Tag Archives: Long-tailed tit

Love of Nature, Natural History

Aural Amble at Wraysbury Lakes

Indian Summer days are delightful, but often not terribly rich in visible wildlife – this year’s young have fledged and left the nest; flowers have faded and gone into fruit (which can be beautiful, of course); butterflies and dragonflies have mostly stopped flying; summer birds have left for Africa; and the warm calm air doesn’t bring winter migrants from the frozen North.

But there was plenty to listen to this morning.

As I walked in off the road, a Heron took off behind the bushes, and gave a two-tone ‘cronk’ note as it flapped off over the lake. I peered through a gap, and there it was, its amazingly broad angled wings like an ingeniously light balsa wood and doped muslin flying machine, totally unlike the awkward folded umbrella of an ungainly bird that a Heron is when perched.

Two Mute Swans took off and flew low over the water right in front of me, as silent as their name: only their wings whistling with each heavy wingbeat.

A solitary Cormorant took off from the water, very black without the white breeding season thigh patches, also silent except for the heavy thwack of its feet slapping the water on the first ten wingbeats.

A Cetti’s Warbler, invisible in the waterside bushes as always, burst into its loud rude song. (Once you’ve read Barnes’s description of just how rude that is, in How to Be a Bad Birdwatcher, you’ll never hear a Cetti’s without smiling again, I promise.)

A Green Woodpecker gave its cheerful triple signature call, somewhere far out of sight. No need to look.

A few Long-Tailed Tits called anxiously to each other, ‘Tsirrup’, high in the willows. I couldn’t see them either, and again, I didn’t mind a bit.

Bizarrely (and this was a sight to behold, perhaps the only one of the walk), 4 Cormorants took to the air, seeming to be chasing 4 young Herons, presumably a family party.

Up on the horses’ hill, a Kestrel hovered silently on whirring wings.

The horses won’t be there much longer: Affinity Water have put up little notices To Whom It May Concern, saying they’ve had enough with ‘flygrazing’ (makes a change from flytipping, presumably) and will remove the horses if they’re not taken away. I suppose the gypsies have left them to breed as well as graze for free (there’s plenty of grass); the horses are always gentle, and do a good job of controlling the meadow, actually. Why would they do that, a friend wondered. I suggested that it made perfect sense – each year, the ‘owners’ could drop in, take a mare, and leave the others to keep up the supply of new horses. What an economical, ecological system. Without the horses, I guess someone will have to pay for mowing, or maybe they’ll hire a flock of sheep for a few weeks each year? Not sure the horses aren’t a better solution. Of course they could leave some goats to go feral. (Only kidding.)

 

 

 

 

 

 

Conservation, Natural History, Nature Reserves, Wildlife

Animal Tracks in the Snow

Animal tracks: Fox, Crow, and Squirrel prints on a snowy boardwalk
Animal tracks: Fox, Crow, and Squirrel prints on a snowy boardwalk

Today we woke to a snow-covered city, just a light dusting; and as often with snow, the weather was appreciably warmer than before the snow arrived.

Down at the nature reserve,  the paths were empty of human footprints, but thickly sprinkled with animal tracks. Here some crows had walked to and fro across the path; there, a fox had jogged along the trail. But better was to come: the boardwalk across the pond was interlaced with tracks. On the left, a fox had gone the length of the boardwalk. In the centre, a crow had walked unsteadily along, the same way as me; and it, or another, had walked more rapidly back. On the right, more birds’ footprints: and the four-feet-together group of a squirrel, the smaller front prints clearly showing the marks of the sharp claws.

On a Birch branch above the anthill meadow, a Green Woodpecker hammered in search of food. Down by the ‘mangrove swamp’, a Jay screeched harshly, either for us or for a fox. Near the picnic meadow, a Sparrowhawk flew from its high perch, wheeled above the treetops, dived rapidly out of sight.

We carried tools and a ladder to visit the nestboxes and take down all that needed repairs. While I held the ladder, a party of four Long-Tailed Tits blew by, crossing from one Birch to the next one at a time. One of the boxes contained not just a mossy nest (like three others) but two old addled eggs, probably of Great Tit. While we struggled to prise off a somewhat too well attached box for maintenance, a Robin perched nearby, in hope of eating any grubs we might have disturbed. Several boxes had had their openings enlarged by much hammering by Blue Tits or Great Tits: nobody knows why they might do this, as it increases the threat to their nests from predators. We will make aluminium plates for the fronts of all the Tit boxes (the ones with circular holes): the Robin boxes just have a wide rectangular opening, which they definitely prefer. Inside one of the boxes was a mass of woodlice in the moss; another had a plump dead Noble False Widow Spider (Steatoda nobilis) inside.

Wildlife

Flood

The forecast offers a brief ridge of high pressure in between wind, rain and distant storms. I take my gumboots and drive down to the lakes to enjoy the unlikely burst of sunshine. Sure enough, the sky clears, the temperature plummets, and I quickly put on fleece and windproof jacket. On the main lake are three Goldeneye, the males handsome as they surface between dives. Other than them, there are few birds on the water: more come when the wind is colder and drier, from the north or east, bringing winter ducks from icy Scandinavia or further afield. A few Great-crested Grebes, some Tufted Duck more or less complete the waterfowl, barring a stray Cormorant, a Mallard or two, a lone Moorhen.

The bushes are more interesting, as a party of Long-tailed Tits, unconcerned by human presence, flutters along one after another; the light is good enough to make out their slight pinkish tinge as they dangle upside down for a few moments before drifting onwards. From a tangle on the lake’s edge comes the loud Chwit-i-pit-i-pit, Chwit-i-pit-i-pit of a Cetti’s Warbler. It sounds grand and splendid but the Cetti’s are resident and while not exactly common, are not unlikely where there are bits of wetland. But the main and most obvious concern is the path, which has disappeared under a foot of water: the river is pouring across the grass, down the path, and across into the lake, which is higher than I’ve ever seen it. I take a stick and probe carefully: gumboots are all very well, but vanishing into a hole isn’t the best move when there’s a brisk wind over chilly water and very slippery mud. About a hundred yards are flooded in all, some of it probably too deep for boots, but I skirt the edge, only ankle-deep.

Around the corner, the water is halfway up the Private Fishing sign, and another section of path is under water. I reluctantly leave the path and scramble through the bushes on what has become a small hilly causeway. Re-emerging into the sunshine, I am observed curiously by a rabbit and a squirrel. Since the wind is now in my face, they cannot catch my scent, but watch as I very slowly raise my binoculars. They are still, but alert and watchful; eventually they wander off. A Buzzard flies down the wind, hardly needing a wingbeat in the brisk airstream. The horse field is like something out of the First World War, pocked with holes, rutted with tracks, slimy with mud and dung; the farmer has installed an oddly clean new fence, all shiny wire and white wooden poles, so I am obliged to take a detour through the worst of the Flanders mud to the ugly new galvanised steel gate. Still, it is a delight to be outside in the open air and sunshine, to see what nature is up to now.

I realise I am not particularly birdwatching, nor just walking for exercise, though I’m happy to do both: I’m just staying in touch with the natural world, and feel – what? If it were food, it would be starved: I would be feeling sad and starved of the flow of nature, of the seasons, without it. Walking in flood and mud, in the breeze and sunshine, I am simply myself, with whatever nature has to offer today. If that’s pretty primroses, that’s lovely; if it’s slimy deepening mud in an exceptionally wet winter, that’s fine too. Is it Climate Change? I’ve no idea, but I’ve certainly never seen a winter like this before.