Quiet Days

I haven't been active much lately, the reason being that there hasn't been much ado.

The rarities that were showing up on the run-in to Christmas aren't showing up any more with the exception of gulls (which don't interest me overmuch) and an american pipit which is a long way off in North Northumberland and it seems to me not worth chasing when I probably wouldn't have been able to distinguish it from the other pipits that occur on the coast.

Nuthatch

The garden has provided the normal fare with the long-tailed tits visiting if sporadically and the nuthatch still appearing almost daily.  I hear the long-tailed tits quite a lot in the Derwent Valley.

The Big Garden Birdwatch again passed with low numbers and birds that I would normally expect to see not turning up, including the pair of collar doves that have landed now and again.  The overall totals (maximum seen at any one time) were:

Jackdaw 3, Woodpigeon 2, Robin 2, Blue Tit 2, Blackbird 1, Coal Tit 1.  Nothing to write home about but this seems to be normal for the past few years.

Bike rides and car trips have produced vary little apart from the odd bird of prey.  

I did finally get out for half an hour at Lamesley Pasture at lunchtime today.  Here there was a large number of greylag geese, possibly 100, and around 20 moorhens digging around in the bankside mud, which is as many as I've counted at once.  A couple of them looked like they might be males getting feisty with each other in preparation for the breeding season.

Moorhens

Otherwise the main thing with wings that could be seen in the distance was the Angel of the North.

I should have more to report in ten days after my latest nature trip in Spain, with which I hope to bridge the transition from winter to spring.

Missing Out

As the weather has become harsher, my attempts to find interesting sightings have largely misfired.

The one new sighting was completely by chance.  As a result of a navigational error on my last long bike ride, I ended up at the village of Broomley, where a good number of redwing were feeding on berries.

There was talk of a mandarin duck on the Derwent in Gateshead, so I took a good scout around but found nothing but a couple of goosander.  Then one was reported at Saltwell Park but it had gone by the time I visited, though I was rather surprised to see a kingfisher flash by.  Not the place I'd have chosen to look for one.

The only thing I did see much of apart from mallards and tufted ducks was a couple of cormorants. By the time a I captured one airing itself, the light had pretty much gone.

Cormorant

Incidentally, folk at the Tennis Club have confirmed seeing salmon going up the weir during November.  I saw one about a month ago but thought it was a freak one-off.  It seems there must be a very late run of salmon on the Derwent.

After a dog walk at Plessey Woods produced nothing but some long-tailed tits and a pigeon last week, Malcolm and I headed for Felton at the weekend as a large number of waxwings had visited a few days before, but once again there was no sign of them, even though we got good tips where to look from local walkers.

I had been hoping to get a video of long-tailed tits mobbing the suet balls I've been putting out in the garden lately, but the best I got was one long-tailed tit and a blue tit:

Long-tailed and blue tit

I might do better after Christmas if I place the feeder nearer the back fence.

Since the sub-zero temperatures and snow arrived  it has got a bit more interesting.  You might not consider a female chaffinch and a juvenile starling rarities but they don't show themselves here regularly at all.

Lastly there was a very dark looking corbid looking around, which I thought was a crow.  It was only when I fiddled with the contrast on the (again very dark) photo I got as it made its exit that some jackdaw features appeared, notably the eye, and I now wonder if it could have been a hybrid.

Jackdaw or Crow?

However I could only find one mention of jackdaw/carrion crow hybridisation on the internet...

Festive Famine

Not much to report over the Christmas period…

Having told someone I don’t see any chaffinches in my garden, one typically turned up two days later and another, a female was in the plum tree on New Year’s Day.

I spent Christmas at my son’s, where a damaged fence has been caused by a badger breaking into their garden to get at the bird food, exciting much interest from their cats. We did a short walk up Galahill where I briefly spotted a flock of bullfinches, otherwise there were several woodpigeons. 

Last Wednesday, I did a seasonal self-guided walk at Weetslade Country Park, which was quite interesting as it covers a far larger area than you see from the cycle track. We got a good view of a kestrel hovering but a visit to the bird feeder area was disappointing as the feeders were all virtually empty. You’d have thought they’d have filled them especially.

However we did get a nice view of a little egret on one of the wee ponds.

Little Egret

Later it proved there was a pair of them. There is now a nature conservation area and it is apparently possible to find otters and water voles.

The garden has continued to be a haven for tits of all four main varieties when the jackdaws aren’t around, with occasional robins, blackbirds and dunnocks.

Tits

In fact I’ve now run out of bird nuts, so quickly have they been disappearing.