Skip to main content

Cowcroft Wood

Faced with a beautiful afternoon and a garden in urgent need of attention I natually went for a walk instead. Cowcroft Wood nature reserve is a couple of fields away from the house and as it has been dry it was a nice alternative to my usual walk. There wasn't much in the way of bird life visible although there was a lot of song audible. The celandine is out and looking lovely with a promise of a magnificent display of bluebells later.

Suddenly there was a disturbance at treetop height accompanied by a loud mewing. It took me a second to realise what it was as I have never heard a buzzard in the area although I have very occasionally seen them from the car. It flew across my line of sight and stayed in the area for quite a while as the calls were audible for quite a while.

Apart from that we had a very brief glimpse of a muntjac and a brief view of a pheasant catching the sun at the edge of the wood.
Labels:

Comments

David Kavanagh said…
I was in this wood today with the dog. First time in a while and found it very busy with various wildlife/birds. Most interesting find was a nest of orange banded bumble bees - not sure of the exact species - in the trunk of a half-collapsed tree leaning across the track which curls up to Cowcroft Farm. My own best birds in recent months have been two hen harriers and a short-eared owl in fields near Cholesbury. First time I've spotted either species locally in 13 years of living in Chesham.
10:43
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

More Starlings

At least one brood of starlings have been regular visitors to the feeder and today the fledglings got the hang of taking the food for themselves. Other broods must be less developed as adults were still taking away quantities of fat. The tits aren't so common at the moment, I don't know if this is because they have dispersed, if wild food is available or if pressure from the starlings has driven them off. Single blue tits are dropping in fairly regularly and a coal tit took fat away as well. The woodpecker seems to have become a regular visitor and still has a brood to feed. He definitely comes before the starlings in the pecking order and keeps them off the feeder until he has finished. The new feeder with perching rings is popular with the chaffinches and the goldfinches, the latter suddenly seem to prefer the high energy mix to the nyjer seed. With all this demand for feeding young ones the fat is going down very rapidly and I am putting larger quantities out on the ground t...
Post a Comment
Read more