Walk At The Beginning Of Winter

One of the RSPB's newest nature reserves lies on my doorstep. 

This reserve is becoming important for bitterns, water rails, cuckoos, owls, all kinds of duck, and various birds of prey. The top photo on the signboard shows a marsh harrier; the bottom a little ringed plover.

The morning was fine but cold. The leaves had now fallen from the trees and winter skulked around the corner. A low and intense sun turned the reed beds gold and a sharp breeze ruffled the blue water of the old gravel pit lakes.

There were not many birds about; I barely spotted twenty species. But the sun illuminated brilliantly the glossy green heads of mallard and goldeneye and the snowy-white feathers of a mute swan near the causeway.

Inside the delightful wooden 'beach hut', which serves as a tiny reception centre.

On one wall there's a display of 'natural curiosities', including the oak apples (or oak galls) you can see on the right (these would originally have been home to gall wasp larvae).

As I began the walk home, long rafts of cloud blotted out the sun, and it seemed more like early evening than early afternoon.

Electricity pylons striding across the flat plain of the Trent valley.

Close To Nature

Earlier in June I walked to Langford Lowfields, my local RSPB reserve. I'm so lucky to have this on my doorstep. Part of it is still a working quarry, but recently some new trails were opened in the northern part of the reserve. 

I made a tally of the birds I saw, 31 species in all:

wood pigeon, swift, swallow, sand martin, jackdaw, blackbird, crow, great spotted woodpecker, mute swan, coot, moorhen, pochard, mallard, shelduck, tufted duck, great crested grebe, pied wagtail, little egret, green plover, common tern, black-headed gull, reed bunting, sedge warbler, grey heron, cormorant, oystercatcher, blue tit, house sparrow, yellowhammer, chaffinch, goldfinch. 

Nothing very unusual, though I did hope to see a bird of prey, perhaps a peregrine falcon or a hobby. Amazingly, a couple of days later I saw a peregrine — spiralling over our garden!

  

The Beach Hut at Langford Lowfields. Volunteers often man this hut to meet and greet.

Birdwatching

Hide at Langford Lowfields.

Today I returned to my local RSPB reserve, Langford Lowfields, which I last visited four weeks ago. The weather was cold and the sky overcast. I thought it would be interesting to make another list of all the birds I saw and compare it with yesterday's; the habitats of woodland, farmland, lake and river were very similar. Twenty-nine different species were recorded, slightly fewer than yesterday. These birds were on both lists:

Wood pigeon, rook, crow, jackdaw, robin, dunnock, blackbird, cormorant, mallard, pochard, tufted duck, wigeon, coot, gadwall, goldeneye, shelduck, grey heron, great tit, blue tit, chaffinch, black-headed gull.

And these were the new sightings:

Magpie, greenfinch, goldfinch, yellowhammer, reed bunting, pintail, mute swan, little egret.

Finches, robins, dunnocks, great tits, yellowhammers and reed buntings were busy at the feeders near the hide. It was great to see a little egret, though these birds are becoming much more common now in the UK. But the highlight for me was a pair of pintails — such strikingly marked ducks, especially the males with their chocolate-brown heads, gleaming white breasts and long, black tail feathers.  

Daffodils emerging through last year's leaves at Langford Lowfields.

Langford Lowfields

Wednesday was a fine but blustery day, and I set off on one of my local walks. Passing this oak tree, I followed an old stone wall... 

... until I came to a three-way junction of paths.

The familiar route took me under power lines...

...  to a small bridge crossing the river Fleet. The floods had largely receded, but a pool of water remained in this ploughed field. A flock of fieldfares rose from the field's edge...

... as I turned up this woodland path. The path is new...

... as is this other bridge over the Fleet. The area is now all part of the Langford Lowfields nature reserve owned by the RSPB.

Near the gravel pit lakes I met up by chance with Jenny Wallace, the warden of the reserve, and we had an interesting chat for twenty minutes. She told me they'd had big problems with the flooding, but the water levels were gradually dropping. She described the insect life, and the butterfly life in summer, and the birds: there are several types of owl here, also reclusive bitterns, and even, if you're lucky, marsh harriers. These summer visitors bred a couple of years ago, and she was hopeful they'd return this year. (You can read Jenny's blog here.)   

Bitterns like reed beds, and there are extensive reed beds on these old gravel workings. The reserve also attracts wildfowl and wading birds.

Before I made my way back along Westfield Lane, I paused on the bank of the river Trent which borders the western side of the reserve. As you can see, the water was still very high. 

Osprey

On Friday 18th April I left the car for a few hours at Derek's Tyres in Porthmadog to have 2 new tyres fitted - after my encounter with the big stone or small rock recounted here. (I'm not sure of the difference between a big stone and a small rock. Designation of the term probably depends on the expansiveness or otherwise of one's mood.) Meanwhile I took a short walk from Porthmadog harbour to the petite but beautifully formed bay of Borth-y-Gest round the corner (see pic). There at the water's edge 20 or so oystercatchers were probing the sand.

Later I picked up the car and drove to the Osprey Viewing Site next to Pont Croesor, a bridge which spans the Glaslyn River a few miles upstream of Porthmadog. (I'd called there late the previous day too, but hadn't seen an osprey. Only a grey wagtail and 2 goosanders. And heard willow warblers for the 1st time this year.) This time I was lucky enough to glimpse the head of one osprey (through telescopes provided) poking up from a large, untidy nest on a treetop's forked branch over a mile away. After a while the whole bird emerged and languidly stretched its huge wings. An RSPB warden informed me that it was the female, and that the male was likely to be out hunting for fish near Porthmadog Cob (or Causeway) at the mouth of the estuary.

The male returned to Glaslyn from West Africa at 1pm on 26 March - almost exactly the same time as he arrived last year (what an amazing body clock) - and the female not long after. They got down to mating without delay, resulting in 3 eggs being laid over a period of a week in early April. The 1st egg should hatch in mid-May. I've seen ospreys before - in Majorca and at the Scottish RSPB Reserve by Loch Garten - and they are magnificent birds. This pair is the only breeding pair in Wales, but there's a pair on Bassenthwaite Lake in the Lake District, 2 pairs this year at Rutland Water in the Midlands and around 200 pairs in Scotland. This really is a heartwarming story of successful wildlife reintroduction.

Ospreys are also known as seahawks, fish hawks or sea eagles.

Charmed

The final results of the annual RSPB Garden Birdwatch survey are now in. These are the birds you were most likely to see in the average UK garden in late January 2008:

1. House sparrow

2. Starling

3. Blackbird

4. Blue tit

5. Chaffinch

6. Wood pigeon

7. Collared dove

8. Robin

9. Great tit

10. Goldfinch

11. Greenfinch

12. Dunnock

13. Magpie

14. Long-tailed tit

15. Jackdaw

Although the house sparrow and starling populations have reduced drastically over recent years, they are still there at the number 1 and number 2 spots.

Except for jackdaw, all these species I see regularly in my own garden - though long-tailed tits are not as common, and only in the winter months. Happily surprised to see the goldfinch at number 10 on the list. This again reflects my own experience. I've seen more goldfinches this year than ever before - normally they're infrequent vistors to this garden. Only a few days ago a 'charm' of goldfinches descended on the flowering cherry tree.

Sad that the song thrush seems to be in an inexplicable decline. I haven't spotted one in the garden all year. It's one of my favourite garden birds - handsome, and with such a lovely song - second only to the nightingale's. And they're wonderful at controlling the snails which attack the hostas and the beans.

Beating The Bounds mentioned recently the classic book on birds by Viscount Grey of Fallodon, The Charm of Birds. I end with a quote about goldfinches from this charming book:

One of the prettiest nests ever found was a goldfinch's. It was in a yew tree, and the outside of the nest was made of green lichen : the lichen you find on beech boles and wooden palings. The inside was incredibly soft to the touch, which was possible only by a very long stretch, so the bamboo ladder was fetched to get a clear sight of it. Then it was found to be lined completely with dandelion 'clock', each little sphere detached from the many that make the full round of the puff. Another nest, this time lovely in its environment, was again that of the goldfinch. Holding my face deeply into a pyramidal apple-tree in full blossom in order to enjoy the light filtering through the mass of petals that clustered on the boughs so thickly as to shut everything else out, I became aware of the ruby mask of a goldfinch, sitting on her nest not ten inches away. She never stirred; happily I had insinuated myself very gently into this 'world of light'. Neither did I withdraw hastily. I stayed long enough to see how the rose and gold of sunlit apple-blossom could be deepened by this touch of red.

I love the little observant touches of the pyramidal apple-tree, the ruby mask of the goldfinch, and the detail of the bamboo ladder.

Constable Country

From Thursday 16 to Saturday 18 August my wife and I spent time in Suffolk. I used to go to East Anglia for family holidays as a child - to Cromer, Sheringham, Southwold, Frinton, that kind of genteel seaside place. Nothing's altered that much. Just a few more people, cars, South-of-England retirees, smarter shops - as everywhere. But the creeks and estuaries, reed beds and lazy rivers, painted cottages and flintstone churches are unchanging. We supped Adnams ales in the Crown and the Lord Nelson and The Sole Bay Inn at Southwold; we ate take-away fish and chips on Aldeburgh sea front and they were excellent. I passed a few hours late on Friday afternoon at Minsmere RSPB Reserve - I could have spent the whole day there quite happily - and saw a marsh harrier (earlier I'd seen 2 floating over the reed beds near Snape Maltings), an egret, 2 avocets, 2 stonechats, several reed warblers, common terns and barnacle geese, some redshank and lapwings, a flock of 50 feeding black-tailed godwits - and a small deer, which could have been a muntjac. On the Saturday we explored Dedham vale and John Constable country. Many of Constable's magnificent canvases were of scenes centred on the small but sublimely picturesque area surrounding Flatford Mill (see photo). We stood at the exact spot from where The Haywain was painted - or at least initially sketched as most of his paintings were worked on and finished in London. This is one of the greatest of all English rural life pictures according to the art critic, Sir Kenneth Clark. I would not disagree. It's such a tranquil, timeless scene, beautifully composed, and coming to life in such details as the spaniel with its wagging tail, the 2 figures in the horse-drawn cart, and various other country people and animals merging with the landscape. We walked the few miles to Dedham and back, across the water meadows by the river Stour. It gave us a strange feeling. What with the willow trees and the reflecting water, the grazing cows, the clouds and the big skies - it was just like walking through a series of those Constable six-footers. Like Cornwall or the west coast of Ireland, Suffolk has always attracted artists. It's to do with the water, the sky and, above all, the light. (Thomas Gainsborough, Sir Alfred Munnings - and the art forger Tom Keating - are also associated with the area.)