A Morning Walk

Once again, up early enough to get out early to slog around my local environ in wellies. Before I set out though I quickly checked through the 80W/20W Actinic/CFL combo trap that I'd out in the garden overnight. Nothing actually in the trap, but I did find my first identifiable adult moth of the year on the adjacent fence (having noted a few moths fluttering in the car headlights last night as well). Probably the drabbest looking geometrid you could imagine, but very pleased to see this one nonetheless ...

Early Moth

When I did get going, it was just starting to get light. It was mild but pretty cloudy and dull - highly unlikely to make for any good photos. I had a really good morning seeing some excellent local birds (all good for the square challenge and also a few for Foot It). As I ambled down Springwell Lane, a Green Woodpecker was yaffling away and one of the regular Little Owls was obligingly sitting out in the open. I carried on down the lane and headed over to 'Countesthorpe Meadow' - or at least that's what I'm calling it. A small series of damp meadows with Whetstone brook running through it. The northern half of this is within my square, and so were Jay, Kestrel, Kingfisher and best of all a couple of Treecreepers. I then got a message that there was a decent flock of Waxwings over in Cosby so I started walking west. Cosby is still within my Foot It area but well outside of my 1k square unfortunately.

When I got there, 35+ Waxwings were still knocking about - making tentative feeding forays down to a single berry-laden tree. Not entirely sure what the tree was, but looks very similar to what the Enderby birds were feeding on late in the 2010 influx. I think it may be Himalayan Tree-cotoneaster, but with so many berries on it still it's obviously not favoured by anything until there is no choice.

The Waxwings were not quite as obliging as they can sometimes be, mainly due to an ageing Staff Terrier barking its head off from one of the houses around the green. The same mental dog had earlier barked agressively at me when it arrived home with its owner - thought it was going to come for me so I was fully prepared to shut it up with my right welly. So with wary Waxwings, crappy light, a demented twat of a dog and to be honest little time and patience, I got no good photos. So here's a rubbish one and some arty efforts which hide my lack of photographic prowess.

By now I'd walked a good way and needed to head home to get stuck into some decorating .....

By the time I arrived home, I'd walked another 9km and been out for 2.75hrs. Aside from the above mentioned birds that were all Foot It ticks, I also picked up Wren, Black-headed Gull, Redwing and Mistle Thrush for my 1k square. Just as I got to the door I also noted a large harvestman on the wall - Opilio canestrinii.

W is for ...

Wheatears, warblers and waders - we're all looking forward to some spring passage in the coming weeks. However here in Leics. we are still awash with other more wintery W's.

Glorious sunshine today, so I nipped out at lunch to have a look for some local Waxwings that are technically a patch tick (I say technically, what I actually mean is that these are within the Soar Valley South patch boundary whereas the previous one I saw a few years ago was on the boundary). Just aswell I bothered as I got some glorious views of the ravenous beauties and even managed to get a few shots ..... click for big. I nipped past on the way home aswell - I took a shot of them all perched in a tree and counted them on the big screen - at least 105.

Repeat

Back to work today. The company opposite my office (Thales) has a large lawned area where they erect arials and test radar type stuff. Most of the time though it's just a big open bit of grass where on a daily basis a handful of gulls gather to charm up worms by jogging feet on the spot. Today, along with a pair of Lesser Black-backeds, a Common Gull and a few Black-headeds were two Herring Gulls. As my workplace is within the City Boundary, this was a City yeartick.

The chances of getting many yearticks at work are few and far between to say the least, though in 1995 when I worked in the same area for a different company we had Nightingale and Sedge Warbler in the srub at the back of the factory bordering the railway line and carpark. No such chance these days as sadly our big warehouse is built over my old place and the scrubby bit ....

I had to nip into the City center at lunch time for some very old fashioned banking where people are involved - this was a bit alien to me as I have been internet banking for years. The route from work into town is directly past where I've been seeing the Waxwings, and sure enough there was a gathering there again today. The light was slightly better, but the birds remained mainly high up. Whenever they came down it was brief and agitated with the Mistle Thrushes in attendance.

I counted 154 on one photo (not this one - but click for big and have a count yourself) but I am sure there were one or two more out of shot. Spot the Redwing in this shot whilst you're at it.

Get orf my berries

Here's some arty bollox.

Waxwings and bits

Today is/was the last non-working day for me - back to the grind tomorrow ...

I was up and out early with the intention of seeking a few more City yearticks before the return to work. I headed to Aylestone Meadows - a site that I have rarely visited, and certainly no been to for many years. Mainly due to excessive dog walking in the morning and evening, the risk of car theft later in the day, and other car park 'activity' later in the evening! Today, as expected, there were many dog walkers but the site is certainly worth the effort. Some of the habitat here is excellent - almost hard to believe you are within sight and walking distance of the city center.

Before the highlights, I found several of these around the site:

Dead lantern - on which the former owners thoughtfully wrote all over before lighting and releasing

Call be a miserable old bastard, but why the fuck is it legal to sell these? Imagine if this had landed in the same spot in the height of summer - or worse in the middle of moorland. We had at least a hundred of these floating over our house on New Years Eve. Won't be long before everyone starts using them for mid-summer birthdays and weddings - of course they'll be alright as the incendiary device will be floating away from them. Moan over.

An hour or so produced a few yearticks - a superb Sparrowhawk lazily drifting across below the tree line, two Kingfishers peeping their way along the river, a couple of Stock Doves over, Goldfinches and last but not least an unexpected Treecreeper feeding on low stumps by the river. I tried to grab a vid clip but it chose that moment to feck off ..

Blink and you'll miss it

Also around was another Bullfinch eating ash keys (as yesterday's at Knighton Park), and 8 Goosanders - none of which wanted to pose for a good shot in continued crappy light.

Before heading home to do a few jobs and tasks, I had a quick drive around to see if any Waxwings were still about. The light was terrible, and they were high up, but at least today when I found the flock it stayed put for a while. Initially there was c70, but then more joined and eventually there was c130. There are loads of great Waxwing shots about this year, so here's some shocking ones ....

I grabbed some grainy clips aswell. Despite their numbers, the whole flock was being initimidated by a pair of vociferous Mistle Thrushes defending the berries and a few Redwings were also knocking about.

Thinking about it

Grabbing and going

Gone!

Wildlife at Work

I'm on a roll! This feature will not feature very often. This is largely because I work in a very industrious factory in a very industrial estate. Also because I go there to work, not fanny around looking at wildlife ;-)

Having said that, I've already posted a photo of an interesting moth I found on my office window last year, and on 25/09/2006 I recorded the first Antigastra catalaunalis for VC55 - a rare migrant pyralid - which again I found on a window at work. I also had a huge adventive beetle at work - a Pine Chafer - in July 2006.

Antigastra catalaunalis - first for VC55

Pine Chafer - 36mm long!!

On the bird front, today I noted a flock of c60 Waxwings from my office window, perched in trees on Golf Course Lane. This is the second time I've seen Waxwings from there - the last time was March 2005. Although it is a different company, I now work on the same site as in a previous job - part of the old Marconi factory and grounds were flattened to build the warehouse we now use for our cans. When I worked for Marconi, I recorded Nightingale and Red Kite along with regular stuff like Lesser Whitethroat and even Sedge Warbler in the scrub that bordered the old car-park - sadly long gone now.

Half-arsed Bird Spotting

I needed to nip into work this afternoon for a couple of hours, and thought I'd precede this with a bit of light birding. I had it all planned out - Swithland Wood for a relaxing hour catching up with typical woodland birds and grabbing a few shots. When I got there, the car park was bedlam and every man and his dog, bike and horse seemed to have converged there. Bollocks. So, I resorted to a quick and very half-arsed stop at Swithland Reservoir. There were probably some interesting birds there, but I couldn't be arsed to look. The one bird I did watch was Goldeneye - there was a small group off the dam comprising 5 drakes all displaying and trying to get the attention of a lone female. I like Goldeneyes, and their display is definitely worth making the effort to see. Non-displaying Goldeneye Coot making use of the biggest bird-bath for miles around Before I went into the office, and had another quick look on the adjacent Braunstone estate for Waxwings. For the third time in two days I saw fuck all. On the way out of work at 16:30ish I had another quick look, and this time found 49 perched in a Lombardy Poplar on Hockley Farm Road, just around the corner from the lone berry laden Rowan tree in Avery Hill. Braunstone estate is not the sort of place to park up and get your optics and camera out! 49 Waxwings - trust me High up Waxwing

Waxwings

Waxwings are great birds, full of character and with a full suite of redeeming features (tinkling call, superb colours, not rare but not common). The only thing I don't like about them is driving around Loughborough for an hour trying to catch up with the buggers to get photos! The sizeable flock was not immediately obvious at the locations reported from yesterday, but I eventually picked up around 20 briefly perched in a tree - not feeding and clearly not settled. I managed superb scope views but no chance of getting any photos, especially when they fecked off again. Another 20 minutes or so and I again picked some up perched in a tree, and managed to count 31 before they again flew off. There was only a couple of smallish trees with berries on the Belton Road, and plenty of pyracantha berries in the school ground, but these were all being ignored. I got the impression that the larger flock was dispersing whilst the birds looked for better feeding opportunities. I was about to leave them to it when I picked up a single bird feeding on apples - and at last managed to get a few shots. Waxwing - greedy birds, but at least they get five a day

Rewind - Role Reversal

Here's a couple of snaps from the end of November (hence the rewind bit). One is of an extremely common and much maligned bird looking stunning, the other is of a very colourful and appealing winter visitor looking pants due to the distance and fading light that it was photographed in. Waxwing - Whetstone, 24th November 2008 Starling - Whetstone, 23rd November 2008

On this day - 22/02/1996

I've already indicated that Feb '96 was a good month, and this was the icing on the cake. Ever since taking up birding I was looking forward to the chance to see Waxwings and the second half of the '95/'96 winter proved to be one of the best influxes for years. I'd already seen Waxwings in January, but knowing that there had been some in Leicester I rang birdling midlands on 21/02 to see if there was any news. There was, but not quite what I'd expected! In Nottingham city centre there was a relatively huge flock of Waxwings (seem to think that there was >600) and amongst them was a Cedar Waxwing. Needless to say hasty arrangements were made to get there and on the morning of 22nd myself, Dave Gray and John Hackett were soon enjoying stunning close views of this first winter nearctic vagrant amongst c120 Waxwings. Superb bird - at the time it was the first for Britain but an earlier record from Shetland in June 1985 (that had been initially dismissed as an escape) was subsequently accepted. Over the course of the morning we saw 300+ Waxwings and also enjoyed an overwintering Ring Ouzel in a city centre church yard.