Reedbed

The New Arrivals....Day Two
Stroppy Madam and Uppity Bill Robin are happy to announce the safe arrival on Friday, 18th April of their
three beautiful triplets....Rhianan, Ricky and Randy. Both Mum and babies are doing well and ask if donations could be made to the hospital's maternity ward in lieu of flowers. Thank-you.

On a more serious note....please bear in mind that, although both parents know me well and are even prepared to feed from my hand, when it comes to their nest-site, I stay well away! I took this picture from the other side of the garden with a digi-scoped camera so as not to disturb either the chicks or the parents!

If you have Robins nesting in your own garden already, then it's worth remembering that, for the most part, they'll be quite happy to put up with you hanging out the washing, doing a bit of gardening and even mowing the lawn, etc, but they wont like it if you start sticking your big red spotty nose in where it doesn't belong....something that might easily cause them to desert the nest altogether!

When my Boss was a CO, he once inadvertently made himself an instant local celebrity by being identified as the man who, although more than happy to push and push and push the poor sods under his command until they literally dropped, decided to cordon off (by actually posting sentries) an entire section of the base, thus rendering most of the vehicle repair shop, five of the vehicles in it and an equipment storage shed completely out of bounds for more than a month....Why? For the simple reason that a pair of Redstarts (relatives of the Robin) had decided to nest under the open bonnet of a Land Rover! Meanwhile, the poor old mechanics had to carry on working of course, but outside in the wind and the rain (of which there is a great deal on the East coast of Scotland)!

Mmm....It's amazing really, just how much respect he actually earned from a great many big, ugly, foul-mouthed Marines because of it....not to mention the local civilian population! Mind you, no-one ever left a vehicle bonnet open and unsupervised during the Spring or Summer again! I wrote in my diary at the time about how the entire situation reminded me of an episode from "Sergeant Bilko"! Forget about protecting Faslane and the Polaris nuclear subs or the North Sea Oil rigs....I remember how more than 100 fully-armed, extremely tough and very highly-trained Commachio Coy Royal Marines were suddenly prepared to do whatever it took to ensure the safety of those bl**dy birds and their four chicks and to Hell with the rest! All of the chicks fledged by the way and things soon returned to normal!

Anyway, I digress yet again....Please bear in mind that "suitable" food for very young early-birds is not exactly abundant right now and that the current batch of unusually early-nesting species, such as Robins, Blue Tits and Dunnocks will be struggling to find enough wriggly things to satisfy all those gaping mouths. The fact is, if you've fed the birds in your garden right through what has been a very mild Winter, then you are much more likely to get pairs of birds nesting in or around your garden that much earlier than would normally be the case. However, the vast majority of insect species that the birds depend upon to feed their young will not have adapted anywhere near as quickly to either your bird-feeding habits in particular or to climate change in general, resulting in a severe shortage (at least for the next couple of weeks) of all those little grubs and caterpillars so vital to the staple dietary requirements of many baby birds!

Yes, I admit, there are a few Butterflies and things around already, such a Peacocks and Brimstones, but they're the first-phase individuals....the ones who hibernate through the Winter and then become active again in the early Spring. They wont be around for long however and it will be the second-phase ones who'll emerge from caterpillars later in the year and who you'll enjoy seeing during the Summer!

Basically....if you feed the birds regularly throughout the Winter, then please continue to do so well into the Summer. There is a great deal of inter-species disharmony caused by climate change at the moment and, for the time being at least, the survival of chicks like the ones in the picture above could depend entirely upon your willingness to provide things like insect-based suet blocks, live mealworms and nibbed peanuts!

WARNING....Whatever you do, DON'T put out whole peanuts! The parent birds may try to feed the entire peanut to a chick resulting in it choking to death! It's very common and the same thing applies to the artificially large mealworms you can buy these days....the ones fed on growth hormone! It's also a good idea to avoid using cheap, grain-based bird-food bought from the guy down your local market....It will probably be imported and therefore likely to be covered with a cocktail of herbicides and insecticides that are potentially deadly to very young and adult birds alike! Proprietary brands, such as "Chapelwood" or the RSPB and BTO endorsed versions may be more expensive, but at least they're safe!

As for the birds in my own garden, "GT" and "GTi" (the Great Tits) are currently sitting on eggs in the bird-table nest-box, three pairs of Blue Tits (so far) are in the Sparrow terrace at the font of the house, the Dunnocks are back in the pine trees near the patio, "DT" and his overly neurotic mate are in the pine tree next to the oil tank and the Wrens are nesting behind the top shed! On top of all that, I think that "Highbrow" the Song Thrush and his mate are nest-building on a shelf inside the old wooden den that I built at the top of the garden for my kids when they were little and....Oh yes, the House Martins are due back any day now!

Finally, I'm putting up a new Woodpecker nest-box in one of the trees in the woodlet at the end of the garden today. It may not prove successful this year, but there's a good chance something will show an interest next year. The last time I put up a box intended for woodpeckers, it was occupied almost instantly by a pair of Starlings which I was quite pleased about really, if only because the familiar old Starling is a species in serious decline at the moment!

Ladybird, Ladybird....
Looks as though I caught this little lady just as she was heading back home....She was in a hurry too....I wonder why?

Chaffling
This is the semi-leucistic Chaffinch that hangs around my garden for most of each day. I've mentioned it before in the diary section of the .com site and, until now, I've been convinced that it's a male bird. However, over the past couple of days it's been inseparable from a normal male Chaffinch, so it might just be a female!

Viola Contessa

"Global Warming My A**e!"
Nearly two inches of snow fell last night (6th April) and came as a bit of a shock to a great many of us who were just beginning to get used to the idea that Spring had well and truly sprung! "Scraps" (above) looked pretty fed up with it all and the fact that I had to sleep out in it last night high up in the hills in just my bivi-bag on a bed of pine branches with my roll-mat placed on top just about summed it up!
I'd set up the new PIR trips we use these days, taped the audible alarm receiver earpiece thingy to my good ear (rendering me practically deaf and unlikely to hear so much as a herd of Deer as they trampled me under hoof!), crawled into my Arctic 5-season sleeping-bag, zipped up the bivi and was asleep well before it started to snow. When I woke up around 0400hrs to the sound of something snuffling about nearby (the earpiece had fallen out of my ear at some point during the night!), I felt unusually warm, but only because I was completely covered in snow!

April Crowtoe
I grew up calling them "Crowtoes", but people just stare at me as though I'm not quite all there if I try to use such an age-old country name for Bluebells these days. Meanwhile, if I'm quick enough and people are unable to get away from me in time, I treat them to a couple of  "interesting" facts about this threatened and therefore highly protected little Lily....
1....Bluebells are only native to countries fringing the Atlantic Ocean!
2....The plant's tiny white bulbs were apparently used in olden times to make a remarkably efficient glue...a kind of medieval equivalent of Superglue, except that it didn't just stick the top to the tube and your fingers to everything else!
3....The bulbs also contain starch which the Elizabethans utilized as a stiffener for their ruffs.
....Now you see why I don't have many friends!
WARNING WILL ROBINSON! It is totally illegal to either pick, dig up or trample upon Bluebells wherever they happen to be growing in the British Isles and to do so, still carries a 12th Century mandatory death sentence whereby you are forced to watch re-runs of "Ye Olde Peter and Katie Show" until you beg to be put to the sword....I believe that two and a half minutes is the current record!

Lily the Pink

Jenny Wren
She looks as though she's full of eggs (maybe as many as seven or eight) and just about fit to burst!

 Jenny's Choice

Jenny Wren, Jenny Wren
Losing patience yet again
Should your husband dare to rest
Instead of building you that nest
....the one you'll choose from several made
....the best in which your eggs are laid
 
So panic not....it wont be long
He's starting now to sing his song
Just cast about and make your choice
To the glorious rhythms of his voice

(Daisy W, June 1940)

  The Summer of 1940 was a particularly worrying time for the people of Great Britain...the German invasion of Europe was all but complete, the name "Dunkirk" was on everyone's lips and barely thirty miles of English Channel separated British soil from overwhelming Nazi invasion!

  Still only in her mid-teens, my Mum was living at home in the old country cottage with my Gran and Grandad together with her many brothers and sisters. Two of her maternal uncles, both serving with the 2nd Battalion The Gloucestershire Regiment, had been wounded at Dunkirk, but had been successfully returned to England in the first wave while the rest of their Battalion had remained behind to provide screen cover for the main bulk of the evacuation.

The eventual safe return of my Mum's uncles to British shores was, quite naturally, of enormous relief to the entire family....even though they didn't actually get back to their families as such until several weeks later. Nevertheless, this must have been a time for my Mum to be relatively thankful, even as two more uncles and all of her brothers prepared to enlist in the Forces themselves!

Interestingly, the War years were when my Mum's poetry writing was at its most prolific....but always on the subject of Nature. She never once wrote a poem about the War itself, about friends or family serving in either Europe or Asia or at sea or about the harsh times experienced by all those around her. For my Mother, Nature must have been a desperately important means of escape from the awful reality of life under seige!

The "Jenny's Choice" poem was based upon her own observations of a pair of Wrens nesting in my Gran's garden. She noticed that the male bird built several prototype "cock" nests before the hen finally decided to choose one, at which point the little female would line it with moss, feathers and/or down to finish it off!

The Anenome Within
The more I look at it, the more I think the centre of this flower looks like the top of Action Man's head!

Spring Yellow

Violet Primula
Another shot of a Primula fom the garden

My first Sweet Violet for 2008
on the
"Arty-Farty"
page

Preening Male Siskin
Not only do they look like Canaries, but they sound a bit like them too, so it's no wonder that until quite recently, some people were keen to keep wild Siskins in cages in their homes! I remember how it was possible to exchange old clothes and shoes, etc for wild birds, such as Linnets, Siskins, Bullfinches and Goldfinches with the Rag and Bone Man or even to buy them from him with cash and that a male Bullfinch for example, could be bought for as little as three shillings or a pair for five bob!

 
Everyone Has Their Price!
For the price of a mealworm, "DT" the Blackbird allowed me to get close enough to him today to use my Ricoh camera!

"Tubby the Nutter"
Looking a bit old, grey and grizzled these days, Tubby has been a regular visitor to my garden for years and knows all the tricks for getting into the bird-feeders. Note the small scar just above his nose....He acquired an injury long ago (probably in a confrontation with another Squirrel) which became infected for a while and could easily have been the finish of him, but he got through it ok in the end! When I think about it, this very large Squirrel must have cost me a fortune in peanuts, sunflower hearts and fat balls over the years, but I don't really begrudge him....he's only doing what I'd do if I was him!

 "Uppity Bill"....aka "Mr Angry"
I've put a few pictures of this particular Robin on my websites, but this one probably epitomises the belligerent nature of this bird more than any other! In all fairness though, what thoughts do you suppose go through his little mind as he sits there surveying his universe?

"Ruby" the Robin
Mate to "White-Eye", "Ruby" is easily the most timid of my four resident Robins, one pair occupying the front garden, the other pair at the back....most of the time! "Ruby" is also the only one of the four that I haven't yet been able to persuade to feed from my hand! Meanwhile, I thought I'd add this technically rather poor photgraph to coincide with the run on Robins I seem to be having on both my websites of late!

Common Lizard
This photograph represents another one of those curious moments when I sense that I'm being watched. I usually get such feelings just after I've settled down in the middle of nowhere to eat my lunch....and sure enough, as I glanced down at the ground to a point no more than three metres from where I was sitting, I suddenly spotted this Common Lizard sunbathing on an old piece of wood. I'm pleased to say that he hung around just long enough for me to take this picture before scuttling off into the undergrowth almost faster than the eye could follow!
In fact, I managed to glimpse a fair few Common Lizards while I was working on the North Cornish coast in mid September 2007. The weather was very sunny and dry all week and it seemed that virtually all of Cornwall's indiginous Reptile species were intent on taking full advantage of the Sun's gloriously warm rays.
For a more detailed account of this particular week in Cornwall, see the "Green" page at www.wildliferanger.com

Peacock Butterfly
I was totally amazed today to see what seemed like countless numbers of Peacock Butterflies all together in a sun-drenched field of ripening wheat. Most of them had settled, one per wheat-stalk, while a few flitted idly from place to place. I'd never seen the likes of it before....so many Peacocks....hundreds....all in one place....but then, as I took a step forward to take a photograph, they suddenly did that flashing, distracting eye-spot thing that Peacocks do and took to the air as one....a cloud of russet-brown and purpley-blue....Wonderful!
It was a little piece of uniquely uncharacteristic animal behaviour that could mean almost anything....or, then again, nothing at all.
Unusual weather patterns of late, dislocated seasons, record dry spells alternating with record downpours, hail and snow in June and July, strange cloud formations, unusual light effects, storms and floods....and more floods! Add to that the number of increasingly strange episodes of animal behaviour I've been witnessing lately....such as the shoals of laterally rotating eel that I saw from the "bridge over the River Wye" in Chepstow back in June....they were just about breaking the surface of the very muddy river water, but I considered it to be odd behaviour simply because the thicker-skinned eel doesn't normally rotate like certain other species of fish sometimes do (except that we've all been recording increasingly high levels of acid in some of the heavier downpours of rain on odd occasions since around 2005) nor, for that matter, do eels gather in fairly large numbers in the middle of June ....Then there have been the small to medium-size flocks of Starling flying virtually blind late at night in and around my own village throughout this Summer (certainly not normal behaviour for them either)!
There have been a hundred other, far less obvious things as well, but I notice them....the localized patches of mutated, twin-headed Dandilions which test as completely normal....or the colony of seventy or more Rooks that I watched a week or two ago as they repeatedly flew down from the trees to land on the road....then back into the trees after a few moments of head-bobbing and feather-shaking antics....then back to the road for more head-bobbing and feather-shaking....they did it over and over again....I've never seen that before either....wierd! Then there was the Gordian knot of writhing Earthworms, probably forty or fifty of them....the size of a cricket ball....on Robinswood Hill near Gloucester. I haven't seen one of those since the 1950s....On that occasion, I placed the heaving mass in a box to take to school for "show and tell", but sadly, all the worms had separated by the time I got there!
Such examples of extreme animal behaviour are certainly unusual (though not always entirely unheard of in other species) and I would normally dismiss them as being fairly insignificant if they occured in isolation over many years, but these incidents are not isolated and they are happening in quick succession!
 Coincidence? Perhaps....or separate pieces of a much larger and infinitely more complex picture? More worryingly, some say that they could be symptoms of something far more sinister! Mmm....I don't know about that, but something of a very fundamental nature is undoubtedly changing out there and only time will tell how serious it really is!
It's no good asking the experts either, they're always far too busy focussing on the bits and pieces of whatever they're studying at the time to be able to take-in everything else as well, but some of the farmers and the rural "characters" I've spoken to just lately have also been noticing some pretty odd stuff....as one of them said to me...."there's something more akin to a shift of some sort....in Nature herself....almost like a shiver or a shudder"! Or, as one particularly elderly and knowledgeable country gentleman called "Old Tom" (son of "Even Older Tom"), observed the other day...."it's like someone's walking over Mother Nature's grave"!

Red splash with a dash of Meadow Crane's-Bill

Wren
Take a little round ball of feathers, add a pointy beak, a silly sticky-uppy tail and a pair of big feet and you have yourself a Wren....and here's one I made earlier. I'm actually amazed that this picture came out ok because this tiny Troglodytes troglodytes was more than living up to his Latin name by skulking about in the darkest recesses of the thickest woodland undergrowth that he could find and wouldn't keep still for more than a few moments at a time! He was also making it very clear to me that he didn't want me anywhere near his beloved nest, which appeared to be hidden in a small hole deep within a nearby ancient Cotswold stone wall and also where his equally feisty mate was sitting on a fresh clutch of eggs!
I'm dedicating this photograph to the only people I saw all day....a friendly, chatty lady and gent with a lovely Golden Retriever dog who were actually being closely shadowed by Mr. Belligerent as they all came down the woodland trail towards me!
Out of interest, The Wren is reportedly the UK's most common and adaptable bird, with an estimated eight million pairs occupying virtually every possible type of niche habitat....from suburban gardens to mountain forests, from coastal clifftops to farmland meadows and from industrial landscapes to country hedgerows....a truly remarkable bird!

2007....House Martin Return Earliest Yet!
(See House Martin survey stuff on "Survey" page)

Vulgaris or Media?
Talking to a friend this morning (no not my pretend one....he's on holiday at the moment), I happened to mention how often I've been seeing Wasps while out and about....in fact,  I've been seeing them since December! Not surprisingly, he was slightly skeptical, not having seen one himself so far this year (remember, none of the Wasp species are really due to be particularly active until later in May). Quick as a flash, I decided to smear some of my special home-made, top secret, extra-strength Wasp and Bee attractant, "WBA #A1" (cunningly disguised as runny honey!) onto a tree branch at the top of the garden to see what happened....Then I smeared some more onto the shed window ten minutes later after one of the Squirrels ("Bubble" I think) licked it all off! Checking back half an hour later, I was delighted to see this very large example of Vespula vulgaris enjoying the sticky provender! At first, I thought it was the much scarcer Dolichovespula media, sometimes (and very unfairly) described as the "Killer Wasp", but I don't think it has quite enough black in its markings (notice how cleverly I try to make it look as though I know what I'm talking about by using Latin names).

Does My Bum Look Big in This?

Meanwhile
you might try visiting this site's little sister....
www.wildliferanger.com

Battle of the Wagtails....Male Grey Wagtail (Above), Male Pied (Below)
Bibury is a bit of a hot-spot for Wagtails and always has been. The geography of the village and the sheer abundance of insect life emanating from the shallow, quite fast-flowing River Coln, surrounding woodland and the little marshy nature reserve all combine to provide the perfect Wagtail habitat. I've spent the last five years studying the Wagtails here and have managed to work out a number of the territorial perimeters that are so fiercely guarded by the incumbant males, particularly in the Spring. There is one place in particular, near the road bridge adjacent to the trout farm and hotel, where three such territories all come together. Two are held by pairs of Pied Wagtails while the third is the province of a pair of Grey Wagtails. One pair of Pieds occupy a nest-site on the Hotel side of the river and another pair dominate the reserve side of the bridge. Meanwhile, the Greys are firmly ensconced within the grounds of the Trout farm. Corners of the territories meet at the bridge and this is the place where much confrontational tail-wagging, posturing and ariel dog-fights take place, particularly between the males, as all the birds compete for the prolific numbers of insects hovering near or above the river. This year's situation has been complicated and tempers enflamed by the intrusive behaviour of one of last year's three surviving Grey Wagtail juveniles and a solitary rogue Pied (White) Wagtail. I got the old digi-scope out for once and took these pictures on 3rd April.

"An Afternoon at the Wildlife Park"
on the
"Survival Guide Thingy"
page at
www.wildliferanger.com
as well as
"Cleopatra?"
on the
"Diary and General Stuff"
page

Crimson and Cream
Tulips....looking like a sunset over Sydney Opera House....or maybe just a bunch of flowers!

Please note....many of the images to be found on both this website and its sister .com site are available for purchase (framed or unframed) from an on-line world-wide artist community website based in the USA called "Imagekind" (www.imagekind.com).

100% of all profits accruing to me from any such sales on the Imagekind site (assuming that I actually ever sell anything) will be donated to the Royal National Lifeboat Institution (www.rnli.org.uk) directly from Imagekind themselves. To access my stuff on the Imagekind site, enter Don W into the Imagekind search  facility and then click on my name under any of my photos that happen to appear on screen and this should take you to my photographs.
Alternatively, try www.ukranger.imagekind.com which should take you directly to my actual galleries.

Tender Moments
I stood and watched this extremely devoted pair of Magpies for more than half-an-hour today (3rd March) amidst the early blossom of an Evesham Vale apple orchard. Magpies are usually cast as the "villian" of the piece because of their tendency to predate the eggs and young of countless other bird species (although such behaviour has been proven by several agencies not to have any really detrimental effect on the population numbers of their victims). However, the ultra-vigilant and very smart Pica pica also happen to make tremendously loyal and doting partners and I took great pleasure in watching the male of this particular two-some acting out his proffering-based and exquisitely tender courtship ritual.

His MO was quite simple....fly off to find and pick the most appealing dessicated husk of an old apple from last year's crop that you can find and then return to sexy partner with said fruit and proffer as a gift by gently nudging her with it, bobbing head up and down a bit and closing eyes a lot until she finally takes it from you. Then off you go again to find another, even better one. Meanwhile, the female of your dreams sits there with your special gift in her beak, probably wondering why you couldn't find something shiney or at least a box of chocolates from somewhere instead, until she eventually gets fed up waiting and chucks it away (I know exactly how the male must be made to feel by it all....I mean, what exactly was wrong with the dead Noctule Bat I brought home for my wife to have a look at the other day, even if it did have a few fleas?)! Anyhoo, I went on watching the love-birds as the procedure was repeated four more times, at which point, both birds seemed to get bored with the whole thing and eventually flew off to join a bunch of other Magpies in a nearby field, probably to hold a special Magpie "Parliament" or something!

Buff-Tailed Bumble Bee
Ok, birds yes, flowers alright-ish,, but insects are definitely not my strong point! Still, I "think" that this is a Buff-Tailed Bumble Bee (Bombus terrestris) and I took this shot this evening (18th February) after it had flown into the bedroom and settled on the lamp-shade. I've been seeing several of the White-Tailed variety (B. lucorum) through the winter (and one Yellow-Banded (B. hortorum), but this fantastic little creature has no right being out and about before April! (There's another picture on the "Diary and General Stuff" page at www.wildliferanger.com)

There is a great deal of content (especially photographs) on this site so it may take a few moments longer to access fully than is usually the case with most other sites, particularly for dial-up subscribers. Please be patient and, hopefully, all of the photographs will materialize. If, by any chance, you access the site, but with some of the photographs replaced by blank rectangles with little red crosses, then click off the site and try again. If it still doesn't work, then give up completely and vow never to return!

Old Farm Gate

Thelma (Left) and Louise (Thelma Has a slightly Whiter Chin)
Inseparable "friends", Thelma and Louise sit for most of every day apparently super-glued to their favourite branch in a tree at the top of my garden. They sit there, throughout the year, ocassionally dropping down to the seed trough that I top-up for them, the Pheasants and the Red-Legged Partridge every day. All other Collared Dove "interlopers" are chased off without exception! Both birds also exhibit frequent nest-building activity, followed by a tendency to sit around afterwards as if to say "what next?". Well, "what next" actually took place yesterday when a male bird appeared out of the blue and proceeded to strut his stuff across the top of ye olde rustic swing that sits just beneath the branch that's so beloved of our devoted pair. I looked on with interest, expecting the young upstart to be shown the door in no uncertain terms, but instead of that, a brazen Louise dropped down to said Romeo and, before I knew it, the dirty deed was done. No more than 30 seconds and it was all over....amazing (certainly beats my record)!

However, instead of the expected shared cigarette with her new amore, Louise suddenly turned upon the hapless young male and proceeded to give him a thorough beating-up. At this point, Thelma flew down to assist her partner and the young lad was forced to flee for his life!

What to make of it all? Well, Thelma was certainly content to look on as Louise "capitulated" and the "act" most definitely took place. The male was then "seen off" in no uncertain terms by both birds. Now I must wait to see if anything develops. Could it be that T & L will finally fulfil their dream of raising their own family? Is that what they actually want? Was their behaviour in any way determined? Is this sort of thing normal behaviour for Collared Doves....who knows? We'll just have to wait and see what happens next! (See the "General Diary Stuff" page of www.wildliferanger.com for more on our intrepid pair of Doves).

Snowdrops....harbingers of Spring? Wherefore art thou Winter?
I've seen Snowdrops towards the end of January a few times over the years, but I took this picture on the 12th January 2007 no less and, try as I might, I can't find a single text book that refers to Snowdrops flowering even before February (a few crocuses are out as well)! Add that to the wasp I saw the other day and the half dozen Bees or so I've spotted this winter (loads of fishermen have been seeing them too) and I'd say you might as well dust off your best pair of Bermudas and dig out the suntan cream....but hold on a minute, unfortunately, I've been getting a fair bit of gyp from the "old trouble" today, so I reckon we must be in for a cold snap....besides, that's what I heard them say on the weather forecast this morning!