, there's a lot to see.

So that was it, two days exploring a part of the UK I'm not at all familiar with. It is very hard work birdwatching in woodlands in mid-winter, I probably saw 20 species in 2 days, including some lovely nuthatch on the Sunday. But that's not the point. It's all about getting out there and looking for other signs of life. There are birds there, but they're silent and often hidden. But look closely and we can see lichen, moss, fungi, as well as signs and tracks. And on this last point I shall end this posting.

The Forest of Dene is well known as being home to reintroduced wild boar. While getting myself completely lost in the forest on Sunday, I stumbled across a wild boar area. Optimistically, I'm sure I heard a single grunt from a distance, but in reality I didn't see a boar. I'd love to and think they're a fantastic addition to the UK countryside. But in the area I stumbled across there were many many signs of very recent activity.

Wild boar slot (quite similar to some deer)

a chewing post, and of course the uprooting they do along wide tracks.

To see these it's best to be out there in the dawn or dusk, so I may just have to ask Julie to go and book herself onto another course in the not too distant future...........!!

Up with the larks

Planned to go birding today with three other birders I've known for a while who are a lot more experienced than I am. I tagged along very much as the pupil. 8.15 am rendesvous on the Somerset Levels for a fry up before the off. Which meant a 7am depart from here. Boy was it cold setting off, I'm only glad my car has a self defrosting windscreen. Glorious sunrise over Bruton on the drive up.

The Levels were gloriously frosted, but we headed to the Mendips for a Grey Shrike (not found) but a nice Roe deer, complete with antlers in velvet, 2 Mistle Thrush were the highlights. Then down to Cheddar Resevoir, where almost immediately across the other side of the water, a "small grebe" was spotted, which after a quick dash over there was confirmed as a Red Necked Grebe. How on earth that was spotted half a km away through a scope is a mystery to me but proves we all lean something from others. Great Crested Grebes are also well into courtship display. Left Cheddar after clocking a male Siskin and Blackcap, and headed to Shapwick NNR for the Firecrest. Firecrest not found by bird song specialist, but fair numbers of passerines.

Left : Looking for the firecrest at Shapwick !

Sadly I had to depart then, while they headed off to Minehead and Hinckly for Iceland Gull (Text confirmed they'd bagged that one in a carpark) and high tide. The drive home saw me stop at a field near Yeovil, containing 9 Buzzard, 200+ Lapring, while over the lane 50+ Fieldfare.

In Afternoon had a quick look down at the river here, 2 Roe deer in the thicket, and a chiffchaff singing.

Later at about 10.30pm as we drove back from Yeovil having seen the Ukelele Orchestra of Britain (I'd recommend these) Barn Owl across the road at Stalbridge Park brings year total to 96. 4 more to top the 100 species by end Feb.