Yesterday I nipped out to Swithland Res. for a long overdue County Tick ....
I've never once made an effort to see any of the Glossy Ibis that have
popped up in the County over the last few years since the first in 2011. It's
not like I've seen lots of them in UK, just a couple. Ultimately, I think that
despite the esoteric name, quite often they look unicolorous and skanky and I
just don't feel compelled to go and see one. I only went for this one as the
site was likely to be easier work than lugging a scope around the northern
Soar Valley or - worse - going to Rutland Water.
But it wasn't a case of just rocking up and looking at it; it had been in view
but got flushed by a fisherman's bait boat just before I arrived mid-morning.
Eventually it popped back up but in the SE corner of the Northern section
where viewing is a bit more limited. And, as usual, watching anything at
Swithland Res. from Kinchley Lane or the dam means that the subject is often
more backlit. I got good views with bins and scope, just failed to get any
frame-filling nice shots that I had hoped for.
Aside from the Ibis, the shoreline was almost literally awash with egrets.
Amongst the numerous Little Egrets and Grey Herons there were at least four
Great White Egrets. Still can't get used to how quickly they've established in
the County to the point that seeing one at any of the reservoirs or large
water bodies is almost expected. I also stopped and looked at a couple of
Scaup on the Southern section before heading home.
I've hardly used the P950 since the spring. When I looked at the SD card from
the camera, I found a few photos from the short break up on the Cumbrian coast
in August that I'd completely forgotten about.
Kestrel - St Bees Head
Great Black-backed Gull - Whitehaven harbour
Cormorant - Whitehaven harbour
Also on the card were some snaps of a Pheasant that popped up in the garden a couple of times in early Autumn. It had a damaged leg and walked with a hobble but flew perfectly okay when it saw the cat ....
Okay, a couple of days late for one reason or another.
Saturday was bright sunshine with warmth right from the off. I decided to head
down the lane with bins and camera - maybe something new in the hedgerows or
skies.
There was, albeit brief and silent - a Whitethroat skulking in the hedgerow
and quite likely fresh in and a bit knackered. Yellowhammers and Skylarks were
more evident though ....
Also along the lane, this intensively reared chicken was unphased by an
approaching human or passing cars.
Whilst out, I picked up a Tweet from Neil Hagley - a proper birder who lives on
the same estate but further over with better all-round aerial views from his garden and slightly
less motorway noise. He is far more likely to be out and about earlier in the
morning than me, and he'd picked up both Wheatear and Yellow Wagtail. I mis-read
the Tweet though and thought he meant he'd had them along the lane, which seemed
unlikely for Wheatear at least given the fields are all sprouting with
Autumn-sown crops - no nice bare ploughed fields or short grassy/weedy pasture.
I checked in with Neil, turns out he meant he'd walked down the lane and carried
on across the main A426 onto Whetstone Gorse Lane and past the PYO. Which was
good, as it meant my birding skills were not completely rubbish. By the time I
had that bit of news I'd already enjoyed Ravens flying over, along with several
Buzzards and Red Kite filling the sky and a pair of Swallows milling about
around the farm, and I'd headed back home.
But the enjoyable walk kind of made my mind up for what I might do for the
rest of the day - which was get back out with bins and avoid that televised
funeral! I grabbed something to eat, made up a coffee to take out and a couple
of bits of fruit. First off I headed back down to the PYO - I expected the
Wheatear to still be present, doubted the wagtail would be. I was right.
Quite possibly the worst Wheatear record shot I've ever taken - distance
wasn't the problem, it was the heat-haze rising up from the bare soil. It was
turning out to be quite a sun blast out there. Sadly this one is not in the
square, but of course is in the 5MR.
I then headed out to Barlestone, outside of the 5MR, but home to a trio of
Ring Ouzels for a couple of days. I've seen several Ring Ouzels in the county
over the years, and none have been particularly photographic when I've seen
them. These were no different - loitering right on the edge of a sheep field,
and watchable from the next sheep field only.
The two red arrows mark the rough position and range of two birds fairly close
together on the left, and a single bird on the right. When they first turned up,
they were on the almost adjacent football pitch giving some cracking views.
Apparently! This time distance and the heat really did make for some shocking
record shots. All appeared to be male, but I can't rule out a well-marked female
for the out-of-range more distance one (bins only, can't be arsed lugging a
scope around these days).
Other thrushes in the field were more obliging.
After that I headed back towards home and checked in to the balancing pool at
Grove Park and a quick walk around Jubilee Park on the patch. But nothing new
or exciting at either. The pool at Jubilee Park seems to be dropping in volume
very quickly. Still a handful of Wigeon loitering there but not a lot else.
Seeing how low the river is now and walking around the once flooded but now
parched grassy areas reminded me that it really it a fair while now since we
had any rain. We've had mild and sometimes warm sunny days, very clear cold
nights, but it's been bone dry.
In other bird news from Saturday, we were awoken by an almighty clucking from
a pair of Blackbirds loudly proclaiming their agitation. Had no idea what was
going on, but when I was home after the first walk down the lane, we realised there was a pathetic fledgling in
the garden which was barely able to get more than a couple of feet off of the
ground. It was almost like it had fledged too early; usually the first
fledglings I see in the garden have full tails and are almost bigger
(certainly fatter) than the parents - this was slightly smaller than the
adults and lacking much of a tail. It can't have flown into the garden, and I
surmised that it had launched itself from the nearest bramble on the
embankment onto the neighbours shed roof, and from there either flopped into
our garden or over to our shed roof before dropping in.
It wasn't happy, but at least the parents were feeding it regularly. But I
knew that it would not survive - if not from ours or another local cat (it may
as well have had a Nestle Purina logo on its crown) it was going to be another
cold night. Later in the afternoon I decided enough was enough and it needed some sort of rescue plan, but it wouldn't let me get anywhere near it to give it a hand up.
Eventually it was sat on the edge of a plant pot at the back of the shed, and
with some other junk I've got behind there including a pallet, I tried to make
a series of steps that it might be able to get up high enough to get back onto the shed roof and jump back into cover. I had no expectations that it would,
but after leaving it for half an hour I noticed the parents were not coming
onto our fence anymore. A quick check and there was no sign of the fledgling; either my
half-baked plan had worked or perhaps it had just hopped through the hedgehog
hole at the bottom of the fence line. I checked again after an hour and,
amazingly, quite close to the neighbours shed sat a very familiar looking
brown blob on the edge of the bramble. A happy ending
perhaps ....
Except that yesterday there was very little noise coming from the embankment,
not as much calling and squeaking as you might expect. Cut to this morning,
and just whilst I made a cuppa the adult pair were making the same raucous
agitated racket again. I nipped into the garden just in time to see a Magpie
fly out of the scrub with a brown feathery blob dangling from its beak. I
knew they would predate nests, but I always assumed it was much younger naked
chicks that they'd be after. It must have taken some effort to fly off with
this sized breakfast. I'm assuming that on Saturday it raided the nest causing
the remaining chicks that were not quite ready to fledge to scatter. Likely that the
Magpie has been coming back and searching them out ever since. Still that's
life (or death) but at least it's early enough for another brood in perhaps a
better nest location.
Sunday was a little more overcast though still with some good sunny spells. But it was a day of sport for me, with the F1 and FA Cup sandwiching a return trip to
Croft Pasture with the suction sampler - which I'll cover separately.
Today was, perhaps, my last chemo session - the drug I have on IV is very
neurotoxic and some of the side-effects are now lingering beyond the cycle so
it is likely to be knocked on the head after this one. They'd already dropped
the dose to 75% . Overall since the dose dropped, the side-effects are less
intense and more bearable, but they shouldn't be lasting like they are. I can
feel my finger tips tingling as I type and there is a chance this will be long-lasting or even permanent.
I was determined to get out though whilst I feel okay as it was an absolutely lovely warm early evening with clear skies and more sun. Whilst I was either preoccupied yesterday or
incapacitated this morning, there had been another Ring Ouzel but this one was
at a regular but difficult to watch area generally referred to as King's Lock
Paddocks on Aylestone Meadows - just outside the patch boundary but within the
5MR. Despite giving the scrubby field and adjacent fields a good grilling for
a couple of hours I had no joy - but given that Ring Ouzels generally migrate
at night, and it was there this morning, it is possibly that it was still
around and just elusive with the extensive scrub and viewing from across the
canal. Still, it was very refreshing to be out - even if the inside of my
nostrils did start to tingle thanks to the chemo.
So far this week a couple of skilled and influencial musicians have departed this mortal coil. It's not as if I knew them personally, and I am not 'saddened' by the loss in the way I am when a friend or relative goes. But there is a weird thing that goes on when someone who created something that you love and enjoy departs. Dave Greenfield was the highly skilled and talented keyboardist with The Stranglers, and Florian Schneider was the co-founder of Kraftwerk, surely one of the most influencial bands ever created.
Enough of the maudlin stuff, here's a cheerful and, if I say so myself, thoroughly wonderful image of a Blackbird I took today. I use the term image rather than photo deliberately and will explain why later.
This morning I endured an MRI, which I'm actually starting to find quite therapeutic rather than claustrophobic. After catching up and setting the world alight in the home office, later in the afternoon I headed down the lane for the third day on the trot. I know, three daily outings in three days rather than the previous three in three weeks. For all it faults (crap verge and hedgerow 'management' by the farmer, unsightly but necessary ditch management by the farmer, flytipping by complete fucking arseholes) I like the lane.
Looking north-west back towards the estate.
Looking south-west ish.
Before I got to that bit though, I had a look around this bit ....
A pull in looking due-west, where idiots keep dumping garden waste. And worse.
I only looked there as on the left out of shot there is a fallen branch in the hawthorn/elm tangle that often has flies on it. I then walked to the gate to have a squint, and right down in the left corner is a pathetically small clump of Garlic Mustard. This clump.
As I went to try and take a photo of a fly on the hawthorn, I noticed something on the garlic - no way, surely not .... I grabbed a quick photo and realised the camera was on the wrong settings ....
I got the camera sorted, went to get a proper photo and bugger me, I knocked them off never to be seen again. So there I am, elated at seeing my first ever Brassica Shieldbugs, amazed that they were so close to home, and completely pissed off that I'd screwed it right up. I've been wanting to see this species for a long while, but not enough to ever work out how/where I might find them. It's only earlier this year that I discovered that garlic mustard was a likely place to find it, and on the last couple of walks down the railway line with a net I made an effort to sweep properly big swathes of it without success. And here they were sitting in the open, in cop, and I ......
I was completely demoralised by that but carried on anyway and managed to cheer myself up by pointing the camera at a few other bits with better results, despite the fierce direct bright sunshine .....
Dock Bug
Harpocera thoracica
Common Malachite Beetle
Common Pheasant
House Sparrow
I have a few others for another day too. After walking for a while, I headed home and decided I might as well have another look at the clump, given that all the others I'd checked were bare. Amazingly I was in luck as (presumably) the same pair were back in view.
Brassica Shieldbug - a bit more like it should have been in the first place!
Back to that Blackbird image. Here's the unadulterated photo complete with the gaffer-taped TV ariel that is on one of my neighbours roof .....
And here's the same vista with the camera fully zoomed out rather than in ...
I shit you not! I'm very pleased with my stupidly long zoom and my photoshop skills.
Back in Blighty after another work trip to Kosice in Slovakia. This time I flew with Austrian Airlines from Heathrow to Kosice via Vienna. Never been to Austria before, but I have now spent a total of 1 hour in Vienna airport and it was a dreadful experience. Pardon my xenophobia, but what is the point of Austria - it's like Germany but without any of the functional precision. Eventually got home at around 1am on Saturday morning (without baggage - that's still stuck somewhere in Vienna airport) after a delayed flight, a botched transfer and having to come back via Brussles. Kosice Airport meanwhile was marvellous; I landed on a snow-covered runway on Wednesday without any problem (yet here we can't operate if there is a hint of white stuff), and left on Friday during a snow flurry after the 'wing-man' had liberally doused the plane with anti-freeze.
A Czech Airlines plane gets the antifreeze treatment before our plane arrived.
Snow - pah, shovel it out the way and get on with the flights.
Yesterday was therefore a partial wash-out - I was knackered and in any case the weather was crappy until late in the day. Today was better, and I managed to nip over to Watermead CP North around lunch-time with the main aim to year-tick Water Rail. They are usually knocking about the feeding station and today was no exception as I scored as soon as I sat down in the hide.
Water Rail
I grabbed a brief bit of video as it strutted around in very typical Water Rail style, and just as I did so it did a very atypical Water Rail thing ....
Have you ever seen a Water Rail use it's wings to get off the ground? I haven't, and it took me a moment to work out what it had done.
Last week, during the glorious sunny weather and excellent mothing conditions, I was too busy at work to capitalise. On Thursday we had several consecutive design sign-offs for a new drinks range. I left work as normal and had an early evening walk down the lane, before going back into work to cover the last design - I got home from that at around 01:00 on Friday. The only highlights of the Thursday walk were a couple of OFFH yearticks - a singing Chiffchaff and a Jay along the old railway line that crosses Whetstone Gorse Lane. So, on Friday afternoon when everything was a bit calmer at work and the sun was shining I managed to leave at a reasonable time and get back out down the lane for a bit of sun. I spent a good couple of hours enjoying a bit of peace before heading home and out for a meal and drinks last night - hence this belated update.
One of the areas I've never really looked at is an old strip of rough roadway at the back of the Springwell Lane fields. Thinking it might be good for odd insects and flowers, I spoke to the farmer and got permission to walk down there - expect a few shots in future. I had a quick look yesterday and there were plenty of butterflies dog-fighting in the sunshine - three species involved:
I carried on over to Whetstone Gorse Lane. Yellowhammers and Skylarks still singing away, and now at least 2 Chiffchaffs. Red-legged Partidges singing everywhere also - not quite so pleasing to listen to! One of the fields has a big rotting pile of shite near the gateway which usually has one or two wagtails, Pied and Grey. Today it was Pied only ..
King of the shite. Click for big - the black specks all over the place is not dust on the sensor ...
Plenty of Pheasants around aswell - usually legging it away from me as fast as possible ..
Lots of ladybirds around at the moment - all 7-Spot.
Also this shieldbug, which I'm assuming is a Green Shieldbug still dull after over-wintering.
No exciting flowers really, though at least I can remember what Lesser Celandine looks like after learning it last year ..
Daisies in every patch of grass now ..
.. and Hawthorn coming into leaf with flower buds forming
The Lane - looking north towards Whetstone
Today is dull, cool and cloudy. Bloody typical. May still head out mothing tonight if the rain holds off.
