Greater Spotted Woodpeckers

About this time last year I posted a video up of woodpeckers feeding their young in a hole in a tall ash tree near the reservoir.

I've been hoping to find another nest this year but despite hearing the adults call to the young and the young birds responding and standing for ages beneath the tree where the sounds came from I've not caught sight of them. Until this afternoon.

To make it easy, the young bird (or possibly birds) kept sticking its head out of the hole in anticipation of being fed. It has a bright red head and I suspect won't be staying in the hole for much longer. 

The pictures aren't great because the hole was quite high up and difficult to see between the branches and leaves, but you get the idea. I'll see if I can get some better ones tomorrow.

Knife carving and carving spoons

For the Queen's birthday celebration event on Rowley Fields on the 12th June I will scrub up as best I can, wear something practical but clean and give a practical demonstration of simple wood carving. I'll try to show, using just three hand tools - an axe, a knife and a spoon knife - how to turn a piece of wood into something else. Like, a spoon, an owl head, a dala horse, a whistle, a fox log, a mushroom or a mouse.

I'll also be offering all my modest carvings for sale with all proceeds going to Butterfly Conservation. For those who would like to get some hands on experience there will be the chance to pay a little more and enter a draw for a free spoon carving lesson with me. 

Each spoon on display will be unique: it's size and shape dictated by the type of wood, its characteristics and how I felt at the time I carved it. In many of the spoons I've retained some of the character of the original piece of wood with knots, blemishes, cracks, a bit of bark, a twist in the grain, all kept. With 80 of these spoons for sale, there should be something for everyone. All are hand carved, sealed with olive oil and may even come with a story about the type of wood, how I came by it, how it turned out the way it did and when it was created.
Other items are just things I've enjoyed making. 

Come along and don't forget to bring some money. Everything must go so don't expect craft fair prices. A couple of pounds will secure a unique spoon and a few pennies a whistle.

 

 

Time to start looking for butterflies up the Welcombe

If the sun keeps shining this weekend it will be a good time to go out onto the Welcombe Hills and look for butterflies. Over the last few days I've seen the magnificent Peacock, the yellow Brimstone, Small Tortoiseshell and the beautiful Orange Tip.

I've also been out today looking for Orange Tip butterfly eggs. Here a pic taken this afternoon. As you can see the egg is minute. In close-up you can see that it's a beautiful conical shaped object with fluted sides. With luck this egg will become a caterpillar, then it will pupate, drop into the ground below and with even more luck, emerge next spring as another Orange Tip butterfly for the cycle to start all over again. 

Orange Tip egg Welcombe Hills May 2016

Close-up Orange Tip egg Welcombe Hills May 2016

Orange Tips are busy butterflies and seldom seem to stay still. They are searching for mates and for their favoured plant to lay eggs on,  the Lady's Smock. Look out for the Orange Tips flitting along the edges of fields and hedges just a foot or so above the ground. The male has the orange tips and the female black tips to the wings. Both have the distinctive green mottled pattern on the underside of the wings. If you find Lady's Smock (clue: it prefers damp places so the bottom of the slope from the reservoir towards the hotel is good), gently examine the flower heads and you may be able to see the orange coloured egg. Only one egg is laid per plant and if more than one is laid by different females, only one caterpillar will survive to pupate. That's because they eat competitors - though this may be for moisture rather than simple competition.

The Tortoiseshell and the Peacock like to bathe in the sun. Often they will find a patch of bare ground where presumably they benefit from the warmth of the ground below and from the sun above.

The Brimstone is a truly beautiful butterfly and a distinctive yellow (brimstone being the ancient name for sulphur which is yellow of course). It also has a distinctive shape rather more exotic than most of our native butterflies.

The Common Blue will be emerging around this time. Last night sitting on the benches at the top of Rowley Fields I'm sure I glimpsed one but it flew off behind me into the wood and I lost sight of it.

Brimstone butterfly (MA 2015) 

Peacock (MA 2015)

Orange Tip (MA 2015)

Small Tortoiseshell (MA 2015)

Some further thoughts about Nuthatches and bird sounds

I posted about Nuthatches the other day having come across some in Clopton Park and being lucky enough to take some snaps. Idling away at the computer this morning I thought some might like to know of some resources that could be useful to find out more about our birdlife and can help locate them.

A good website is the British Trust for Ornithology. There are many sites providing information about birds but the BTO has 'unbiased information about birds' and undertakes research. For example, the tracking of Cuckoo Stanley has attracted nationwide interest after  it was found where cuckoos go for the winter. Stanley returned to the uk in early April from the Ivory Coast.

I went to the information about the Nuthatch and followed a link to recordings of its songs, calls, male calls, alarm calls and so on.

This was really useful to me . I hadn't really understood the range of sounds each bird makes and when I go for the walk this morning I'll be much more confident of locating the Nuthatches from their sounds.

I'm keen to get a decent picture of a Treecreeper. It's a small bird, moves quickly but has a distinctive song so I'm more confident now of finding one. That doesn't mean I will actually see one of course. Here's some not so good pictures of one I took a while ago.

I saw a Nuthatch

Nuthatch - Clopton Park April16

Nuthatch - Clopton Park April16

Nuthatch - Clopton Park April16

One of the places I'm often drawn to when walking up the Welcombe is in Clopton Park where the two old oak trees stand down and to the seasonal pond, the magnificent hornbeams and the ash trees that seem to be all decaying.

Those ash trees in various stages of degeneration provide a great habitat for green and spotted woodpeckers, jackdaws and crows. These birds nest in the many holes the ash provides and the spotted woodpeckers can be heard tapping the branches for grubs.

Anticipating a change in the weather we decided to take our walk as usual and found our way to the swimming pool where the run off from the hills was too much for the pool and had overflowed forming mini lakes and a healthy stream across and down towards Margaret's Well, joining the ditch there.

Nuthatch - Clopton Park April16

We followed the water flow up towards the hornbeams and stopped to enjoy the lace-like veil of catkins covering them. Looking up I saw this Nuthatch on the trunk of an old ash tree. The Tree Creeper is a quite common bird here but this is the first time I've seen the Nuthatch. The Tree Creeper is smaller, brown and white and favours moving up the trunk to search for food. It is unable to go down head first so hops backwards to achieve that.  In contrast the Nuthatch has a beautiful orange-red breast, is larger and moves both up and down the trunk head first.

A good spot you'll agree and the bird kindly paused long enough for me to fumble around getting my camera out and snapping a few pics.

I saw early flowering grass - the Field Wood-rush

Field Wood-rush - Luzula campestris

As this morning's sleet/snow gives way to more rain I'm reminded that of all the months, April can be relied on for the most varied and unpredictable for weather. Looking back, I've pictures from 6th April 2008 when we had proper snow. That brought out the toboggans, skis, plastic sheets and even bathtubs (really!) as Stratford's young raided their parents' garages for something to slide on.

In our garden the blackbirds have been feeding young in their nests for quite a while now. So, even though snowfall decorates the landscape and brings great enjoyment, I can't help but feel for the birds who will have yet another problem to deal with in rearing their young.

Clopton Field April 2008

Spring is well underway and the start of many a life cycle, not just for the birds but for our plants too. One of the first grasses to flower is the Field wood-rush. It's a common enough plant but easily overlooked due to its small size. The delicate flowers are in clusters and pale yellow. My picture shows it amongst the Cowslips I wrote about last week. Like some other small plants their beauty is not easily accessible but once you 'get your eye in' as they say these can enhance the pleasures of walking in the Welcombe Hills. 

Cowslips, celandines, violets as the sun sometimes shines

There's an area of the Welcombe Hills at the bottom of the opening leading down from the reservoir area toward the Welcombe Hotel. On one side is a sloping wooded area of predominantly hawthorn but with lime and two old beech trees. On the other side is Nursery Cover and between the two lies a fallen horse chestnut tree.

April 10th 2016

In the spring and summer the morning sun warms this area. Many of my butterfly and bee pictures are taken here (for example here) on the Woolly Thistles, blackberry bushes and the margins of the woods where the Lady's Smock thrive in the damp clay.

Violet in Nursery Cover April16

Nursery cover gently slopes down here. In the spring the leafless spindly Ash, crab apple and the few hawthorn allow the sunlight to penetrate to the ground layer and if anyone cares to walk this way you will find amongst the damp moss a wonderful display of bright yellow lesser celandine and violets of all shades from deep blue to white. 

Celandine, Nursery Cover April16

It seems wrong to walk over these but they do survive so I suggest a closer look. Stand still and you may hear a bumble bee queen looking for a nesting place in the ground. Follow the sound and you may see her on her quest. 

Nursery Cover, April 16

Look more carefully and you may treated by finding the  fungus I pictured below that grows here. It's not a true morel (Morchella) so don't get too excited. It won't harm you but is tasteless.

Mitrophora semilibera, April 16

Elsewhere the first Cowslips are flowering! These were catching that morning sun on a bank behind the seats at the top of Nursery Cover that look out over towards the Monument and Edge Hill beyond.

First Cowslips of the year, Welcombe Hills April 2016

Cowsliips, April 16