Green Woodpecker Adult, Juvenile on a Hot Day at Kew
Tag Archives: Green Woodpecker
A Magical Woodland Walk in Richmond Park
October in Richmond Park
Walking down from the woods across the wide rough area with rushes, two Skylarks got up, twittering, and perched briefly on the Bracken: a very special sight for London.
Down past the Pen Ponds at the side of a wood, a Green Woodpecker flew handsomely up into a tree, swiftly hiding itself round the back of the trunk.
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.
Spring Migrants at Thursley Common
A bright, breezy, and much cooler day (16 C, not 29 any more) was just perfect for a visit to Thursley. Perhaps many of the dragonflies decided not to fly: I saw one Common Darter and (I think) one Brown Hawker, and nothing else, so anyone who went along hoping to see the Hobbies hawking for dragonflies by the dozen will have had a wasted trip (and indeed I saw several extravagantly camouflaged types with gigantic telescopes standing about looking very bored).
But everything else was in full swing. A Cuckoo called from the pinewoods. A Curlew gave its marvellously wild, bubbling call from the open marsh. A Dartford Warbler gave me the best view ever of its rufous belly and long tail, as it sat low in a scrubby Birch, giving its rasping anxiety call repeatedly. I enjoyed the view through binoculars. By the time I remembered to take a photo it was half-hidden again.
A Stonechat gave its scratchy call from a small Birch, then hopped up to some Pine trees (so, a distant shot).
A few Chiffchaffs called from the woods; plenty of Whitethroats sang from the regenerating Birches that are encroaching on to the heath. A Green Woodpecker gave its fine laughing call.
So I heard three warblers today to add to the four yesterday, so seven singing warblers in 24 hours, a little bit special.
The lichen flora on the heath was quite beautiful, with Usnea beard lichen, leafy Parmelia, bristly Ramalina (all on old Heather), and elegant Cladonia potscourer, cup, and stalk lichens (three species).
A Linnet sang from the top of a Birch. Goldfinches twittered and flitted about.
And on the path out, a Hobby leapt from a tree right in front of me, where it had been sitting watching the bog pools, waiting for dragonflies to come out and display themselves. It flew round and up, then circled, soaring, away to the south. Perhaps it was the one the twitchers had been waiting to see flying all morning.
Warm Wet Winter Day at Wraysbury Lakes
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.
Vole Patrol 10: Gutteridge Wood Voles!
Yes, luck was with the Vole Patrol today. We caught two species of Vole as well as the inevitable Woodmice.
The Field Vole is, as you can see, grey-brown above, and is softly countershaded a la Abbott Thayer (who thought all animals were camouflaged in this way, even flamingoes, but I digress) from top to bottom with no sudden dividing line between dark and light. It’s diurnal and (therefore) has small eyes. And it has a notably short tail, 30% of its head/body length.
Huma, despite days with almost no sleep, looked and sounded delighted we’d caught this species.
We had turned up in the still-sleeping suburb of Hillingdon before 6am. The journey in was strangely easy on the empty roads, a fox running across in front of me in Acton with a jaunty air.
It was at once obvious on arriving that Gutteridge Wood, made a nature reserve by the Greater London Council in its closing days, was something different — an ancient woodland with fine Oaks as “standards” in between coppice stools of Hazel (cut on a regular cycle, so many shoots come up as useful poles from each stump), with Yew and Holly here and there, and English Bluebells and Woodrush as ground cover.
The team found a Bank Vole in one of the Meadow traps. It is a nocturnal mammal, unlike the Field Vole, and accordingly has big eyes (for seeing in the dark). It has a longer tail, 50% of its head/body length (try measuring it!), is appreciably redder than the Field Vole, and is more sharply white below.
While people were out picking up traps in the wood, a Woodcock flew right overhead, just above the bare treetops. Its enormously long beak and plump gamebird body were unmistakable, which was just as well because I haven’t seen one flying for many years now: a fine sight. Greater Spotted Woodpeckers drummed loudly; a Green Woodpecker gave its cheerful loud call. I guess you could easily guess what habitat I was in just from the names of those three species!
The meadow and pond area was once a sewage works; if you peer closely at the pond in the photograph here, you’ll see behind the Reed Mace a circular brick structure left over from those days. It looks very much part of the waterscape today.
The Vole Patrol puts traps beside water, as here, along meadow edges (as above, for the voles), in a grid in the woods, and a few feet off the ground in the trees, to sample the small mammals in the different habitats on each reserve. Unsurprisingly, but very pleasingly, the ancient woodland of Gutteridge has given us good numbers of Woodmice, Shrews and Voles. It will be a pleasure to come back and listen to the Warblers in April or May, and to enjoy the Bluebell woods in the sunshine.
Vole Patrol 9: Perivale Wood
The first cycle of trapping at Gunnersbury Triangle has been completed, and the action has moved on to Perivale Wood. This beautiful reserve is owned by the Selborne Society, the oldest nature conservation society in the world, founded in 1885 and thus a few years older than the RSPB.
Despite its name, Perivale Wood includes pasture (for horses), damp scrub, secondary wood on disturbed land, some hedges (we saw one newly “laid”, the trunks almost cut through and fastened at an angle with beautifully-woven withies), three ponds and two streams.
This, of course, enables London Wildlife Trust‘s Vole Patrol, by agreement with the Selborne Society, to search for small mammals in woodland, by water, and in meadow.
Walking in, we heard a Song Thrush, and much calling and drumming of Greater Spotted Woodpecker and Green Woodpecker. From the bare Oak trees of the photo above, I briefly heard an early burst of song from a Chiffchaff, my first of the year.
We met some new Vole Patrollers, including Lindsey, seen here acting as “scribe” for the all-important data, and Nicola, seen here weighing a Wood Mouse.
The team quickly sorted itself out, everyone sharing the necessary roles – fetching traps, opening them, weighing, measuring, sexing and coding the mice, recording the data, returning the mice to their exact locations, baiting the traps, and returning them to their locations. It’s not really complicated, but there is enough to do, and with over 30 traps in the different habitats around the reserve, each task has to be done many times.
Winter Sun at Wraysbury: Teasels, Linnets, Bullfinches
It was cold out today, and I was glad of fleece, warm coat, woolly hat and gloves — not to mention gumboots through the clogging mud, the worst I’ve seen in many walks at Wraysbury Lakes.
But when the sun came out, it was beautiful, and I hope I’ve captured a little of that wintry beauty for you (and some of the puddled paths) with this photo of last year’s dried-out Teasels.
Just as I was about to take the photo, a flash of white from two largish finches caught my eye, and I grabbed my binoculars. Luckily, they landed in a bare thornbush, and showed themselves to be a male and a female Bullfinch, their black caps, red chests and white rumps splendidly visible as they sat a while, occasionally leaning right forwards to peck at the buds. They flew off to another bush, giving me the best views I think I ever had of the male/female differences at rest and in flight. The male really did glow red.
Up on the horse hill, a flock of some 50 Goldfinches flickered overhead. A Green Woodpecker called in the distance, as did two Mistle Thrushes, their loud, monotonous, ringing cries carrying across the wet ground. A solitary Redwing was all that was left of the winter flocks. Two streaky brown Linnets flew across.
A cormorant flapped heavily overhead, quite goose-like in front view but obvious enough in outline as it went by. Down at the nearly birdless lake, 5 Goldeneye brightened up the view, with a few distant Shoveler.
First Winter Thrushes at Wraysbury Lakes
No wisecracks about Hips and Haws and keeping warm on chilly winter days! This morning it was actually more autumnal than wintery, with bright blue skies setting off the deeply red berries, the rosehips scarlet, the hawthorn berries crimson.
The birdlife however did give a hint of winter to come. The first half-dozen Redwings squawked softly and burst from the bushes in their peculiar way, twisting suddenly in flight to get out from between the branches, flapping noisily as they accelerate out of cover. A single big Mistle Thrush flew from higher up in a different tree.
A flock of Goldfinches, some Dunnocks, a Robin or two, a Blackbird, eight Magpies, a rapid Ring-Necked Parakeet, a Carrion Crow or two, and a few Black-Headed Gulls appeared here and there. A Sparrowhawk searched over the Poplar trees for unwary prey.
Down on the lake, too, the winter ducks are starting to arrive. There are good numbers of Gadwall (maybe 30) and Wigeon (50 or so) as well as Tufted (50) and Shoveler (100). A dozen Cormorants, a hundred Coots, a few Mallard, a couple of Mute Swans (where did they all go?), a few Canada Geese (ditto), and a solitary Great Crested Grebe made up the rest.
As a final treat, there was a slender, delicate stalk of the Yellow Inkcap, Coprinus auricomus, in the grass.