Oystercatcher On Railway Line

Around a year ago we took Birdboy for a ride on the Heatherslaw Light Railway. It's a 15" gauge railway which runs from Heatherslaw Mill to Etal Village nearby in north Northumberland. The track is about two miles long and the return journey takes a total of about 45 minutes.

Along the track is a passing loop, allowing two trains to run simultaneously. At this passing place, in between the rail tracks, was a nesting Oystercatcher sitting on eggs. This piece of track wasn't used as a result - allowing the bird to continue incubating her eggs. Instead, twice every hour, a train full off people passed by the Oystercatcher - who just sat there oblivious.

We went there again last Monday, almost exactly a year later, and again that Oystercatcher was sat on her nest (just a hollow in the dirt) in exactly the same place. No eggs just yet, though. This time the track was being used, so each time the train ran on this part of the track she got up, walked to the side, waited for the train to pass, and then sat down again.

Once the eggs appear I'm certain they will stop using the passing place and she'll be left to incubate.

No pics, so I've pinched one from Google of the train!

My Forest Home

For those who have not been following it, I thought I'd highlight a rather gripping story over at the My Forest Home website.

Ken's camera nestbox was abandoned with eight Blue Tit chicks inside on May 17th. Whitetail, the mum, was last seen in the box early afternoon on that day.


This was the last box picture of Whitetail feeding her chicks. She is still alive as Ken has seen her feeding in his garden.

Ken has decided to try and hand rear the chicks himself.

One of the chicks died on 23rd May, but the remaining seven are still going strong.

Ken intends to build an avairy for the chicks so they can continue to feed well past the normal fledging date before he releases them.

Follow the story here:- click the 'back' link at the top of each page to go backwards to the beginning of the story.

A video of Ken feeding the chicks can be seen here

BTO/CJ Garden BirdWatch Survey 21-27 May

Fledglings are now starting to turn up regularly in the garden. On Thursday we had the first House Sparrow fledglings and on Friday we had a juvenile Collared Dove and a family of six baby Greenfinch - and judging by the way they were flying around the garden and almost crash landing in the trees, on the feeders and on the lawn I think they had left the nest just a few hours earlier. I wonder if one of our Pheasants will bring his family at some point?

1. Siskin (6)
2. Greenfinch (12)
3. House Sparrow (5)
4. Chaffinch (10)
5. Starling (9)
6. Woodpigeon (6)
7. Robin (1)
8. Dunnock (1)
9. Goldfinch (5)
10. Great Tit (2)
11. Blackbird (4)
12. Pheasant (1)
13. Jackdaw (5)
14. Collared Dove (1)
15. Carrion Crow (4)
16. Blue Tit (1)

Today (Saturday) we started reshaping and tidying the border edges. We were joined several times by a female Blackbird waiting for worms, and also the Great Tit from Thursday, who I now know is female, who was back looking for sunflower seeds behind the bench. Neither bird showed any fear and was quite happy to hop around us as we dug the garden.

Reshaping the border. These borders were only planted last July so are still very young.

You may be able to make out the trellis at the top of the border; this is where my sweet peas are growing (slowly!).

I now have a little bit more space to add something new! This is as far as we got today. We're about 1/3 done on this side of the garden!


This post is dated Friday as I started creating it yesterday and then saved it as draft when I realised it wasn't Saturday yet!- Birdman had the day off so I got confused with my days!

Sunflower Hearts

So, how many sunflower hearts do we get through in a month? We get through 50lb of the stuff. And what does 50lb of sunflower hearts look like? It looks like this:

The full pint glass at the bottom is to give you an idea of the size of the buckets we use to store the hearts in. That little lot costs £28.

Great Tit

We had a very busy Great Tit searching for food in the garden this evening. He or she made many visits and had the same routine each time: it landed on or near the fence, dropped down behind the child-sized bench and searched around the shrub border, found some food, flew onto the arm of the bench, prepared the food and then flew off with it to a nest box in a neighbouring garden. I couldn't work out what the food source was, so once the bird had been absent for a while, I popped out to have a look - it was finding sunflower seeds and shelling them - but I have no idea where the sunflower seeds actually are! I can only assume they are buried/hidden stash (from the winter, maybe?).

Male Chaffinch in the evening sun

We had a trip to the Farne Islands booked for tomorrow but as the weather has been so bad (and I have a stinking cold) we have decided to postpone it. We're going to leave it for a while and instead go when we have a chance to see some nestlings - probably the beginning of July.

More Search Engine Stats

Google, Yahoo and MSN seem to be the search engines of choice. I have just had a look at what people have been searching for to end up at my blog.

Here are the most recent searches:

'borders whiteadder'
'what color is a goldfinch'
'sprawk'
'garden fauna'
'side borders birds'
'removing woodpigeon nest roof'
'jenny wren'
'Swallows skeleton'
'Swallows same house'
'Helichrysum Ruby Cluster uk'
'hirsel birds'
'and the birds were singing'
'rock near alnwick organic farm'
'birds' (a nice broad search term, that!)
'aberlady bay birds'
'how far can a fulmar fly' (I wish I knew the exact answer but as they have been found at the North Pole, I'm guessing it's pretty damn far!!)

And finally, my favourite:

'pheasant leg pictures'

Local Patch

There isn't much to report from an hour in the bird hide at my local patch today, so I thought I'd post some pictures of the walk I took to get there as it's quite pretty.

This area is behind our house but the lane to access it has been closed off for tree felling for several months now. Today called for a two mile drive to get there!

To get to the hide I walked through Dundock Wood. The azaleas and rhododendrons have started to bloom. The scent is pretty amazing at the moment, and sometimes overwhelming. I'm not a huge fan of rhododendrons but they do look good in the right place. They seem to attract various Warblers - particularly Goldcrests.

Species which can be seen here (but not today!): Redstart, Great Spotted Woodpecker, Blackcap, Garden Warbler, Pied and Spotted Flycatchers - and Marsh Tit and Hawfinch.

In addition to the masses of rhododendrons and azaleas, Dundock wood is mostly planted with oak, ash and pine trees. I have seen grey squirrels here, and also roe deer.

The short path which leads to the bird hide overlooking the Hirsel Lake.

The lake is completely man-made and is the third largest inland lowland water body in the Borders. There wasn't much to report today; a pair of Mute Swans, Mallard (with lots of ducklings), Coot, Moorhen, Tufted Duck, Pochard and a single pair of Goosander. Right in front of the hide, just beyond the reed bed, a pair of Little Grebes were constantly calling to one another. I was hoping for a Water Rail, as they are resident here, but they were a no-show today.

Towards the Hirsel House.

BTO/CJ Garden Birdwatch Survey 14-20 May

Sixteen species have been recorded this week - a bit better than last week's eleven!

A Pied Wagtail arrived on Friday - the first one recorded in 7 weeks. Up to four Pied Wagtails were daily visitors throughout the autumn and winter months.

On Saturday evening (talk about leaving it till the last minute!) we finally saw the return of a Blue Tit to the garden - they have been absent from the garden for the past four weeks.

I have noticed this week that one of our Great Tits has taken a liking to our red currant shrub now that it is covered in leaves and flowers. Hopefully this will result in more frequent visits.

1. Woodpigeon (4)
2. Greenfinch (15)
3. Chaffinch (6)
4. Blackbird (3)
5. House Sparrow (3)
6. Goldfinch (3)
7. Starling (5)
8. Robin (1)
9. Siskin (5)
10. Coal Tit (1)
11. Sparrowhawk (1)
12. Jackdaw (1)
13. Pheasant (1)
14. Great Tit (1)
15. Pied Wagtail (1)
16. Blue Tit (1)

Our complete garden list can be seen here.

For more information about the BTO Garden BirdWatch go here.

First Spring Fledgling

We had our first fledgling of the season in the garden today - a Blackbird - who landed on the top of the table for a short while before venturing to the bottom of the garden. Mum and Dad were close by searching for slugs & snails and clearing up some spilt sunflower hearts. I was glad our Sparrowhawk didn't arrive at the same time!

Rainy Days

A couple of rainy days has resulted in a slight increase in the activity in the garden this week. Fourteen species have so far been recorded (only eleven were recorded in total last week), but my favourites, the Blue Tits, are still busy elsewhere it seems!I have brought the bird table out from hiding - it hasn't been in use much since we moved here twelve months ago due to the lack of level ground to stand it on. So anyway, I decided to give the birds, and me, a change and I have placed it over the hole where the rotary washing line should be (the hole is in a slab which makes part of the path). Obviously this means I can't hang any washing out. Shame ;o). It wasn't there earlier as I didn't want to put the table too close to the bird box, but that is empty anyway!

A Great Tit pays a visit to the table
As does a Siskin (table has since been dusted!)
Another Siskin on one of the hanging feeders
Male House Sparrow collects sheep's wool for his nest. He doesn't seem to mind that it's wet!

It's not very often the Sparrows come to this feeder (the Chaffs and Greens hold the monopoly)

I always manage to focus on the feeder rather than the bird when they perch here

BTO/CJ Garden BirdWatch Survey 7-13 May

Unsurprisingly, it's been another quiet week in the garden. We have dropped right down to only eleven bird species recorded over the past seven days. My Blue Tits are still AWOL and Great Tit, Wren and Robin are just three of the no-shows. Obviously, now that the garden is so much quieter than the busy winter months I don't 'garden watch' as much.

A new shrub addition to the garden this week: Ceanothus impressus 'Blue Puget'. It's an upright variety and should grow to 6ft x 5ft. I don't know why I like Ceanothus (Californian Lilac) so much, but this is the third one we now have!

I have been growing trailing lobelia from seedlings for the hanging baskets which we have under the front windows. We don't have a greenhouse so they have been grown in the living room on the windowsill. However, they have be getting on my nerves for the past two weeks and then they decided to flower so I've taken a risk and planted them outside in the baskets. I can quite easily bring them in if there's a chance of frost. Hopefully any frosts won't catch us out!

This week's list:

1. Chaffinch (7)
2. Goldfinch (3)
3. 
   
4. Greenfinch (13)
5. Siskin (2)
6. Woodpigeon (6)
7. House Sparrow (2)
8. Coal Tit (1)
9. Starling (1)
10. Sparrowhawk (1, at least 2 visits)
11. Pheasant (1)
12. Blackbird (2)

In addition to the Swallows and House Martins now above the house and garden, I saw three Swifts on 9th May, but haven't seen them since.

Our full and up-to-date garden bird list can be found here.

One-legged Greenfinch, Stumpy

Pure evil from a week ago (above) turns out to be something quite pretty:

Local Patch

Took a walk through part of my local patch this afternoon. Can't get very far because the path is still closed off for tree felling.

The highlights, birdwise, were a bold singing male Blackcap (trust me to have the macro lens on the camera and not the telephoto!) and a pair of Long-tailed Tits chasing each other in and out of the trees. The Blackcap was just fifteen metres away from our garden. It must only be a matter of time until I record one (or a LTT) actually in the garden!

Butterflies present were; Orange Tip, Small Tortoiseshell and Small White.

I took some photos of some wild flowers. Any corrections to identification are gratefully received; my wildflower knowledge can be quite lacking at times!

Field Forget-me-not

Lesser Periwinkle

Few-flowered Leek (?)

Primrose

Lesser Celandine

BTO/CJ Garden BirdWatch Survey 30 April - 6 May

1. Greenfinch (10)
2. Chaffinch (12)
3. Starling (12)
4. Goldfinch (5)
5. Coal Tit (2)
6. Dunnock (1)
7. House Sparrow (3)
8. Siskin (3)
9. Blackbird (1)
10. Woodpigeon (4)
11. Sparrowhawk (1: made at least 4 visits over the week)
12. Collared Dove (1)
13. Pheasant (1)
14. Jackdaw (3)
15. Great Tit (1)
16. Racing Pigeon (1 - New!!)

Fly-overs:

There are now good numbers of House Martin (returned 3rd May) and Swallow over the house.
Oystercatcher

One-legged Greenfinch

We have had a one-legged Greenfinch in the garden for the past two days. He seems to cope pretty well, but his balance on the feeders is a bit dodgy. There is usually some sunflower seed on the ground but he chooses to feed on the hangers instead.

I wonder if it is the same Greenfinch that got his leg caught in the Gardman feeder recently?

Apologies for the painfully bad photos. He was too far away, but they do show his stump.

Stumpy

Aberlady Bay Produces a Lifer!

We decided to go over to Aberlady Bay Nature Reserve in East Lothian today. The weather has been a bit mixed: mainly sunny but overcast at times with a constant light wind.

After an initial false start to the day (drove fifteen miles, window jammed in the fully opened position, drove back home, Birdman fixed window, headed out again), things started looking up with a sighting of a couple of Roe Deer just south of Swintonmill in Berwickshire. They were too far away to photograph, but I'm never after the perfect photo - I just like to have a record of the things I see. I've had to crop the pictures very heavily, but here they are ...

(all of today's photos were taken by Birdman)

Roe Deer

We were soon back in the Lammermuir Hills again, with slightly better skies than last weekend. We pulled over above the Whiteadder Reservoir at a place called Hungry Snout (!) and I had a scan with my bins. There didn't seem to be much going on down there: Canada Goose, Lapwing, Skylark, Oystercatcher, Partridge, Pheasant and rabbits were all in the area.

Lammermuir Hills, looking towards the coast

Above the Whiteadder Reservoir at Hungry Snout

A mile off the mainland of North Berwick is Bass Rock which rises to 313 feet. This small island has around 80,000 seabirds' nests on it, and a whole heap of poo. I don't know who counted all the nests, but I'll take that person's word for it! It holds 10% of the world population of Northern Gannet and the Gannet's scientific name Morus Bassanus is taken from the Rock's name.

A view of Bass Rock, home to nesting Gannets

Cropped photo to show the lighthouse (and bird poo!)




And finally we reach Aberlady Bay Local Nature Reserve

The bridge takes us over the mud flats: Oystercatcher, Lapwing, Shelduck, Wigeon, Redshank, Curlew, Black-headed, Herring & Lesser Black-backed Gulls and Mallard were all present

The mud flatsSkylark, Chaffinch, Blackbird, Reed Bunting, Yellowhammer, Pheasant, Woodpigeon, Jackdaw, Swallow, Sand Martin, Carrion Crow and Herring Gull were present along the track towards the bay, along with two more Roe Deer. Plus there was evidence, in the way of pellets, of Tawny Owl.

Taken on the track which leads you to the bay

Butterflies present: Peacock, Small White and Orange Tip.

Peacock, a little rough around the edges, but still pretty

And now for the lifer - A stunning Whitethroat! Certainly not a lifer for most birders, but a lifer for me. Also, the best photos of the day too, so a double bonus! There were lots showing really well, so they're a bit like buses ... there's none when you want one .... etc., etc., etc.,

Whitethroat

And so on to the bay itself. We decided not to go down to the bay, but to walk up to Gullane Point instead, and look down on the bay. We sat on the cliff face, only about 8 meters above the sea, and watched male and female Eider (my favourite duck!), Common Scoter, Oystercatcher, Dunlin, Shag and Gannet (which were flying brilliantly close!)

Gannet

Eider

Oystercatchers on the shore, early evening

And, finally, a misty view over to the Forth Bridges

Other in-car obs for today (whilst driving from place to place): Rook, Collared Dove, Greenfinch, Starling, Grey Partridge, Blue Tit, House Sparrow, Pied Wagtail, Mistle Thrush and Common Buzzard.

Total walking distance at Aberlady Bay Local Nature Reserve was 4 miles.

When we arrived home it was time for a curry and a beer!

Lammermuir Hills

Nothing much has happened in the garden this week; we have had a new garden tick but it was only a lost homing Pigeon so I didn't feel it was worthy of a whole new post! I wonder if I can class it as a Feral Pigeon for the BTO survey?

Anyhoo, I thought I'd post some images from last weekend which I took on the short journey back from St Abb's Head on Sunday. This is the scenic route!The Lammermuir Hills form a natural border between East Lothian and the Scottish Borders with Meikle Says Law being the highest point at 535m.

Red Grouse are common on the heather moorland, with Ring Ouzel (apparently!) breeding in the valleys (one would be a lifer for me!). Birds of Prey to be found here include Short-eared Owl, Hen Harrier, Peregrine and Common Buzzard. While we were driving through last weekend I had a nice view of a single male Stonechat resting on a fence (no photo!).

You may be able to make out a body of water in the following photo; it is Whiteadder Reservoir. Mallard, Wigeon and Teal are very common there in the winter along with a few Goosander and Greylag & Pink-footed Geese. Just behind the reservoir is The Bell Wood which is home to Tree Pipit and Redstart in the spring, and Brambling and Redpoll in the winter months.

The photo below shows one of the many streams which run throughout the hills. These attract Grey Wagtail and Dipper (one of my favourite birds) and Common Sandpiper in the summer.

This is the Longformacus Millennium Viewpoint. It shows everything you can see on a clear day. Unfortunately we were there on a gloomy day! I am quite surprised that this has survived so long without being vandalised with graffiti.

We haven't quite decided on where to go tomorrow, but Musselburgh Lagoons near Edinburgh and the Whiteadder Reservoir are looking likely at the moment.

Garden Images

Strawberry

Redcurrant ribes rosso

Crab apple

And finally, this! I can't remember what it is, but it's possibly the most evil looking plant I have seen! Looks as though it belongs in

The Little Shop of Horrors!