Saturday, July 31, 2010
West Ilsley
The village pond, shrunk to a puddle and with a family of moorhens which walked away from the water just as I took the photo, kind of sums up today's walk from a birding point of view.
At least there was nothing to hold us up on our route-march from Bury Down car park back to Bury Down car park (where they have put up ugly posts to stop mile-wide vehicles getting in); and Greger was pleased with the length (10 miles) and unusual speed of the walk."That will have burnt off plenty of calories," he said, as he downed a pint of lager at the Four Points on the way home and put them all back on again.
Thursday, July 29, 2010
Dorney
Dorney Corner was alive early this morning with warblers; there were scruffy young chiffchaffs and at least one sleek yellow willow warbler squabbling in the hedgerow. The kingfisher was intently watching the pool below.
A grey wagtail was at the weir - the first I've seen since the hill-walk sighting in Scotland. The "hide" window was completely overgrown, but I did get an unexpected view of a young bird moving around in the reeds. Trouble was, it simultaneously got an unexpected view of me and disappeared. A reed warbler? Maybe not, given the sliver of white on the wing. Garden warbler isn't impossible.
I thought I heard a distant Cetti's, but by now the noise from the motorway was drowning everything out. At the new little pool or scrape near the footbridge, a second grey wagtail was seen fly-catching; and several house martins and swifts were hunting.Wednesday, July 28, 2010
Taplow
The bee is leaving the picture.....
I'm quite pleased I got a record shot of this though, because it's a Tree bumblebee - a first for the garden. Research on the internet reveals that the species only appeared in the UK (in the New Forest) in 2001, since when it's been gradually spreading north.Another bee looked unfamiliar; and at first I thought it was a Ruderal bumblebee - now fairly rare, apparently. But I now think it's a White-tailed bumblebee which is very common! This is okay though because it's still a garden tick. I'm sure they've been around for some time, but I failed to ID them.
Both bees were nectaring on the Hebe shrubs, among numerous other bumblebees, a few Honey bees and several varieties of hoverfly - including the impressive Banded hoverfly and loads of Marmalade flies.
Both bees were nectaring on the Hebe shrubs, among numerous other bumblebees, a few Honey bees and several varieties of hoverfly - including the impressive Banded hoverfly and loads of Marmalade flies.There is concern on the estate at the number of wasps, but so far I've only seen a few in our garden. We had a nest removed years ago from the wooden planking above our bedroom window; that space is now occupied (and has been for some time) by bats. They leave a long white streak of urine on the outside of the window and tiny droppings on the sill, but I don't mind them. Last night I looked out and saw at least two flitting about just feet away. When they return to the roost we hear a tiny thud.
Tuesday, July 27, 2010
I woke up early and went for a pre-work walk. A little egret was hanging out first with cormorants and then with coots, as if to show off its brilliant white plumage to best effect.
A distant water rail was feeding in the open although it never strayed far from cover. It was probably the first time I've seen one in July.
A swallow skimmed over the water, a hobby was hunting and two tiny froglets (or toadlets - I'm never sure) crossed the path in front of me.Sunday, July 25, 2010
Burnham Beeches
On a morning walk, I had a brief, neck-breaking sighting of a lesser spotted woodpecker at the very top of a tall beech tree. It's only in the last couple of years that I've gone hunting for lesser-spots in summer, and this was my fourth summer sighting.
Also present were male and female blackcaps, two treecreepers chasing each other round a tree trunk, juvenile nuthatches, great tits and long-tailed tits, a couple of song thrushes and a juvenile great spotted woodpecker.
Saturday, July 24, 2010
The Ridgeway
Our usual round from Warren Farm Streatley brought nothing special, although it's always nice to see yellow wagtails.
Farmers have begun to get the harvest in and what with their tractors and the odd 4x4 lurching past, we were enveloped several times in great clouds of chalky dust. Not that we moaned of course - well, not much.
Wednesday, July 21, 2010
Burnham Beeches
On an evening walk I caught sight of a family of spotted flycatchers low in the undergrowth. It was impossible to count them as they were very active and hidden half the time by tree trunks and branches. There were probably two adults, and this is one of at least two juveniles.
I checked the place where I photographed a spotted flycatcher a couple of weeks ago but could see nothing there; so they're probably the same ones.Monday, July 19, 2010
Burnham Beeches
An evening walk gave me a butterfly tick in this White Admiral - it was actually much darker, and the underwings were really pretty. It was fighting over bramble flowers with a Buff-tailed Bumblebee.
It was flying-ant day today - at least in our garden. I saw them emerge from two places and then they all started to take off together. Amazing.Tuesday, July 13, 2010
Taplow
A song thrush provides an organic solution to the plague of snails in the garden; and we don't mind him using the patio as an "anvil".
We just wish he hadn't decided to do it when we were in the middle of lunch.Monday, July 12, 2010
Burnham Beeches
A lesser spotted woodpecker was feeding mostly high in the canopy this evening; it dropped down briefly, enabling me to get a record shot.
Saturday, July 10, 2010
Ashdown Woods
After an enjoyable but bird-poor walk on the Oxfordshire/West Berkshire downs, I went a little way into the woods and found blue and great tits (including yellow-cheeked young), coal tits, nuthatches, chiffchaffs, blackcaps, and a family of marsh tits.
Scanning the combe and ridge opposite the car park while Greger had a coffee, I belatedly realised that the two large black birds in the tree on top of Weathercock Hill were not crows, but ravens - just as they flew off calling. Typical.
With regard to the second mountain we bagged in Scotland last week: I found the notebook in which I record my Munros and entered the "new" one. I told Greger that my total was now 127, his 84. We felt very pleased with ourselves - after all, it's three years since we bagged a new Munro.
Then I idly flicked back through the notebook to look at the last walk we did in the area, twelve years ago, when we climbed Beinn Dearg and one other. Except we didn't. We climbed BD and two others. We had already done this Munro.
Talk about getting old and forgetful. As if 3,000ft mountains aren't hard enough to get up, without doing them blooming-well twice.
Thursday, July 08, 2010
Burnham Beeches
Spotted flycatchers have been reported for the last two years in the Beeches with no specific location given, so on a late-afternoon walk I tried the glade where I last saw one at least ten years ago.
Nothing there - but I moved gradually outwards and this one was about 100 metres away.
Also present was a large mixed flock containing yellow-cheeked blue and great tits - and three lurking jays. A chiffchaff was feeding scattered, calling fledglings and a swift hunted over the tree-tops.
Monday, July 05, 2010
A week in Scotland
The morning after we arrived at Ardmair Bay, I got up at six and went for a walk along the pebbly beach. My first bird was a house martin (an Ardmair tick) and my second was a common sandpiper, calling from the garden fence.
On the spit at the far end of the beach by the campsite were oystercatchers with young, and several ringed plovers with at least one well-grown chick. A quiet trilling drew my attention to two dunlins. Near the chalets a shag was close in to shore and a distant redshank gave me another Ardmair tick.
There was no one else about - and I was very conscious of the crunching sound my feet were making on the sliding shingle while other people were asleep. So I walked up the beach intending to finish my walk on the road. As I started to climb the bank I realised that three steers had got out of the field below the road on the other side, which they shared with a flock of sheep, and were grazing on the grassy verge.
I'm not keen on farm animals, after a memorable escapade years ago near the Lake District with a large herd of steers; so I quietly withdrew and continued my noisy walk along the beach. When I finally clambered up the bank between the houses, I realised the three cattle were quite close - and at that moment, they all looked up and saw me.
I had just decided I could beat them if I ran to the door of the house when the cattle turned tail as one, thundered down the bank, leapt the fence like three ungainly deer and galloped across the field, scattering hapless sheep to all points of the compass. They wheeled round in unison, came to a halt and stood staring at me - and for the rest of that week, they didn't venture out of the field again!
Breabag
This was our first hill-walk, in the Inchnadamph area of Assynt, using as a rough guide The Corbetts and other Scottish Hills ed. by Rob Milne and Hamish Brown. The English translation of "little height" reflects the modesty of the endeavour - yet we still managed to make a pig's ear of it.
It started well bird-wise, with a perched buzzard, loads of wheatears, a swallow and a sand martin. A family of dippers sped away downstream as we approached the spring known as Fuaran Allt nan Uamh, leaving this one behind.
Above the spring the stream is dry, thanks to the limestone which has honeycombed the area with caves and underground passages. The eerily silent bed of boulders snakes down the hillside, coming to life only after heavy rain.
The bone caves of Inchnadamph proved a bit too far off the path to explore today. In them have been found the remains of wolves and lemmings, and other animals which inhabited these parts around the end of the last ice age - 11,000 years ago.
The man sitting in the third cave passed us on the way up. He told us he'd recently seen ptarmigan on Canisp (just across the road) so we had high hopes of one on this hill.
The dry stream bed ended at this fearsome cul-de-sac, where a thin trickle of water fell from a green mossy pool in the slumped rock above and disappeared among pale rounded pebbles. We clambered up the steep grassy slope to the right instead of the left - our first mistake.....
.....because this put us in an area of peaty bog which otherwise we would have avoided. We squelched across it and climbed to the summit ridge. The cloud descended, and in the reduced visibility we found the terrain rather confusing. At this point Greger declared the hill to be a Baldrick, which is his term for any mountain that annoys him in some way. Eventually we reached two tops, each with a cairn on, and having bagged them sat out of the wind and ate our lunch.
The second was a distant dark dot (not visible in this picture) in the farther of these two lochans which lie on a broad shelf at about 550m on the eastern side of the hill.
Our route of descent lay across this shelf but we could not get closer to the lochans without making a detour, and we were both by now pretty tired. I handed Greger the bins and asked him what he thought, and he said it looked like a tufted duck to him.
It's the obvious choice, although I would like to have got closer to clinch it. Loneliest, highest tuftie I've ever seen - but apparently they do breed in small numbers in Assynt.
A willow warbler was singing from birches and this grey wagtail was fly-catching nearby.
A tedious walk on the road completed a long, relatively bird-rich hill-walk - but with no plovers or ptarmigans on the heights.
We felt quite chuffed to reach the top of the mountain; this is a Munro, albeit a low one at 928 metres. And coming up from Loch Broom at sea level, we could be sure we had climbed the full height.
The path down from there was not as attractive as the one coming up, being across open heathered slopes which failed to provide any hoped-for red grouse. Again we had missed out on ptarmigan on the top, and although we frequently scanned the skies no eagle was forthcoming this time.
It was quite a relief when this view opened up again, with broad forest tracks leading down to our car at Inverlael. The mountain in the distance is An Teallach.
The man sitting in the third cave passed us on the way up. He told us he'd recently seen ptarmigan on Canisp (just across the road) so we had high hopes of one on this hill.
The cuckoo on the rowan has his tail spread, giving him a "skirted" appearance. (Or, considering where he is, a "kilted" appearance.) He flew off calling and was joined by a female.
The dry stream bed ended at this fearsome cul-de-sac, where a thin trickle of water fell from a green mossy pool in the slumped rock above and disappeared among pale rounded pebbles. We clambered up the steep grassy slope to the right instead of the left - our first mistake.....
.....because this put us in an area of peaty bog which otherwise we would have avoided. We squelched across it and climbed to the summit ridge. The cloud descended, and in the reduced visibility we found the terrain rather confusing. At this point Greger declared the hill to be a Baldrick, which is his term for any mountain that annoys him in some way. Eventually we reached two tops, each with a cairn on, and having bagged them sat out of the wind and ate our lunch.
The clouds lifted and we set off down to the col. As we climbed again towards the northern end of the hill, we looked back to see a third top just beyond and above the two we'd reached. We hadn't actually got to the summit! On the other hand we'd been very close; and to offset our disappointment, the hill had a couple of nice surprises in store.
The first was this very marked trench running east-west across the summit ridge; possibly a dyke of weaker material that's been eroded.
The second was a distant dark dot (not visible in this picture) in the farther of these two lochans which lie on a broad shelf at about 550m on the eastern side of the hill. 
Our route of descent lay across this shelf but we could not get closer to the lochans without making a detour, and we were both by now pretty tired. I handed Greger the bins and asked him what he thought, and he said it looked like a tufted duck to him. 
It's the obvious choice, although I would like to have got closer to clinch it. Loneliest, highest tuftie I've ever seen - but apparently they do breed in small numbers in Assynt.
Breabag from the path out....
A willow warbler was singing from birches and this grey wagtail was fly-catching nearby.
A tedious walk on the road completed a long, relatively bird-rich hill-walk - but with no plovers or ptarmigans on the heights.
Eididh nan Clach Geala
A couple of days later we parked at Inverlael near the head of Loch Broom, and set off up a path we took some years ago. Our targets then had been Beinn Dearg to the right, and Meall nan Ceapraichean to the left of the bealach; and coming off Beinn Dearg in the evening we had seen a golden eagle very close. Today we were branching off to bag Eididh nan Clach Geala, but still hoped for great things!
In fact we started well in the conifer woods with siskins, coal tits and goldcrests, while a common sandpiper called from the stream below. Following a good stalker's path in the open country above the trees, Greger spotted a ring ouzel that had just landed ahead of us; but as we carefully approached she flew back down the flank of the hill and disappeared.
In fact we started well in the conifer woods with siskins, coal tits and goldcrests, while a common sandpiper called from the stream below. Following a good stalker's path in the open country above the trees, Greger spotted a ring ouzel that had just landed ahead of us; but as we carefully approached she flew back down the flank of the hill and disappeared.
Greger pointed out this rock and said it looked like layer cake (no doubt thinking of lunch). A wheatear family was seen nearby, the male making "wee-chak" alarm calls similar to a stonechat's.
We felt quite chuffed to reach the top of the mountain; this is a Munro, albeit a low one at 928 metres. And coming up from Loch Broom at sea level, we could be sure we had climbed the full height.
Our route of descent lay across this plateau; the hill on the left is Seana Bhraigh. The plateau looked good for golden plover, but if they were there we didn't see them.
The path down from there was not as attractive as the one coming up, being across open heathered slopes which failed to provide any hoped-for red grouse. Again we had missed out on ptarmigan on the top, and although we frequently scanned the skies no eagle was forthcoming this time.
I had to be content with a snipe fly which landed on my leg.
It was quite a relief when this view opened up again, with broad forest tracks leading down to our car at Inverlael. The mountain in the distance is An Teallach.
Despite hill-top disappointments, bird-watching from the house at Ardmair Bay had been as good as ever, with a surprise sighting of about thirty swifts being noteworthy. They swooped above the bay, spiralling up as they chased towers of insects, but always moving south - perhaps leaving already?
Gannets flew in and dived nearby on several occasions, red-throated divers were frequent visitors, and when a boat containing three chaps fishing attracted herring gulls, a great skua came to investigate and pick a fight with them.
And you don't get that in Taplow.
