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I took a walk across my local patch this morning, an area of flood meadow and farmland just around the corner from my house. I've not been out there very much this winter, it's either been tipping it down with rain or flooded out, but as it was sunny I thought I'd get my wellies on and go for a look. I'm glad I did as the Skylarks are starting to make their song flights and setting up territories, so I had quite a few zooming around over my head singing their hearts out, a fantastic experience.


Skylark in songflight

The Reed Buntings are back too, setting up territories along the little drainage ditches running through the farmland. I saw a number of males singing from stems and a couple of females too - last year I don't remember seeing a single female here, so it's reassuring that I've seen some already and one appeared to be paired with a male. I have heard that these birds only appeared in the area about 10 years ago, so it's good to see them still here - I'd been worried that they could desert the area as there have been changes to the meadow management that have impacted the local wildlife somewhat.


Male Reed Bunting

The fishing lake held twelve Tufted Ducks and a pair of Great Crested Grebes, and I could hear Green Woodpeckers 'yaffling' as I walked through the fields. A number of Goosanders were flying about too, probably flushed from the river by dog walkers as they are quite nervous birds and easily startled.


Female Goosander in flight


Male Tufted Duck

In the space of an hour I saw about 17 species of bird, which was pretty good for a late winter morning, and I didn't go to the other meadows or wooded areas where more birds can be found. I've seen about 90 species of bird here since I started walking this area about six years ago, which is not bad for an unprotected area right on the outskirts of a large town in mid-Essex. We even get otters and Barn Owls and sometimes birds like Peregrine Falcons turn up. It can be very bleak though, on bad days you might walk for an hour in the freezing wind and see nothing more than a wood pigeon! It makes the good days all the more special though!

(note: all old photos, not ones I took today, but I thought it would help as some of these are quite probably birds people haven't seen before)

Beautiful, I'm quite jealous. I noticed ducks in the river on my walk into Stockport last week, padding on the flooded landstrip. Today, I've a pair of blue tits in the tree. They won't stay with the cats or the squirrel that eats everything.

Really nice photos, Paul! My parents are both serious birdwatchers (some day I'll get used to saying twitchers!) and my step-father is a little bit obsessed with bird photography. When they came to visit me here in the UK (we're from California) we/they had a lot of fun getting to know the new bird life!

The funny thing is that before I got into wildlife I used to walk this area quite often but I assumed it was completely dead 'wasteland' as I'd never seen a single bird or creature over there - it shows how well your brain can tune out wildlife! We are very good at walking around and thinking about work, books or what we're going to cook for dinner rather than actually experiencing our surroundings - I'm sure I'm not the only one who has walked home from work and then realised I don't remember a single moment of that journey! It's very good for the mind when for a little while you can let go all that stuff that's clamouring for attention and just be out in a green place watching some wildlife, whether it's the sparrows in your garden, ducks and squirrels in the park or whatever.

Really nice to watch the ducks on flooded ground - here it's mostly the moorhens, gulls and the odd coot you see like that.

It was nice, there'd been Canadian geece (2) the previous day, only just made the bus mind as hadn't factored in time for watching!

Always nice to watch the geese. I agree, it does rather cause you to lose track of time though!

Robyn wrote: "Really nice photos, Paul! My parents are both serious birdwatchers (some day I'll get used to saying twitchers!) and my step-father is a little bit obsessed with bird photography. When they came to..."

Thanks Robyn. I get asked a lot if I'm a twitcher (often with accompanying smirk) but that's really not my thing - I do know some twitchers (technically, those who chase sightings of rare birds) but I prefer to go for walks and see what's about rather than do that - I'm more interested in the more regular birds than rare ones.

My parents are a combination of both; now that my step-father is retired he will definitely spend extra time hunting down a sighting of a rare bird, and they have also started travelling to exotic locales (next week, Thailand!) to bird. But most often they bird their local patch (they live in the countryside so there is plenty to look at just in the yard) and accompanying areas.

It is certainly true what a difference it makes to learn your local area's wildlife (and plant life) - suddenly you see everything is much more complex than you realised, even if you live in a relatively 'unexciting' area. And getting to know behaviour is much of the fun!

It can be really interesting to have a 'local patch' that you visit a lot, you get to see the changes over the seasons and over the years and it can be really amazing when you go out with someone and learn the place well enough to say "there's probably a Reed Bunting around that patch of weeds� oh, there he is!". :-D

Weirdly I got a bit of a reputation for being 'the expert' on my local patch; it seemed like most of the local birdwatchers knew of me and apparently my name was raised in conversations about the local area, which is quite bizarre really, particularly since I only got interested in this fairly recently, I didn't really know the other local birdwatchers and I am far from being an expert on the subject. I think they must have known of me from the fact that I sent in sighting reports to the local RSPB group's website (which a lot of people do) and I guess that since most of my reports were of the same place people got to know that was the place I watched. When I did meet up with one of the local birders and walked around my patch with him (when a Glossy Ibis turned up here - now THAT was a strange sight in Essex!) he raised his eyebrows a lot at what I've seen here.

One aspect I really like is that if you spend a lot of time in one place you can experience some really cool events - on my patch we had an irruption of 16 spot ladybirds and the meadow was absolutely covered with them, there were thousand upon thousand! I remember also one year the Meadow Brown butterfly population spiked and the meadow was full of more butterflies than I've ever seen - each tall weed had at least seven or eight butterflies on it and the meadow is huge, so there were many, many thousands there - I spent a lot of time around the meadow that year as it was wonderful to see so many butterflies fluttering around you, especially with the Skylarks singing overhead at the same time!

Sounds nice, having been in the butterfly house in Chester zoo I knew that a lot of them can be a bit freaky. Perhaps it was the hysterical children.

Saw an early bumblebee Saturday, it's much too early isn't it?

It can be a little overwhelming in a confined space with a lot of very large ones, even if you like them a lot (partly the fear of squashing one!), but in an open, warm, sunny meadow? Not at all!

Not too early for bumblebees, the winter has been mild and flowers are out so the right time for them - probably will start seeing quite a lot of queens looking for sites to set up colonies now.

I wanted to shop it up and take it somewhere green. I was more than a little concerned that one of the kids would smack the last surviving butterfly of a long lost breed!

I was far more interested in wildlife when younger. My childhood dream to be zoo keeper. Had birthday present as keeper for day at Colchester zoo couple of years ago which was great
Cos your here Paul been thinking of wildlife books read over years
Jane Goodhall, Dianne Fossey. JOY Adamson.
Been few novels
I play squash with mum author this boo k
Not sure if interested in this

Me too Bob re zoo keeper or a zooer as I called it. Never really been much interested in things furry or feathery or scaly since, bar having a dog.......tho' I do like a good polar bear doc

Took photos of some beautiful spring flowers today, no idea how to post them though.

Was in London yesterday. Tempted to see wildlife photographs of year at natural history museum. But £12. Used to be free. Will wait till it goes to Tring museum

Ian wrote: "Me too Bob re zoo keeper or a zooer as I called it. Never really been much interested in things furry or feathery or scaly since, bar having a dog.......tho' I do like a good polar bear doc"

I can't imagine not being interested in all things furry (although I'm with you on the scaly front)... I teach animal handling to the students at my college. :)

Kate (Trojanhorse) wrote: "I can't imagine not being interested in all things furry (although I'm with you on the scaly front)... I teach animal handling to the students at my college. :) "

I think reptiles and amphibians, and insects are really interesting - it's only plants that don't 'really' excite me in the same way, but I do still like plants; I've a copy of Plant and Planet by Anthony Huxley to read and I really enjoyed David Attenborough's The Private Life of Plants.

Went Adder watching last summer, it was really cool to see them. Quite a frisson to walk the heath paths where they sunbathe, especially when you find mating Green Tiger Beetles instead - that was pretty special!

Can you give us a warning if you are going to post a snake picture please? I have a bit of a phobia!!!!! eek! Thanks. :)

'Fortunately' I don't have a good one. I do have some photos of a slow worm though...

Don't panic! How about a nice little Rabbit instead? :-)

Cue python stage left......even more deadly than Glenn Close.

:-D

Starting to see bumblebees here and birdsong is becoming much more noticeable. Haven't been into town at dusk to see if the Pied Wagtail roost is still there but I've heard of two other local towns with similar sized (circa 150 birds) roosts going on at the moment, which is rather a lovely thought. "Chiswick! Chiswick!" :-) There's a video about a roost at Heathrow from the BBC's Great British Year on youtube:

Explosion of Snow Drops here.
We have a wood nearby where farmhouse for blue bells. Coach trips from Midlands just to see them. Only joy of nights I have driven up at day break and had it to myself

I'm going on an excursion in a couple of weeks to see snowdrops.

Robert wrote: "Explosion of Snow Drops here.
We have a wood nearby where farmhouse for blue bells. Coach trips from Midlands just to see them. Only joy of nights I have driven up at day break and had it to myself"

Lovely. Quite a lot around the castle in Colchester today, and I had a great time watching the grey squirrels, though they were VERY tame and two climbed up my trousers! I spent about half an hour watching them as they were chasing each other about and one large female was clearly coming into season as a male was following very closely on her tail and sniffing her. Quite a lot of scuffling going on as she saw off the advances of the males. There were lots of Jackdaws too, a bird I really love and I got really close to one pair for some cracking views.

Leaning on a wall I saw some movement out of the corner of my eye and turned slowly to see a feral pigeon perched on the wall by my shoulder giving me the eye! :-D Later on I had to move away from my bench when having my lunch as the swans got a little TOO close (have had that experience there before!) but at another bench I was surrounded by black-headed gulls and very happy I was as I fed them little crumbs - they're very dainty gulls and they have a beautiful look to them I think, though most people don't seem to like them at all.

The Robins in my garden are nest-building in my ivy, dashing back and forth with beakfuls of material. Lovely to see, especially when they break off and come to see me hoping for a little food.

I saw my first Lesser Celandine flower of the year yesterday, a real sign of spring and one that always makes me feel a little emotional as those glowing yellow flowers are so welcome after a long winter. I also saw a number of bumblebee queens searching for nest holes along a mossy bank and a hoverfly poised sunlit in the air over the footpath, perfectly holding position in the windless air.

Read an article on Robins in the free Stockport paper last week, very sweet.

They're super birds� vicious little so-and-so's but lovely all the same. :-)

Got home from town to find an enormous queen wasp on my kitchen blind, must have flown in while I had the door open this morning. Managed to gently persuade her out of the window with an empty pop bottle. My first wasp of the year - she was quite a beauty too, if you get past the 'Eek! A dirty great wasp!!!' feeling. I certainly prefer hornets to wasps though� they're somewhat more benign creatures, less inclined to sting!

A wonderfully wildlife-filled day today, I went to my parents' house and we spent some time in the garden watching the frogs in the pond (at least 40-50 in their small pond, all croaking away and indulging in naughty spring business). One was sitting on the path just at the back door, so care was needed walking around outside!



There were quite a number of butterflies; Peacocks, Small Tortoiseshells and Commas (one of which perched on my back!), hairy-footed flower bees on the lungworts and a large red-tailed bumblebee queen that was clambering inside a crocus flower and then took a liking to my hand and sat on my palm for a bit until I managed to persuade her off onto a dwarf daffodil. On the way home I saw two Brimstone butterflies and a Nursery Web Spider.

My cat had enormous fun last year bringing frogs home and setting them free in the kitchen!

Wandered round Attenborough this morning along the river Trent. Swans, Geese, Robins, Moorhens, various tits and finches and the lesser spotted sun was also out.
Lots of Daffodils and I think there were cowslips out too.

A lovely day to walk along a river Deanne, I rather wished I'd gone out along my local river, though I had visiting and garden work to do instead (and still saw lots of interesting things). Good that you have cowslips, I think they're becoming something of a rarity these days.

The banks of the local stream is carpeted with new growth of comfrey* at the moment, last summer it was absolutely covered with flowers and was quite a sight. I've planted some of the wild celandines from my parents' garden in my own, hoping that they will take and spread (they are rampant in my parents' garden!) as they are lovely plants and will offer a big source of early food for the insects in my garden - the ones in my parents' garden were alive with butterflies.

*edit: comfrey� not borage!

I planted bulbs and my first daffodil opened today. I put in four or five lots, few bunches of tulips and some other stuff. I can see tips sprouting all over :-)

My garden house sparrows are getting a hard time - the resident Robin came to see me for some food and when I put some out the sparrows came over to get some too. The Robin was not best pleased and fought two of them at my feet and scattered the others! Then later on a pair of Blue Tits that have been hanging around started taking an interest in the sparrow terrace nest box I put up last weekend, even starting to take some nesting material in, but they didn't like the sparrows being anywhere near that side of the garden and were fighting them, giving them quite a rough ride for such a small bird! Normally it's the sparrows that dominate, even pushing off the wood pigeons at times, but they were getting their comeuppance today!

One or two sparrows started looking at the nest box too� could be a bumpy few days!

I'm surprised the nuthatches haven't mopped it all up!

Sounds very exciting, Zak would have enormous fun. He eyed a Magpie yesterday.

I like to put out black seed for a pair of gold finches who entertain us while we are in the kitchen at meal times. I call them tweedledum and tweedledee - they sit there pecking at the seed, and looking over their shoulder periodically, like two old ladies.

Goldfinches are great birds to watch and I love their song - very 'tinkly'. :-)

Yesterday morning was late for work and had to dash to put the seed out for the birds but the pair of robins wouldn't let me rush, hopping around under my feet and sitting in the seed tray, making me have to be very careful where I put my feet! Adorable, but not the best day for it!

Just had a very nice garden experience as while I was sitting on the back step feeding the sparrows a Garden Warbler started singing in the holly at the bottom of my garden (very appropriate!). I've only heard these a few times before and it's the first one I've seen one in the garden. They're easily mixed up with Blackcap if you only hear the song - I had to play the recordings on the RSPB website to be sure. Much easier if you see them as garden warblers are fairly drab olive-brown birds but blackcaps have brown or black 'caps' on their heads (depending if female or male).


Female Blackcap

I don't have a photo of a Garden Warbler though.

Saw some bluebells on my walk this morning, have to take a walk in Swithland woods soon.

Watched Countryfile last night as it was about the shoreline north of Liverpool that I know well. Lots of interesting stuff about birds if you want to catch it on the iPlayer.

A friend of mine is a country warden. Recently he was texting me me advising that whilst he was sitting on a fallen log a deer approached him and after a time started to feed from his hand.
Unfortunately the deer disappeared for about 5 to 6 weeks. He than texted me all excited the deer had reappeared and she was not alone she had a baby with her. He felt she was introducing him to her child.

The bluebells seem to be rather early this year in Surrey.

James wrote: "A friend of mine is a country warden. Recently he was texting me me advising that whilst he was sitting on a fallen log a deer approached him and after a time started to feed from his hand.
Unfortu..."

Very cool indeed - he must give off the right vibes to be trusted like that! I know that the Red deer at Minsmere in Suffolk are used to people but that's because they see the visitors to the reserve day in, day out and in the main trail area will happily feed while people walk right by them. Outside the reserve area they are very skittish at a goodly distance though. Pretty cool to get such close views of what, in Scotland at least, is usually a very elusive creature:

More migrant warblers coming in and birds setting up territories as yesterday along a short stretch of river going into town I heard Chiffchaffs again, Willow Warblers (a beautiful, yet very simple song they have, always makes me happy to hear them) and Blackcaps.

Nightingales have arrived back in Essex and so have Cuckoos, House Martins, Common Terns (looking forward to seeing these back on the river!), Yellow Wagtails, Turtle Doves, Whitethroats and Redstarts. There were a pair of Turtle Doves seen only a few miles from my house, which seem to be a regular in someone's garden - very lucky people indeed!

More cold-blooded activity getting going now too as a friend spent some time watching Grass Snakes and Common Lizards last week and the Adders should be getting active too. Hedgehogs are out and about as well, though unfortunately the only one I've seen so far this year was roadkill.

Just startingLeviathan: Or, The Whale had great reviews.

Baby bird city here at the moment, with baby Sparrows and now baby Starlings appearing in my garden, a baby Blackbird hopping around just a few feet from me along a grassy path around the corner yesterday (fantastic!), a baby Robin in my parents' garden plus the other day in town there were lots of baby Coots, Moorhens and Canada Geese on the park pond.

And if that's not cheered me up enough the tame female blackbird that I thought hadn't made it through the winter turned up back in my garden today! She is VERY tame and last year would come into my kitchen looking for food:

As promised, here are a couple of videos from my trip to North Norfolk last week; the first of the Common Lizards I found on Kelling Heath, which were sunbathing in the safety of the gorse bushes next to the footpath:



The second is of a pair of Redshanks at the Cley Marshes nature reserve. The male was trying to woo the female but not exactly doing a very good job of it; she was VERY unimpressed to say the least!



the hide was packed so I had to stand at the back and shoot handheld over the top of people's heads, hence the wobbly footage.

A lovely part of the UK, very rich in wildlife but battered somewhat by the recent winter weather; lots of shingle banks and sea walls were broken through and the effects were visible everywhere around Cley and Blakeney.

Great shots Paul. My wife and I will be up in that neck of the woods at the end of the week for a residents meeting so we will be looking out for them.

Thanks Michael - lots going on up there at the moment, it's a great time to be looking for wildlife.

Finally finished Leviathan or,the whale.
Very hard read in some places 're whaling industry. Was bad enough in 18th and 19th century. But at least with small boats and sail they stood a chance and Blue Whales just to big!
20th century with factory ships,explosive harpoons and helicopters tracking them absolutely no chance