Garden Bunting

While the garden is beginning to look really good after the hard work we've put into it this year, we aren't about to start hanging out the bunting. That doesn't stop a bunting enjoying the garden though. Specifically a Yellowhammer visited this evening. Sorry about the rather poor photo, but it was taken hand held in poor light (we lose direct sunlight to the garden by about 4 o'clock due to the railway and trees) and through the kitchen window which is definitely in need of a clean.

I haven't heard it sing the traditional "little bit of bread and no cheese" song yet, but I'm assuming it is primarily the male that sings, and this would be a female. Either way a nice new addition to the species list for the garden.

Over The Road And Far Away

Last weekend we managed to have a short holiday in the Lake District (we stayed in Grasmere and there will likely be more post covering the actual holiday) which as well as being an excellent break from work meant we got to test out the new camera I talked about in the previous post.

After three days of heavy use we are both extremely happy with the camera, although there are still a bunch of features we haven't played with yet. The photo I picked to illustrate this post shows off the x30 optical zoom quite well. We heard the woodpecker well before I managed to spot him on the other side of the road a few yards into a small woodland. Not only did the zoom allow me to get a decent shot but the auto-focus didn't get too confused by all the overlapping branches either. And the GPS co-ordinates embedded in the photo are as accurate as you could hope for (within the 30m accuracy figure often quoted for commercial GPS systems).

All in all I'm happy enough with the camera that I'd certainly recommend it to other people.

She Wears A Black Cap

Since we bought our house we've seen quite a few interesting birds in the garden some of which I've blogged about (try here and here) and Bullfinches are now so common as to not be something out of the ordinary. Recently though we have had a new interesting visitor to the garden; a female Blackcap.

Apologies for the state of the photo but it was shot on full auto, at the limit of the camera, through a window that needs cleaning, and without the help of a tripod; i.e. not ideal shooting conditions. Anyway at least it helps record the fact that a female Blackcap was eating the tayberries (incidentally I've now picked over 6lbs and turned 3lbs into jam). This was actually the second time I'd seen the female, but we definately have a pair in the area as the first bird I saw eating the tayberries was the slightly easier to identify male.

The Last 8 Seconds

Last Sunday Bryony and I spent an hour counting the birds visiting our garden as part of the RSPB's Big Garden Birdwatch. This is something we've done a number of times before and this year we saw the usual suspects; Robin, Blue Tit, Blackbird, Starling, Sparrow. We also had more interesting birds such as Goldfinches, Long Tailed Tits, Bullfinches, and a Siskin (which interestingly we've never seen before in this garden although we have seen during a Big Garden Birdwatch at our previous house). We also had a Sparrowhawk make a passing appearance. Unfortunately the Sparrowhawk decided to reduce our Bullfinch count by one! These two photos were, according to the camera, taken just eight seconds apart.

Now firstly from these photos it is clear that I need to clean the windows and use a faster shutter speed, but just after I'd taken the first photo the Bullfinch went right, straight into the path of the Sparrowhawk and became lunch. Now I have no problem with the Sparrowhawk needing to eat but why couldn't it have gone for one of the more numerous species? A Sparrow maybe? I'm sure they would taste roughly the same!

Bird Food

We have quite a few sources of bird food in the garden: there are five feeders as well as lots of wild flowers (the Goldfinches especially love the ragwort seed heads). I assume this means that we have quite a few small birds regularly visiting the garden. In turn this means that we are indirectly feeding this female Sparrowhawk.

She sat on top of the bird feeder for a good ten minutes happily surveying the garden. Of course any bird with any sense had buried itself so far into the undergrowth there was nothing else moving anywhere I could see. This is the third time I've seen the Sparrowhawk in the garden but the first time I've seen it sat and been able to photograph it at my leisure. Unfortunately the light was fading and I was shooting through a window which is in serious need of a wash so the photos could be better, but still a pleasant end to the day.

Status: RED

We get a lot of birds in the garden, but they are usually common species; robin, sparrow, blackbird, goldfinch, starling etc. Since we moved in I've also seen less common birds including a single Great Spotted Woodpecker and a flock of Fieldfares. Last Sunday though we increased the number of birds we have seen in the garden, which also appear on the RSPB's red list, to three.

Unfortunately a host of factors conspired against me getting a good photo. It was late in the evening and the light was poor, I took the photo through a window that needs cleaning, and the white balance setting on the camera was accidentally set for florescent lighting. Anyway after playing with the photo a bit I'm happy enough with it as proof that we did indeed have a Linnet sitting in the apple tree for a few minutes.

I've had the camera setup on a tripod ready all week in case it comes back but so far nothing. Maybe it was just passing through, but hopefully it will be back and I'll be ready for it this time.

Garden Birds

Bryony has already blogged about the huge numbers of birds we had in the garden last weekend, when it snowed, so I won't go into lots of details. What was so odd though was that I don't think I've ever seen so many of the same species in the garden at once. There was around twenty fieldfares at one point, although as they often move in a flock that wasn't too surprising. The weird thing was we had three song thrushes at the same time, something we have never had before. We also had three robins but they were just as likely to be attacking each other as they were to be found eating the food -- some of the photos show blood on the snow!

Spot The Bittern Competition

We spent Saturday at Potteric Carr Nature Reserve. Whilst you are quite likely to see lots of interesting wildlife the one bird everyone goes to see at this time of year is the Bittern. We did manage to see one (two in fact) although always at something of a distance. Just to show you how difficult they can be to spot try playing spot the Bittern in this photograph.

If you don't know what a Bittern looks like then the RSPB has some useful drawings. If you still can't see it then I'll give you a hint, it's looking right and has it's head down. When you give up just click the image and you'll get a version where I've ringed the Bittern to make it more obvious.

This was the best view we got of the Bittern, other than a quick glimpse of it flying. A friend of mine actually went and sat in the same hide on Sunday and spent about 45 minutes watching it walk right across the front of the hide just 12 feet in front of him. I guess he was just in the right place at the right time. It would have been nice to get such a good view but we had a great day and would have enjoyed the trip even if we hadn't seen the Bittern at all.

Unable to Fly

I was happily cooking dinner last night when I saw a weird looking bird out of the corner of my eye. From a distance all I could see was a mound of fluffy black/brown feathers. Closer inspection revealed.... well I'm assuming it is a blackbird but whatever it is it shouldn't have been let out of the nest on it's own! The poor thing couldn't fly. It would get about a centimetre off the floor before crashing back to earth.

It didn't seem too distressed though and after posing for a few photos hopped out of sight under a sharp prickly hedge and so should be all right for a while. We made sure there was plenty of bird food on the ground feeder so hopefully it won't go hungry.

Not Actually A Greenfinch

A month or so ago we were watching the birds on the feeders in the back garden as part of the RSPB's Big Garden Birdwatch.

When a green, finch sized bird landed on the feeder we were about to tick of Greenfinch when we both decided that actually it was just too green -- the water between the panes of the double glazed kitchen window didn't help the view.

We quickly realised that we weren't looking at a Greenfinch but rather a Siskin -- not something we have ever seen in the garden before (here or in any of the other houses we have lived in). Unfortunately I didn't manage to get a photo but Siskin went on the birdwatching list for the RSPB.

We have seen both the male and a female a few times since but yesterday was the first time I managed to get a photo (I stood still long enough in the more exposed conservatory with better windows for the male to happily feed). Of course when you can see the bird clearly (rather than through smeary windows) it is obviously not a Greenfinch.

Tame and Friendly

It turns out that it isn't just in the UK where Robins are very tame. They were quite happy to walk right up to me in Bled as well. Mind you there was a Nuthatch which was just as friendly!

While on the subject of friendly I'd like to take this opportunity to say thank you to anybody working on the LarKC project that may be reading this blog (Hi Frank!). You were all really friendly and went out of your way to make me feel part of the project. Thank You!

Chestnut Centre

We had a wonderful day out yesterday at the Chestnut Centre in Derbyshire with my father-in-law, sister-in-law and her partner. It was exceptionally cold which was exacerbated by that fact that it is difficult to take photos while wearing mittens!

The day didn't start too well after I had relied on Google for driving directions. Unfortunately it directed us down a narrow road through the village of Wash. A few miles down this road you eventually reach a sign that states "Not Suitable for Motor Vehicles". I can't fully blame Google for this as when I looked at a pink (1:50,000) OS map I would have used the same road -- it was yellow and not white. I then compounded the problem by directing us down another road which also became single track. It then became exceptionally steep and covered in ice, at which point the car slid backwards a bit and we had to take a third route to the centre. I was not popular with the driver! Fortunately the rest of the day was so enjoyable I seem to have been forgiven.

The Chestnut Centre is billed as an Otter, Owl and Wildlife Park and the main attraction for me was seeing otters up close for the first time. The star otter is Manoki -- currently the only giant otter in the UK.

There were also a number of other species of otter including a family of Asian Short Clawed otters and a couple of highly photogenic North American River otters.

As well as the otters there were a number of other mammals but unfortunately most were hiding out of the cold. There were, however, plenty of Owls on display, including a Snowy Owl and a Great Grey Owl, as well as yet another very tame Robin.

Having done some falconry on the honeymoon I wasn't as impressed by the Owls as I would have been in the past but it was still nice to see some species that I hadn't seen before.

Just when we thought we just had the gift shop to explore we found we still had harvest mice to see.

I've only put up a small selection of the photos I took, but if you want to see more of the day then you can also look at the photos my father-in-law took.

The Robin -- Britain's Tamest Bird?

Is the Robin Britain's tamest bird? When ever I'm out in the countryside Robins are the birds you can usually get closest to without scaring them off. Often they walk/fly right up to you and don't seem at all bothered by your presence.

They also seem to be the bird I most hear people say they have had in the house. A few months back one flow into our house through an open window and quite happily sat on top of a bookcase. It didn't seem at all worried about being inside. We were more worried about it than it was of us!

Nimue, Puck and Navajo

As I mentioned in the previous post on falconry we had organised two separate sessions while staying at Dalhousie Castle. The second session was all about owls.

We had already flown Bandit the day before and now we got to fly three more owls. The first of which was Nimue, a Mexican Striped Owl.

Nimue was great fun to fly. Not only did he come to the glove without too much coaxing but he was also quite chatty and entertaining. Although as you can tell from the middle picture he clearly likes his food (bits of day old cockerel chicks).

The second owl was Puck, a Little Owl. Now I've seen Little Owls before but only from quite a distance, never this close.

Unfortunately Puck didn't like me at all. He would fly to Bryony's glove without any problems but he wouldn't fly to mine. And he wouldn't even sit on my hand when placed there, he just shrieked loudly and flew off. He was quite happy to let me stroke him when he was one someone else's glove though so I don't really know what the problem was. Anyway, I thought it worth mentioning the strange feather patterning on the back of a Little Owls head. Basically he has the same pattern on the back of his head as he does on the front (the white V like pattern above the eyes) so that from a distance predators can't tell if they are looking at the front or back of his head -- he literally appears to have "eyes in the back of his head". It wasn't so obvious when looking at him close to, but when looking through the view finder of the camera I couldn't work out which way he was facing.

The final owl we got to fly was a Great Grey Owl called Navajo.

Navajo was by far the biggest bird we flew on either day, both in terms of size and weight. While most of him is just feathers he is still a very heavy bird. He also likes his food -- in fact the only way to entice him to fly to the glove was with whole chicks instead of just little bits!

Dolly, Bandit, Jura and Brenin

Both of us have wanted to try our hand at falconry for quite some time. So when we saw that Dalhousie Castle had a falconry centre within the grounds we jumped at the chance, booking two different sessions so we could experience as wide a range of the birds as possible. The first session we had was billed as "The Ultimate Falconry Experience" and is designed to allow you to experience as many of the birds as possible.

We started the session by flying Dolly. Dolly is a Buzzard, the same as you may see flying in the sky across many parts of the UK.

Dolly looked huge, especially when she was flying towards your glove. She was, however, exceptionally light. We were both a bit worried about holding a large heavy bird for too long on our wrists but it really is a shock to find out just how light they really are.

After Dolly we flew Bandit who is a New Zealand BooBook Owl. Given that Bandit is an owl he flies and sits very much like a hawk.

Bandit was definitely our favourite bird to fly, although some of the birds that couldn't be flown (some were mating and some malting) may well have challenged for our affections.

After Bandit, we had a demonstration of Jura, a female kestrel, flying to a lure. Bryony actually got to hold Jura while we walked to the area and the falconer started to spin the lure. To look at close too Jura was one of the best birds. All the more interesting as we see kestrels so often but never close enough to really appreciate their fantastic colouring.

After Jura, we moved onto the last bird of the session; Brenin a Harris' Hawk. Don't get me wrong flying Brenin was really good fun, but he just wasn't quite as engaging as any of the other birds. That and the fact that he tried to take your head off every time he jumped from the glove and his propensity to throw dead chicken down the front of your t-shirt didn't really help.

All in all a very enjoyable morning and something that if you haven't tried before you really should.