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| Grey Squirrel |
Things have been quite lively in the garden as the nights darken. It has clearly been a good year for grey squirrels, whom I have regularly seen passing along the trees at the back, no doubt commuting to the oak tree just down the burn to collect acorns.
One made a couple of forays into the garden itself and eventually ended up on the bird feeder that contains sunflower hearts. On closer inspection it proved that one of the holes in the feeder has been considerably enlarged.
There have also been regular invasions of long-tailed tits, sometimes half a dozen at a time. For some reason I was particularly struck by how dark the markings are on their back this winter. In typical fashion, they arrive suddenly and only
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| Long-tailed Tits |
stay briefly before moving on.
Long-tailed tits were even more in evidence at Shibdon Pond yesterday when I took a break from the hide which was full of Naturewatchers. There must have been at least twenty passing along the south bank. From the hide, the sightings were pretty much dominated by gulls. Apart from the normal things you'd expect to see (teal, shoveler, etc) there were a good few shelduck patrolling the far bank.
On the edge of the grassy area where there the canada geese like to promenade there were also a couple of domestic ducks - one a hybrid of some sort and the other a muscovy duck.
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| Shelduck |
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| Teal |
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| Muscovy Duck |
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I got one bike ride in last Wednesday when the weather looked up and noticed a couple of kestrels hovering - one just north of Wylam and another north of Ponteland on the Morpeth road. Red kites are also starting to appear more regularly over Rowlands Gill.
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