Skip to main content

Early Visitor

I don't normally expect any bird activity in the Garden until well into November but today a nuthatch turned up and investigated the empty feeder.I have put a bulk order in with Haiths, hopefully he will return and I won't get food rotting in the feeders as has happened when I have tried feeding early in the season before. I haven't done much birding during the summer but a recent visit to the Forest of Dean did result in a close encounter with a wild boar. I was in the sculpture park on an old raiway embankment when I heard a boar grunting just below me a few yards away. I couldn't see him as the undergrowth was very thick but from the volume it was about the same distance as you would be from a pig at a city farm. I moved a little down the path before leaning over the fence to see if I could spot him but without luck. I did see a small heard of fallow deer later on though. Earlier in the day I had stopped at Brierley to have a look at the beaver release. I did manage to see a beaver dam but no animals.
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Kites Spreading East

 I haven't been posting much due personal matters but still have my eyes open. One thing that has struck me is the eastward spread of birds of prey. I have seen buzzards over Havering-atte-Bower but the big suprise in the past month as been a red kite over the M25 near Stapleford Abbotts in Essex. The skys still look empty by Chiltern standards though. A nice little spot last week was a goldcrest during a visit to Kew Gardens.  I have downloaded the Merlin app which supposedly identifies birdsong. I have had little opportunity to try it out but a quck test in the garden showd that it correctly told me that I could hear jackdaws and a robin. I look forward to using it on the coast to see if it can distinguish the various waders for me. 
Post a Comment
Read more

Not as Quiet as I Thought

 The garden has seemed very quiet with hardly any birds seen but I hadn't been explicitly looking. I have just started putting a little food out in the front and in 24 hours have seen Robin, Great and Blue Tits and Magpies landing in my tiny front garden. Yesterday I heard a song that was unusual to me which the Merlin app identified as a Blackcap. Unfortunately for me the bird was ensconsed in the middle of my Forsythia which is still in full leaf and I couldn't get a sighting. This afternoon I saw Robins in the garden and corvids overhead. I set Merlin running while I swept fallen leaves from the front path. The app identified Robin, Rook, Wren, Jackdaw, Greenfinch and Blackbird. I also heard Parakeets but not while the app was running. 
Post a Comment
Read more

Forest of Dean

I had a day in the Forest yesterday, walking and then a ride on the preserved railway. The trouble with woodland is that you don't get the rapid views of multiple species that you get in wetlands. However, after parking at the Nags Head reserve I walked down to the Lower Hide. The ponds were pretty well down to muddy pools and I was treated to the unusual site of what must have been a family of nuthatches bathing. I had lost the sense of scale through the bins and I wasn't sure what I was looking at until a robin hopped into view to give me a relative size. The real treat was a nuthatch working its way up an oak tree. I then walked through the forest to Bix Slade and down the line of the old tramway to the wharf on the old railway by Cannop Ponds. No manarin ducks this time but I did see tufties, moorhen, and both pied and grey wagtails. I followed the railway back to the road, crossed back over the Cannop Brook and planned to follow a forestry track back to the reserve. Howe...
Post a Comment
Read more