Spring activity

There are lots of signs of Spring. There is some serious contention on the mallard mating front for one thing. A pair of mallard have been hanging around together for a few weeks but a second male is trying to move in and it's starting to get physical. The battle takes place on the water, on land and in the air. It has degenerated into violence but the duck is very clear about her preference. When she is with her chosen drake she swims closely behind him darting her head diagonally and making a murmuring sort of noise. The frogs are back spawning for another thing. You can hear them purring - it sounds just like a cat.... Tawny owls have also been around in the last few days although I am not sure whether that is a feature of Spring. There has also been a pied wagtail around - they do seem to appear in March and April but are not often seen here at other times. There has also been some frequent buzzard visits in the last week but the resident crows generally escort them from the area pretty quickly.

Fox tracks

The snow has afforded the opportunity to detect a fox foraging very close to the house last night. The footprints were a bit indistinct as the snow had become a bit slushy but they seem to correspond to the features of a fox rather than a cat. I was surprised to learn that a fox adopts a different gait in snow. On a firm surface it trots with a diagonal gait so that the fore and hind footprints are obliquely next to each other. In snow it adopts a straight position and the footprints are found in a straight line.

Goldcrest seen locally

Just a couple of days after the Garden Birdwatch I was walking across farmland less than a mile away when I had a close encounter with a Goldcrest - a species that I have yet to record on Moat House land. It seemed happy to be foraging on a tree less than a couple of metres away from me. These are not uncommon and I have seen them a couple of times before in the village but not for the last four or five years.

Great Garden Birdwatch 2009

The January 2009 birdwatch recorded 14 species (cf 2008 - 10 species, 2007 - 11 species). Three species -Greenfinch, Blue Tit and Great Tit- made an entrance together just two minutes before the end of the watch. Once again mallards made their first entrance of the year on Garden Birdwatch day. I also recorded moorhens, crows, rooks, magpies, blackbirds, wrens, wood pigeons, collared doves, starlings and chaffinches.
The next morning I glanced out the window and I could see robins, dunnocks, goldfinches and a pheasant but too late to be counted.
The Garden Watch is a brilliant scheme which is valuable both scientifically, from a communications perspective and in just involving people in birdwatching. The thing that it brings home to me is the lack of sparrows. I haven't recorded any in the last three years.

Goshawkor Sparrowhawk?

A friend who lives a few hundred metres away has had a Goshawk in the field next to their house and has seen it taking pigeons. I have often seen Sparrowhawks in the village and have seen one at close quarters eating a pigeon it had killed. I also reported on a 'Sparrowhawk' that took a pigeon from the lawn here in September 2007. I only caught a fleeting glance of the kill and I am now wondering whether it could have been a Goshawk. I have also come across a couple of piles of pigeon feathers (see blog August 2008), which I again thought might be from a Sparrowhawk kill, but again it is conceivable they could be from a Goshawk. Alternatively something else could have taken the pigeon such as a fox. The only point here is that the feathers have been in rough piles whereas when I used to come across pigeons that I knew had been taken by Sparrowhawks, the feathers were in more of a doughnut pattern. All in all I am out of my depth on this one and need some more evidence.........

More fungi

In October I came across of a couple of new species of fungi. The first was Shaggy Ink Cap - unfortunately I was a day or two too late to eat them as they were already deliquescing. The second is I think Sulphur Tuft (photo shown).

How do they do that?

The accompanying picture shows a spider's web. You may not be able to see the web itself which is in the top left corner but you should be able to make out the top thread under from which the web is suspended. The thing that amazes me is how the top thread was put in place. It is over four feet long and is attached at the left end to the tip of the hawthorn about eight feet above the ground (top left of photo) and at the other end to the lime about six feet up (on the right margin). Did the spider jump four feet horizontally streaming the thread behind it? That is the only sensible explanation. That is some feat.