Tag Archives: Goldfinch

A Shepherd in London

Yes, a shepherd in London. Mid-March is lambing time, and she was out with her Land-Rover on the wide grassy banks of the reservoirs at Wraysbury, just beyond the end of the runways at Heathrow, checking that the new lambs were healthy. The ewe looks as though she’d like a rest, unsurprisingly. The grassy banks are quite steep, and mowing them would be costly and dangerous; how enlightened of Thames Water to use sheep instead. Genuinely “green”.

Also on the walk, several Brimstone butterflies, and a couple of Peacock butterflies (presumably overwintered in a hollow tree or some such place). Near the sheep were two Buzzards and a Red Kite, on the lookout for some carrion, I won’t mention what they were hoping to find. Also about was an early Chiffchaff singing its simple song (its name, over and over), a Cetti’s Warbler, and a Song Thrush. And a flock of Goldfinches finishing up the last of last year’s seeds in a big patch of thistles, burdocks, and teasels.

Insects on Thursley Common

Common Blue butterfly on Bell Heather
Don’t eat me!
Emperor moth caterpillar being eaten by ants

Thursley Common scene looking across bog with dead Pines, open lake with Canada geese, encroaching Birch scrub and Pine forest in the distance
Goldfinch atop Pine tree
Tailless Lizard on boardwalk
Honey-scented banks of Bell Heather, Gorse, Birch on Thursley Common
Bee-Wolf with Bee prey
Small Ammophila Sand-wasp, scurrying about in the heather searching for prey
Thursley Common: managing the heather by mowing irregular strips
Black-Tailed Skimmer

Keeled Skimmer
Black Darter, a tiny dragonfly
Common Darter
Thursley Common – the sandy paths full of sand-wasps and bee-wolves, the heather full of bees and grasshoppers

Also saw Common Blue Damselfly, Southern Hawker, Emperor Dragonfly.

A Windy Walk at Wraysbury

Wind or not, a sunny winter’s day is too good to miss, so I wrapped up warm and squelched through the mud around Wraysbury Lakes. In the car park, a Grey Wagtail hawked for insect life. Among the few ducks on the lakes were some Goldeneye, one of the winter specialities of the area. The Great Crested Grebes had most of the water to themselves, looking predatory with their sharp spear-beaks.

On the meadow, four Stock Doves got up – an under-recorded species if ever there was one, as people take them for feral or wood pigeons. A Green Woodpecker gave its ringing Plue-Plue-Plue call, really loudly: spring is on the way, honest! The Jackdaws wheeled and dived in the strong wind, totally at home. A Buzzard soared with barely a wingbeat, turning on well-rounded wings with fanned tail. Towards the end, the bushes thrummed with twittering Goldfinches.

But the best thing wasn’t a bird at all, but the Mistletoe hanging from a bare beech branch. Let’s hope it spreads.

Best plant of the day – Mistletoe at Wraysbury

Warm Wet Winter Day at Wraysbury Lakes

Wet Blackened Rose Hips

The day was exceptionally warm after the chilly winter weather. The hedgerow plants dripped gently. I liked the colours and light on these blackened rose-hips, still somehow looking invitingly fruity.

The path too was covered in blackened leaves, wet and slippery. On the lake, half-a-dozen Goldeneye, a couple of Pochard, a few Teal, some Tufted Duck, a few Mallard. Apart from the ducks, a couple of Cormorants, two young and very white Great Crested Grebes. On the meadows, a Green Woodpecker, flocks of Goldfinches, scattered Redwing and Fieldfare, a flock of Carrion Crows.

Rutted grassy track

Winter Thrushes in the Fog

With another day of freezing fog, very dangerous on the roads, nature is telling us that, yes, global warming or no, it’s winter. The false acacia, totally leafless, whirs with activity. A big wood pigeon sits impassively, ignoring the small passers-by. Within a few minutes, these include 3 goldfinches, keeping well away from each other in the branches; 2 male blackbirds, similarly, their heads high on the lookout for competitive activity; 4 ring-necked parakeets, never settling for more than a moment, jumping up squawking at the slightest provocation; 2 redwings, handsome with their contrasting eyestripes; 1 fieldfare, markedly bigger, and a handsome bird when seen in crisp winter sunshine rather than today’s murky fog. A few minutes later, a blackcap appeared: still a bird that we think of as a summer visitor, though a few pass through in winter from colder places. Later still, a great tit jumped in and wriggled about; and a little flock of 6 starlings blew in for a few minutes, sadly diminished from the sort of flocks I remember: and even this local flock used to have 7 members.

The effect as birds appear from and vanish into the gloom is rather of one of those popular tales physicists tell to try to make the public feel they understand what nuclear physics is all about: particles and antiparticles are ceaselessly created by the vacuum, and as continuously meet each other and annihilate, returning to their matrix, the apparently endlessly creative fog, which one would otherwise have mistaken for chilly nothingness.

Signs of Spring, and Muntjac, at Wraysbury Lakes

Spring blossom - Wild Pear the first to bloom
Spring blossom – Wild Pear the first to bloom

Suddenly it feels like spring. The migrant warblers haven’t arrived, though a resident Cetti’s gave me a fine burst of its loud simple song; and the winter ducks haven’t all gone back up North, a few Goldeneye and Goosander still fishing the lake; but it was almost warm in the bright sunshine, and the wild pear tree in the woods positively sparkled with fresh new blossom.

Tiny footprints: Muntjac slots
Tiny footprints: Muntjac slots

There were animal tracks too: tiny footprints of Muntjac.

A little further, a fresh pile of tiny scat, Muntjac for sure.

Tiny scat: Muntjac
Tiny scat: Muntjac

 

A Sparrowhawk dashed low over the willows, and disappeared as swiftly as it had arrived.

On the path, the much larger slots of Roe deer; and a Rabbit hopped quietly aside.

Larger tracks: Roe deer
Larger tracks: Roe deer

The last of the winter thrushes – a flock of Fieldfares – called their chattering chack-chack from the tall boundary hedge of trees. A flock of gently twittering Goldfinches, too, served as a reminder of a winter only just passing.

Winter Flocks at Wraysbury

Backlit Teasels
Backlit Teasels

Finally, right at the end of November, autumn is starting to look something like winter. Even now, and even with a light easterly wind, it is mild, almost too warm for any sort of winter coat.

Pochard, here for the winter
Pochard, here for the winter

But winter flocks of birds have at last arrived: 45 Pochard on the lake, handsome with their reddish heads contrasting with pale grey backs; dozens of Goldfinch in the nearly leafless trees, twittering ceaselessly; a dozen or more Fieldfare in the thorn bushes in the horse field; a few Redwing in another thorn bush.

Redwings
My first flock of Redwing this winter

The low sun made the dried flowerheads of the Teasels beautiful. A single Pleated Inkcap gleamed among the short grass and muddy hoofprints.

Pleated Inkcap, Coprinus plicatilis
Pleated Inkcap, Coprinus plicatilis

Of Muntjac and Roosting Cormorants

Cormorants roosting at Wraysbury Lakes
Cormorants roosting at Wraysbury Lakes

Yet another astonishingly warm day, not exactly Indian Summer now with a cloudy start, but too hot for more than a t-shirt by midday. The Wraysbury Lakes were quiet, the winter ducks represented only by a few shoveler and a couple of gadwall. The most impressive waterbirds were the cormorants roosting on the dead branches of a large willow.

Muntjac footprint and pellets
Muntjac footprint and pellets

On the path I found a single muntjac deer footprint, with its tiny pellets. A few goldfinches twittered in the bushes, and a linnet. A buzzard circled over the hills in the distance.

Orchids Surviving, Butterflies Vanishing in West Wiltshire

I had the good fortune to get down to West Wiltshire in hot if sometimes humid summer weather.

Pyramidal Orchid in Flowery Meadow
Pyramidal Orchid in Flowery Meadow

It was a pleasure to find the Pyramidal Orchid in a flowery meadow near a town: despite the dog-walkers, the increasingly uncommon flowers were clearly spreading from a small patch across the meadow, which is mown annually.

Less pleasantly, there were next to no insects pollinating the flowers: we saw one Small Tortoiseshell, a fly or two, and one (white/buff-tailed) bumblebee. It was a stark contrast to the masses of bees and beetles I’ve seen on the reserve in London. Of course, in London there is now very little use of pesticides, and basically none on an industrial scale.

This year (2014) does seem to be particularly poor for butterflies. It was an extremely warm winter and a very wet and windy spring, so I wonder if the result has not been a bad spring for insect pests … and perhaps, whether England’s farmers have not sprayed insecticide especially heavily? It’s a question that could clearly be answered by someone. If the answer is yes, then our ‘useful insects’ have suffered very heavily as a consequence.

The next day we went to Cley Hill, a western outlier of the Salisbury Plain chalk downs, sticking up above the plain below the chalk escarpment.

Bee Orchid
Bee Orchid

In the short grass, full of lovely flowers – Sainfoin, Milkwort, Horseshoe Vetch – were Bee Orchids, and happily both bumblebees in this special place protected by the National Trust and Burnet Moths – mostly Five-Spot Burnet, with some Transparent Burnet too, quite a treat.

Five-Spot Burnet Moth
Five-Spot Burnet Moth

Transparent Burnet Moth
Transparent Burnet Moth

On the top of the hill, above the Iron Age earthworks, we came across a group of about five Wall Brown butterflies, all very tatty and worn: perhaps they had been blown across the Channel from France on the warm southerly wind that is accompanying this anticyclone (centred to the east). Nearby were a few Brown Argus, small butterflies in the Blue family: not uncommon in France, far from common in England. Their coloration may seem odd for the Blue family, but females of quite a few species are brown, contrasting with their bright blue males, so the genes for ‘brown’ are clearly available: perhaps it takes just one or a few genetic switches to turn on brownness in both sexes rather than in just one.

In several places on the hill, often on bare chalk paths or short grass, we saw the glowing blue and purplish blue of Adonis Blue butterflies, with their chequered wing borders. So we saw some rather special butterflies, though with the definite feeling that they are only just hanging on in the area.

Milkwort, once a common plant in (cow) meadows
Milkwort, once a common plant in (cow) meadows

The hill is also host to Chalk Fragrant Orchid, Pyramidal Orchid, Spotted Orchid and more: it was lovely to see them all, though we were moved on swiftly by an anxious pair of Skylarks circling rather low overhead, trying to get back down to their nest, clearly not far from where we were sitting. All around in the thorn bushes were Tree Pipits, singing away, with some twittering Goldfinches and one Yellowhammer, my first of the year: yet another species that was once commonplace in every hedge.