April

I don’t suppose that information is kept on something as subjective as the most glorious April on record, but if it was, this year’s would have to be a contender. Some days have had the freshness of spring with bright blue skies, gentle warmth and light breezes. Others have been like summer, with a stillness and heat that chase people and wildlife into the shade of trees, many of which are now in full leaf.
On one such day I walked over the land belonging to the Woodland Trust to the south of Oakham. Ball’s Meadow, Harris Grove and Brooke Hill Wood. Three names for a small area of land, a gentle slope leading to a view over Oakham and Rutland Water. The sheep had all been pushed to the margins, sheltering under bushes, huddled together, not for warmth but for protection from the sun’s heat. Birds were difficult to spot, they were briefly visible, dashing from tree to bush. The spring’s breeding necessities forced them to keep active, but they did not pause in the unseasonal midday warmth. Among the foliage it was possible to gain the briefest of glimpses of finches, robins  and blackbirds. But it was the song of the warblers; the chiff chaffs and blackcaps, that gave the consistent indication of avian activity. The gorse coming into flower released its soft coconut scent, and among these brown and yellow bushes a good number of bluebells reminded me that this was spring and not summer. As I walked back down towards the town I spotted a buzzard circling on the thermals. This raptor was joined by two kestrels doing the same, climbing higher and higher. A crow flew into view and seemed to think about interfering, but gave up after a couple of passes as the birds of prey gained altitude and disappeared into the blue.

Gorse Flowers

View from the Woodland Trust land on the edge of  Oakham.

Looking north from Rockingham Castle

Knossington Bird Survey

The morning promised sunshine, pale golden light was glowing through a cloud draped sky. By the time I was on my way at 7:30 there were more signs that the cloud was going to win. By 7:48 I was in my allotted tetrad beginning my late winter count. Counting was made harder by the deep, soft mud, trying to pull my feet from under me. I tried to look up to the trees and bushes around me, but my eyes kept being dragged down to my feet, all of my concentration focussed on remaining upright.

But today, this late February morning, spring was with me, although a wind was rising. Robins that have kept up their song all through the winter are now being joined by the chaffinch, tits and dunnocks. Walking past Windmill Lodge, I see what look like thrushes on a farm building. Fieldfare I suspect, but against the light, skulking in shadows I can’t be sure. I am sure of the small cloud of around fifteen yellow hammers that rise from the thick bare-twigged hedges. Joining the spring song, the males now with their canary yellow heads seemed to be dripping from the trees and bushes today.

I hear so many people disbelieving research into bird numbers and trends, basing their beliefs on their own experience and anecdotal evidence. If I were to follow suit, and I’m not, I would be satisfied from today’s walk that the yellow hammer is flourishing. I know this is not the case.

On a timed visit, trying to cover as much of the map square as possible in one hour, trying to record as many of the birds as possible, an identification of a call has to suffice. A green woodpecker continues to taunt me, calling, close by, I look up each time, but I haven’t time to stop and search for the bird I know is there.

A flock of around seventy fieldfare fly from tree to tree, at this early hour the countryside seems thronged with birds. Corvids, tits, finches – including a pair of bull finches. I’m delayed by an identification crisis. After about 5 minutes of listening to song and looking form minute differences I am satisfied that the bird is a willow, not a marsh, tit.

With just around a minute of my hour left the welcome song of the skylark reaches my ears and, unusually, my eyes find it easily as it climbs into the sky.

The small rolling fields, wooded coverts, brooks and streams of the Leicestershire countryside are becoming familiar to me now. A pure joy to be in, if only for an hour.

Mist

Today a low lying mist sits in the valleys. In pockets among trees. Not the dense fog of the past few days. In Fineshade Wood all around the word ‘dank’ comes to mind. Not that this is a bad thing. Drops of moisture hang on twigs and branches, wood is turned black and dark brown from weeks of soaking. Shades of green moss creep up trees, almost fluorescent at the tips. Matted leaf litter covers the ground, sodden, at various stages of decay. Mist hangs in the cold air. Weeks of freezing temperatures have left thick ice in ditches. I’m reminded of Andrei Tarkovsky’s film ‘Stalker’, the dripping mid-winter stillness suggests the no-man’s land of ‘the zone’ in Martin Cruz-Smith’s ‘Wolves Eat Dogs’. I like that feeling, imagining vast tracts of lonely land, rather than a small part of Rockingham Forest in Northamptonshire.
Not that this forest is devoid of life. There are plenty of blue and great tits and more coal tits than I have ever seen together, the odd marsh tit too. In places mixed flocks of some these along with long tailed tits bring the seemingly dead trees to life as they sweep their way through on the perpetual winter search for food. Sections of hedgerow seem to be dripping with redwings, that flee in small groups as I make my way along the path.
After Fineshade, a brief trip skirting the edge of Blatherwycke Lake. Most of this is still frozen, despite it being some days since the thaw set in, with all but the biggest drifts of snow now gone. On the water swans and tufted ducks mill around, the plaintive whistling of wigeon drift through the mist that hides them. Light fades, another midwinter day ending, time to be inside with coffee and shortbread.

Ice and mist on Blatherwycke Lake

Freezing Weather

We seem to have escaped the worst of the snow, in fact we’ve hardly had any. There was an hour or so of heavy-ish snow fall the other day, it was enough to turn everything white-at-a-distance, and since then the freezing temperatures and daily frost have maintained this wintry landscape, without causing too much disruption.

I remember going to Sweden in April some years ago and being told that in the previous month they’d had temperatures of -30°c. That sort of cold was unimaginable then, but after this winter…well, I still can’t imagine it, but checking the thermometer at 9am to find a temperature of -9°c is a cold the like of which I don’t recall experiencing. For the average low lying areas of England, I seem to remember anything like –3 or –4 seeming more or less impossibly cold. So, in summary, it’s very cold. A short walk in the pasture field towards the young woodland just south of Oakham presents plenty of birds, carefully searching hedgerows for food. Lots of chaffinches. Blue and great tits also. Chittering gold finches higher in the trees. Clacking fieldfares over head, a looping green woodpecker making its way from tree to tree. Plenty of black headed gulls, that seem to have boundless drive to wheel around and cry at each other. Carrion crows and wood pigeons over fly in pairs. Ponds with broken surfaces show ice inches thick, white frost clings to every twig and stem of the long grass.

In the back garden the feeders are busy. Reed buntings make their first appearance of the winter. Tree and house sparrows take turns on the perches and throng on the ground. The garden birds are naturally twitchy and flighty, but in this weather economy is also important. Economy of movement, flying only when necessary to make the most of the carefully foraged food. I know they can’t help it but it’s frustrating to see blackbirds and robins waste so much of their energy, chasing and threatening others of their species. They can’t know there will be a plentiful supply of food in this garden throughout the winter.

One pair of robins seem a little half-hearted in their aggression. One makes a brief fly at the other, skimming over its head before landing some 12 inches away. They then sit, puffed up balls of feathers, facing each other out, before one flies a few feet away to continue feeding and the other remains in place. Maybe something has been resolved, maybe they are both just hoping the other will go away.

The freeze continues and is set to continue for days more. Many small birds will die. Apparently this year was a good breeding season for many species. It’s looking like they’ll need another one next year.

Reed buntings taking seed from the tray.

First Snow

The biting cold seems to radiate upwards from the snow-covered ground. An inch or two of white has altered the green-brown of yesterday. House sparrows queue for the feeder, perching on the tops of the spikes and thorns that make up the hedge along the bottom of the garden. As they wait they take advantage of the weak early morning sun, providing little but precious warmth.

Throughout the day, in small groups and singly, dunnocks, goldfinches, blue tits, blackbirds, a robin, wood pigeons and magpies visit, taking from feeders and sifting through the snow to find grains of seed. At one point a mass of 40 starlings congregates on the ground, in the trees and at the feeders.

Towards the end of day, with fading light a soft chattering in a hawthorn two doors away. Silhouetted against the clear darkening blue-yellow sky the mass of black branches host a flock of small birds, three quarter size ping-pong balls with long tail feathers. They flit, hesitantly, ebb and flow gradually reaching our feeder. Until at one point there are eight long tailed tits arranged on the fatball cage, tails sticking out at all angles, like carelessly placed Christmas tree decorations, some upside down. In the half-light their soft colours and markings are still visible. Bright white stripe above the tiny beak, concentrated faces finding a final evening feed.

Standing in the garden I edge away slowly, slip on the snow breaking my fall with my left hand and a wrist bend, of  the sort that lets you know it will hurt later. The birds take no notice and continue their meal, before moving on once more along the hedge row, little by little until all (too flighty to count 10, 12 maybe?) are gone.

Sheep that have never looked so glad of their coats continue to graze, heads down, pulling at blades of grass showing through the snow. Feeding the pre-occupation of everything that lives outside, more so in this freezing weather.

As I go to bed at 11 next door’s security light illuminates a patch of the pasture field that lies beyond the gardens, through the window I see a movement, snatch up the binoculars just in time to see a fox move off, head down, intent, searching for something to eat.

Sunglasses

A bright autumn day. Sunlight streaming through the trees, illuminating turning leaves green, yellow, red, orange and brown. Clear, crystal blue skies provide a splendid backdrop for the full colour spectacle that the best of this season brings. And yet so many people choose to mute the experience with sunglasses. Odd.

A Glimpse of Winter. (Water, Weather, Waders and Wildfowl)

Where one season ends and another begins can be a matter of much debate, September can be the beginning of autumn and another year it can be late summer. Seasons can blur, switch around for a few days, not like a cold day in midsummer, but a day in the transition between seasons when the incoming takes a grip over everything for a day before letting its predecessor back in for a while. Sunday 24 October had much of winter about it. It couldn’t tear all of the leaves from the trees, but it put a hard frost on the ground, a layer of ice on the bird bath and brought bright blue skies with face-numbing cold.

Having bought another 20kg sack of bird seed, we stopped off at Eyebrook Reservoir. It’s always important to take the scope to Eyebrook, many of the birds congregate beyond the reliable reach of binoculars. A scan around revealed a winter view. Winter wildfowl; wigeon and pintail, the former adding their short, urgent whistling to the cold landscape. Among the usual strung out mass of mute swans, a family group of 5 whoopers, 2 adult, 3 juvenile swam and huddled. Arrived safe from Iceland.

On the mudflats growing numbers of lapwings and, I noticed a number of golden plover. Another sign of winter. When the two species took to the air, the plovers flew faster, higher, with more purpose and tighter choreography. Not a huge number, a very rough estimate being somewhere around 100 or so. Lapwing and golden plover flying together, provides one of those spectacles created by massed flocks, best viewed by unaided eyes, even when, as today the numbers are not huge. The lapwings gently swirl on bouncing wings set against the green and bare red clay fields climbing behind the reservoir. Taking to the air, loosely together, breaking into smaller flocks, turning from black to winking white as they change direction, they numbered a few hundred. As one group shows black another turns and changes appearance. The groups cross paths and hold a rough shape only. As if each has its place, but they don’t concern themselves with being overly regimented, before gradually the loose association breaks down into a wandering mêlée of gently meandering black and white birds. The comparatively small number of plover fly in one group, sprinting through the sky with sudden twists not dissimilar to a flock of pre-roost starlings, becoming slightly strung out, at one point heading off to the other end of reservoir, before returning to mix with the lapwings. And having taken off maybe not quite as one, they decide it’s safe to land and glide in to resume their communal feeding.

 

By Tuesday, rain had set in, a grey, heavy autumn day. But winter has shown its hand, a taste of the life it brings together, as birds flock to see out the cold together.