Pensthorpe and the elusive nuthatch

Tufted duck

For the second time this week, we've made it to one of my favourite places. I love half term holidays. As always, I made sure I bought food to feed their captive ducks and geese; it's always good to make friends and have a horde of hungry water birds following you around for a bit...

The wilder side of the park is my preferred area though. The first lake you pass is called 'Old squaw lake', as always, plentiful in its numbers of tufted ducks, and this time there were a few pochard to be seen, as well as a great crested grebe.

Pochard

After crossing the River Wensum, the trail heads into woodland and the first hide that you come to is usually fruitful if only in terms of numbers of birds if not in terms of diversity. My elusive bird this day was the nuthatch; this is the only place where I ever manage to see one. After scanning the feeders and seeing numerous chaffinches, blue tits, great tits, a few coal tits, woodpigeon, a stock dove and some mallards waiting below to see what would fall, we settled down for a wait. Luckily, one nuthatch did make itself known, although fleetingly at first and on the farthest feeder, staying to grab just one seed, then flitting back into the safety of the trees. Eventually, it seemed to gain confidence, came closer to the hide and stayed in the open for longer. Long enough for me to take a few snaps.

Male chaffinch

The walk through the woodland was pretty, although there proved few birds to be spotted until we reached the hides at the wader scrape. As often happens, the birders already present told us of what we'd only just missed: a peregrine falcon hunting lapwings. Unfortunately he didn't make a return whilst we were there, but there were plenty of water birds to be seen; a little egret strutting on its stilt-like legs, plenty of lapwing taking to flight and landing, teal, shelduck, oystercatcher, shoveler, tufted ducks, cormorants...

Nuthatch

Making our way back to the entrance, we passed through the 'Millenium Garden', where there were great swathes of snowdrops in flower. There had been other bunches around the park, but these were the most we had seen. A sign that spring is truly arriving in Norfolk.









Full species list; 29 wild bird species spotted in all:

The wader scrape

• House sparrow
• Green finch
• Blue tit
• Great tit
• Coal tit
• Chaffinch
• Nuthatch
• Long tailed tit
• Wood pigeon
• Stock dove
• Pheasant
• Blackbird
• Robin
• Coot
• Moorhen
• Greylag geese

Little egret

• Egyptian geese
• Mallard
• Lapwing
• Shoveler
• Tufted duck
• Pochard
• Teal
• Shelduck
• Oystercatcher
• Little egret
• Cormorant
• Black-headed gulls
• Great crested grebe

Early spring at Strumpshaw Fen

Our very first visit to RSPB Strumpshaw Fen this calendar year, and an interesting visit it was too. There seemed not a single better thing to do on 'Valentine's Day' than go for a romantic walk in the mud, and very glad we were too!

On entering the reserve we immediately noticed that the snowdrops were suddenly in flower, and surrounded by the usual woodland birds around the reception hide, reveled in their sudden beauty amongst the brown leaf litter and bare trees. We chose to walk along the fen trail to get to fen hide, where it is always hit or miss - either you see nothing at all, or everything at once. On the boardwalk, a ginger flash flew out of the reeds and across the path in front of us to a chorus of alarming birds. A weasel, from its lack of a black-tipped tail, cheekily stuck its head out of the reeds on the other side of the path, then instantly disappeared, with no sound or trail to be heard or seen.

In addition to this lucky sighting, Fen hide was erring on the 'everything' side of things today, with a Chinese water deer happily munching its way through the vegetation, two sparrowhawks showing off and landing close to the hide and three marsh harriers performing acrobatics over the marsh for all to see.

Eventually leaving Fen hide and continuing on our trail before afternoon turned to dusk, we heard the distinctive drumming of a great spotted woodpecker; the first time I have heard this 'song' this year.

Around the rest of the reserve, we spotted moorhens, coots, shovelers, shelduck, greylag geese, robins, chaffinches, blue tits, great tits... and as dusk properly began to fall, we were able to watch those marvelously clever crepuscular animals flying to roost at Buckenham marshes; rooks and jackdaws in a great river across the sky, as far as the eye could see.

Unexpected otters on the Wensum

The last few weeks have been very busy, so much so that we haven't made it out on many nature walks. However, we have still managed a couple of walks around our local patch to quench our thirst to be outdoors.

Our most recent walk here was more exciting than most. We always walk to a clearing that allows us to stand on the bank of the River Wensum. Occasionally we see kingfishers patrolling their territory, other times we try to spot birds in the surrounding trees. This time, we saw ripples in the water, almost with a small wake behind whatever creature was making them. So, out of curiosity, we stopped and waited, standing perfectly still at the edge. It was dusk, so the visibility and light levels were far from perfect, and I wasn't (for once) carrying my camera either. As we watched, it became apparent that our mystery ripples were in fact two otters! They swam towards us, arching out of the water and diving under. They were hunting. One caught a fish and pulled it up onto the bank opposite where we were standing and proceeded to audibly munch its way through it. The other, having had less luck so far, continued hunting. We watched the bubble trail from his dive come closer and closer, until he popped his up no more than two metres from us. It was at this point he noticed us, and quickly dived back under and retreated to a safe distance among the reeds on our side of the bank, seeming to scent the air in our direction to figure out what we were.

We left them alone at this point, not wishing to disturb them further, and wanting to be on our way before darkness truly fell. A very exciting sighting though, and we have some evidence via a video taken on my husband's phone: Otters on the Wensum.

RSPB Big Garden Bird Watch 2015

 This is the third year that I have taken part in the RSPB's Big Garden Bird Watch. It was an action packed hour for me this year, with species I wasn't expecting to see, such as this little wren that was around for almost the entire hour. We also had a record of 28 starlings descending on our feeders at one time, occasionally forming a queue on the fence until there was room for them to join in the squabble for the suet nibbles. It was a record that, when I submitted my results, I was asked "are you sure you saw 28 starlings?" I was very sure. It seems we have cultivated our own miniature murmuration. Our other records this year were:

• Collared dove - 2
• Wood pigeon - 2
• Dunnock - 1
• Blue tit - 2
• Great tit - 2
• Robin - 2
• Magpie - 2
• Blackbird - 2

One of our robins is very territorial; not only did it chase off the other robin, it dive bombed the poor dunnock unawares, and they ended up rolling on the ground before the dunnock flew away.

Most of these are our usual visitors, but there are some that I would have expected to see and didn't; for example, we often have one of two coal tits who visit at this time of year. In spring and summer, we also usually have a pair of green finches and a number of gold finches, and we have even had a great spotted woodpecker and his youngsters visit our feeders. It got me thinking about how our results change from year to year, and whether this would depend on the food sources we provide, which have also changed as I have learnt more about what is on offer and what certain species of birds seem to prefer. This year, as we have consistently for several months now without changing food sources, we provided the following foods: sunflower hearts, mixed seed, suet balls, suet nibbles and meal worms, as well as fresh water.

As I was intrigued, I decided to look up my previous two years' results, and have plotted the somewhat rudimentary graph below to compare my findings. It would seem that providing suet nibbles has done wonders for the number of starlings we attract...

Pensthorpe again

After not visiting this reserve in over a year, I've made two trips in as many weeks! I took a friend to visit the reserve as she had never visited before, so we made the most of it. As I mentioned in my previous post, Pensthorpe has a mixture of captive animals and wild; we bought food to feed any that would come to us, and ended up with a following of ducks and geese of various shapes and sizes. This is always a perfect opportunity to photograph these birds, as long as they don't try to clamber over your feet, like a sweet little smew tried to do to me!

Smew

This all happens around 'Mill Pond', the closest body of water to the reserve entrance. Not including the captive birds, we saw a total of 24 different species, including one rather unexpected bird from a distance across this 'pond'. They keep Eurasian cranes as part of their conservation programme, but wild cranes have been reported here, and we saw one in the distance at the edge of the water. The close up images, however, I have to admit, are of their captive cranes.

Tufted duck

Walking on from the conservation centre, the trail continues between two large lakes, where tufted ducks could be found in abundance. Eventually, this becomes a woodland trail where a small bird hide is nestled amongst the trees. There are a range of bird feeders here, and the scene looks like what I wish my eventual garden could look like; woodland birds everywhere, fluttering in from all directions. Blue tits, great tits, coal tits, chaffinches, robins, nuthatches... there was even an extremely confiding muntjac deer nibbling at the dropped seeds below the feeders, which stayed the entire time we were there, completely oblivious to, or comfortable with, our presence.

Wild Eurasian crane

It was a cold and icy day, and the rest of the walk was spent marvelling at the beautiful scenery; frozen water and frost kissed reeds and rushes.

Captive Eurasian crane

Muntjac deer

Coal tit

Pensthorpe Wildlife and Gardens

We woke up this morning to the most wintery scene we have had so far; the ice on the roof of the car made it look like it had stiff white fur in the morning sunlight.

We hadn't been to Pensthorpe in a very long time and we were looking forward to seeing all of the captive and non-captive, native and non-native waterfowl and other birds in the grounds.

When we arrived it was almost like a winter wonderland; everything was covered in frost, and the still water was covered in a thin layer of ice, but thick enough for the ducks to attempt to skate on. We walked through the hordes of expectant geese and ducks, all awaiting a meal from us, including Hawaiian geese, puna teal, smew, mergansers, and countless other exotic species, as well as the more familiar coots, moorhens, pochards and mallards. Although the coots looked more like they were contemplating their reflection than their next meal.

We continued our walk, heading towards the conservation centre to admire the red squirrels they keep for their breeding programme. As we walked past the edge of some reeds, I heard a rustle, and glimpsed something that looked not quite like a moorhen. We froze, and waited. The rustle came from further along the bank. We moved, and waited. The rustle moved on, and this continued for a number of minutes. Our persistence payed off though; after one final rustle, the culprit flew and landed on the frozen water, pausing for a few seconds, perhaps confused by the slippery ice it had landed on, before scuttling off into shelter. My very first sighting of a water rail.

The conservation centre entertained us with red squirrels scampering over branches in their enclosure, and further on a group of shoveler on open water entertained us with some synchronised swimming. They were all dabbling in a circle, beak to tail.

The long walk around the reserve then began, surrounded by the frozen landscape in the still cold air, it was a perfect winter stroll. We went from water and marsh into woodland, glimpsing small woodland birds all around, and being surrounded by the soft 'see-see-see' contact calls of families of long tailed tits wherever we went. The woodland then became meadowland, completely still and silent.

We ended our stroll in the cafe, warming ourselves up with a hot chocolate!

Buckenham Marshes

It was a cold, clear day at Buckenham Marshes, with frozen streams and frosty paths. This didn't stop the wigeon in their hundreds though. From stepping foot across the rail line, we could hear their whistling calls and see huge flocks nervously taking off and landing at the slightest shadow overhead. A teal or two were nestled amongst them, looking for security in the flock. Lapwings squared off at each other across the field, and robins laid claim to their territories. Rooks fed together in the fields and took off 'cawing' to the nearest clump of trees as we passed. The odd wren flitted across our path, and a kestrel hovered overhead. A perfect stroll in the winter sunshine.