03 Wednesday Apr 2019
Posted in 365DaysWildin2019, animals, mammal, nature
Today’s cute young things are not birds but mammals, a pair of cute little bunnies who were checking out the world from the safety of the entrance to their burrow, a very wise thing to do as a lot of dogs are exercised in this field.
23 Saturday Mar 2019
Before our visit to the Sussex Wildlife Trust’s Rye Harbour on 11 March, I’d only ever seen Hares at a distance, a long distance, so, although we saw lots of wonderful birds during our 8-mile exploration of the reserve that day, the highlight for me was getting reasonably close views of several Hares.
Admittedly, most of those views were of their rear ends as they skedaddled but, even then, we could see how big their ears and back legs were. And, although the photo below was also taken at quite a distance and has had to be heavily cropped, I do like how it shows the comparison between the Rabbit and the Hare.
And, luckily, very luckily, this one Hare decided to sit still for longer than the previous ones – at least, it sat still for about 30 seconds, which was just enough to get one decent photo. What magnificent creatures they are!
p.s. If you’ve not yet read Marianne Taylor’s wonderful book The Way of the Hare (Bloomsbury, London, 2017), you really should. It’s a treat!
17 Sunday Feb 2019
Posted in 365DaysWildin2019, animals, mammal, nature
Today has been another fabulous day out with my friends from the Glamorgan Bird Club, enjoying the magnificent Welsh countryside and marvelling at all its amazing birds – and I’ll report on that in tomorrow’s blog post – but, for me, the most exciting thing today was these prints in the mud under a bridge near Dryslwyn. I think these are the closest I’ve yet been to a live Otter!
01 Tuesday Jan 2019
Posted in 365DaysWildin2019, animals, mammal, nature
To kickstart my birding list for the new year, I walked 8+ miles around Cardiff Bay, logging all the different bird species I could find (they’ll appear on my Birding 2019 page as soon as I finish editing my photos). With mostly blue skies and an abundance of lovely birds, it was a super walk but the highlight wasn’t the birds – it was spotting and then watching these two beautiful foxes lolling about in the grass, enjoying the winter sunshine. Such magnificent creatures!
03 Saturday Nov 2018
As well as the birds at RSPB Arne, we were treated to very close views of Sika deer and more distant views of a herd of Roe deer.
The Sika were sporting their winter coats of dark grey so the spots you would be able to see in summer were not visible. These are not native deer – they were introduced from Asia in 1860 but some have since escaped and there is now a sizable wild population.
Arne must be like heaven to the Sika, as they love coniferous forests and heathlands, where they graze on heather, grasses and small shrubs.
Although October and November are the traditional months for the rut, we didn’t hear any of the usual male groans, whistles or yak-yak barks, though we did hear an alarming whining noise at one stage when a female was calling to her calf.
A small herd of six Roe deer were in a neighbouring field as we walked along one of Arne’s many trails. None of these deer had antlers, so I assume they were all females and juveniles.
Roe deer are native to Britain and, though they were once hunted to extinction in England, they survived in Scotland and have since been re-introduced across the border so are now abundant in much of England and Scotland, with a small population in Wales.
15 Monday Oct 2018
Tags
cattle with horns, English cattle breeds, English Longhorn, Longhorn cattle, Steart Point, WWT Steart Marshes
As well as the stunning birdlife at WWT Steart Marshes on Saturday, I was particularly intrigued by these cattle, which one of my birding friends identified as English Longhorns.
One of the advantages for local farmers of the wetland development on the Steart peninsula is that they can now graze their cattle on saltmarsh. This gives the meat of these cattle a unique flavour that is apparently highly prized by some human carnivores, so it attracts a better price for the farmers. I thought the beast shown below was already destined for the abattoir as it looked to be dead already.
But no – turns out it was merely sleeping heavily and, after five minutes or so, raised its enormous head to blink sleepily at the passing humans. What an impressive beast it was!
The horns of these cattle were fascinating: they seemed to grow in all different directions. One animal had one horn growing upwards, the other down, and the creature shown below must surely have had its horns cut, otherwise it would have been in danger of them piercing its face.
For all their huge size, these seemed to be gentle giants. The younger animal in this photo came over and began to rub against and lick the head of the older beast – its mother?
Still, I don’t think I’d want to venture into a field with any of them any time soon.
15 Sunday Jul 2018
Well, the truth is Ratty probably never went away. Water voles might disappear from sight during the cold months of winter but they don’t actually hibernate – they simply burrow deeper underground to keep warm, and they spend a lot of time sleeping, which means they don’t need to snack too often from the larder they stock in autumn, full of bulbs, roots and tubers. They also bung up the entrance to their burrows with a mix of vegetation and mud, which helps keep the heat inside.
Come the Spring, they emerge and spend more time out and about, though it’s only in the past month or so that I’ve seen them again at Cosmeston. That may just be the timing of my visits, though the few I’ve seen have also seemed a bit less confident about being out and about than last year’s Water voles, possibly because some idiot people have let their dogs jump into the dipping pond, an area where they are obviously forbidden.
It’s probably impossible to tell how many of last year’s release of 100 Water voles have survived the winter but another 40-odd were released a few weeks back to supplement the local population.
People love to watch them, young and old alike, so let’s hope we can all enjoy them chewing away at the vegetation for the days, weeks, months to come.
26 Tuesday Jun 2018
Tags
#30DaysWild, 30 Days Wild, heatwave, Penarth, shrew, summer heat
And I thought yesterday was hot!
On day 26 of #30DaysWild the temperature hit 29°C here in Penarth, even hotter than yesterday. And while people may be enjoying this weather (I am not!), it’s really tough for wildlife. I’m not sure what caused this little shrew to die but it’s easy to believe it was the heat, or perhaps thirst. We’ve had a couple of dry months now, and ponds and streams are running low and / or drying up. So, if you’re in a position to put water out for the birds and the beasties, please do – they really need all the help they can get right now.
17 Sunday Jun 2018
I was out birding again on day 17 of #30DaysWild, once again with Glamorgan Bird Club, this time to Cefn Gelligaer and the Bargoed uplands. And what a wonderful day it was, in spite of the light rain that set in after lunch (though that does mean I don’t have a lot of photos). One of our club members, Lee, guided us around his local patch and it was a real bonus tapping in to his local knowledge.
This is ‘big sky’ country, with a long history of human settlement, from the era of Megalithic chambered tombs through the years of Roman road-building to the coal mining of 19th and early 20th centuries. There are ancient trees, superbly crafted dry-stone walls, old droving roads and narrow green lanes.
As well as the 42 bird species we saw – a very respectable list, given the conditions – we also had a weasel checking us out, before streaking across the lane behind us, and I saw my first Welsh mountain ponies, very handsome little beasts with quite oddly shaped heads.
Lee kindly gave us each a brochure for a walking trail that includes many of the local historical features so I will definitely be heading back for another look.
Spot the Stonechat
Here’s our bird list: Carrion crow, Mistle thrush, Lesser black-backed gull, Pheasant, Robin, Skylark, Wren, Starling, Woodpigeon, Jackdaw, Chaffinch, Goldfinch, Meadow pipit, Swallow, Willow warbler, Great tit, Great spotted woodpecker, Swift, Blackbird, Herring gull, Dunnock, Pied wagtail, Buzzard, Curlew, Red kite, Green woodpecker, Song thrush, Stonechat, Stock dove, Tree pipit, Redstart, Coal tit, Blackcap, Nuthatch, Long-tailed tit, Cuckoo, Blue tit, Linnet, Reed bunting, Whinchat, Magpie, and House sparrow.
Swallows swooping over the fields
29 Tuesday May 2018
Tags
Barn owl pellets, bird pellets, birding, British birds, dissecting pellets, Field voles, mammal bones, voles bones
If you’d told me 5 years ago that I would one day google ‘How to dissect owl pellet’, I would’ve laughed in your face, but guess what I did today? Three pellets were very kindly sent to me, at my request, by an understanding friend. What can I say? I was curious! I was curious to see what the owl had been eating. (And I must ask my friend what his reply was when the Post Office staff asked what was in his parcel.)
Here is what I received, and a look at the external features. Are they tiny teeth? What is that bone? The pellets have been dried and are very light and look to be full of fur.
Just to be clear, an owl pellet is not pooh. Owls usually swallow their prey whole or, if it’s too large, then in big chunks. The food gets broken down in the gizzard, then digested in the stomach but the more solid, indigestible bits like fur and bone get compacted into pellets in the gizzard and are then ejected. So, a pellet will usually contain whole bones, sometimes whole skulls, which can be used to find out what the bird has been eating.
According to the instructions I found on Discover Wildlife.com:
I have now dissected all three pellets, leaving me with a pile of fur and a ton of tiny bones. It was fascinating stuff and I felt a bit like an archaeologist, teasing away the unwanted material from around the fragile bones. Everything has now gone in to soak in biological washing power (as per another website I found) (the enzymes in biological powder should help remove the small bits of fur and ‘other matter’) to clean the bones (bone collectors would probably use hydrogen peroxide at this point but I don’t plan on making a hobby of this so haven’t bought any chemicals). At a glance, I think the bones are mostly of Field voles but there is also one Common shrew. I’ll report back on the findings, with photos of the bones, in a few weeks.
