Category: Blog

Circumstances and dismal weather have limited my sorties recently and so I enjoyed my walk through Stoke Park and Eastville Park this morning, especially as the weather was  milder and the birds are beginning to sing (although most of the noise seemed to come from robins which were just about everywhere).

In Stoke Park the first bird I heard (and then saw) was a song thrush.

Next, in the (very) wet area next to Duchess Pond there was a male stonechat but no sign of the female. The crows even seemed quite cheery.

There were a couple of Canada geese on Duchess Pond, a few mallards and even more moorhens.

Before leaving Stoke Park a dunnock appeared and had plenty to say for itself.

In Eastville Park there were even more robins (I counted 10 different robins on my walk) and half a dozen long=tailed tits.

I was disappointed not to see a kingfisher at the lake but I think I was just unlucky as there were several reports of one. There was a cormorant fishing and it was interesting to see that some of the black-headed gulls are now getting proper black heads.

Some of the heads of the black-headed gulls are quite black now

The blackbirds were outnumbered by the robins this morning

The pigeons and wood pigeons were enjoying the sun too.

I spent a while watching a juvenile grey heron trying to fish but it didn’t seem to have the knack and was looking rather disheveled.

Near the weir I had very good views of a grey wagtail and then, just before I left the park, I saw the flash of a kingfisher fly along the River Frome.

When I arrived home I was beaming like the red breast of the robin.

A robin and holly – it could be Christmas!

A squirrel enjoying its stash of nuts.

More encouraging signs that winter is moving on – snowdrops next to the River Frome.

A blue tit also making lots of noise.

I saw a tweet (from Rojobus) about dippers (or the lack of them) in Siston Brook, Willsbridge and realised that the brook led to St. Anne’s Church (now famous for hawfinches and ring-necked parakeets) and thought I would have another go at seeing hawfinches. We had no luck but really enjoyed the stroll up from Willsbridge Mill (with its pleasant café) to St Anne’s Church.

We were treated to snowdrops, crocuses, catkins, a fleeting glimpse of a dipper and several views of a kingfisher. There were reports of ring-necked parakeets but none of hawfinches.

The ring-necked parakeet which I had seen at St Anne’s Church on the 29th January.

The trees are beginning to show signs of life

Catkins

The beautiful willow below St Anne’s Church

Crocuses and snowdrops

St Anne’s Church is a real delight (with its Commonwealth War Memorial graves) and beautiful yew trees.

The walk back was brightened by a cheery robin singing its heart out.

A cheery robin singing near to Siston Brook

Click below for gallery of photos from this morning:

I was the only person at Northwick Warth this morning and it wasn’t really surprising as it was bitterly cold. However, there was plenty of bird action to maintain my interest and encourage me to stay.

There were large flocks of wigeon, dunlin and redshank and 3 oystercatchers on the water’s edge, 50+ curlew and 40+ shelduck on the warth (warth is an old or dialect word for a river bank or a flat meadow beside a river or estuary especially along the Severn estuary).

Redshank

Redshank and dunlin

Dunlin in flight

Redshank

2 redshank and a dunlin

A wigeon escaped the flock

Mixed flock of wigeon and dunlin

Oystercatchers join the dunlin and redshank

2 curlew in flight

Oystercatcher and a dunlin

Wigeon

Redshank in flight

Dunlin in flight

Curlew flying with dunlin

Flock of dunlin

Dunlin

Mixed flocks

And a few others before driving home:

Starling

Robin

House sparrow (male)

House sparrow (female)

Click below for gallery of photos from this morning:

Eastville Park in the rain in winter is more about fungi and lichen but this afternoon I saw the first celandine of the year and the yellow theme was maintained when a grey wagtail came close and brightened up a miserable afternoon. Through the gloom the catkins also looked quite a picture.

Grey wagtail

You would think it would be all about ducks on a day like today (and there were quite a few)  but there were plenty of other things to see and (try and) photograph.

Black-headed gull

Mute swan

Canada goose

Moorhen

Herring gull

Herring gull

Blackbird

Long-tailed tit

Long-tailed tit

Grey heron

Moorhen

Cormorant

Female mallard – the special one

The rain was quite persistent and I was quite glad to get home.

After relentless rain yesterday it was not surprising that it was very wet in the park today. I saw three goldfinch as soon as I arrived in the park and then a male and a female stonechat.

On the lake there were a dozen mallards, 2 moorhens and a grey heron which flew from one side of the lake to another, giving me good opportunities for photos of birds in flight.

There were only three black-headed gulls but plenty of crows and a single blackbird.

A very pleasant hour spent on a dull afternoon.

One of three goldfinch which didn’t really want to show themselves

Male stonechat on 2 different perches

Mallard in flight

Pair of mallards in flight

Grey heron flying from one side of Duchess Pond to another:

Mallards looking very handsome

Black birds

Crow

Blackbird

Just a chance for a few photos whilst on a visit to Midsomer Quilting at Chilcompton in North Somerset.

Collared doves, robins, pied wagtail and meadow pipit,

Unusual to get 2 robins together?

Collared doves in a barn

Meadow pipit

Pied wagtail

Bucolic scene in North Somerset

First snowdrops of the year

Rainbow over Chew Valley Lake on our journey to Chilcompton

Winter Levels – The Somerset Levels as seen through the eyes of quilter Judy Hayward on a frosty morning

It was good to be back on my home patch and get some good views of our local birds.

I started in Stoke Park and was instantly treated to two stonechats in the boggy section.

Stonechat

Even more to my surprise was a common snipe that jumped up out of the bog and flew over to Duchess Pond (too fast for me to react).

On the pond I could only see a grey heron.

In Eastville Park there was no sign of a kingfisher but the black-headed gulls were doing a good job diving for fish in the lake.

The mallards are starting to look good again with their new plumage.

However, they are not as good at posing as the robins.

On the way home I went up the small stream that feeds in to the River Frome and was well rewarded with views of a dipper and a yellow wagtail.

A crow with a large mouthful of bread and a magpie caught my eye before the rain started and I scurried home.

After a week of murky and, at times, bitterly cold weather in Suffolk, today we were blessed with a gloriously sunny day which warmed our spirits (which certainly weren’t  at all low anyway) and allowed a chance of some decent photographs.

We spent the morning at RSPB Minsmere and then in the afternoon we moved on to the Blyth Estuary at Blythburgh and saw a great variety of birds.

Off the coast at Minsmere (more like a mill pond today) we had good views of red-throated divers and on the reserve the best was a male stonechat and some dunlin which were being given a hard time by the lapwing.

On the Blyth Estuary there were thousands of birds and in particular we had good views of avocet, redshank, shelduck, oystercatcher, curlew, whimbrel, pintail, lapwing and huge flocks of gulls. It felt really warm standing in the sun watching them and was particularly interesting seeing their plumages in the beautiful sunshine as they regularly took to the air.

Red-throated divers

Common snipe taken in to the sun

Gadwall

Pied wagtail

Male stonechat

Redshank and greylag goose ignoring each other

Dunlin

A (charmless) goldfinch amongst the gadwall

A lapwing photo bombing a dunlin and teal

Lapwing chasing off dunlin

Dunlin in flight

Tufted ducks comimg to the party

Teal

Dunlin between two (out of focus) shovelers

Pheasant wondering who is following him

Greylag geese

Long-tailed tit in the woods

A colony of avocets

Avocet feeding with its swiping action

Shelduck

Oystercatcher

Redshank

Avocet in flight

A mixed flock with a whimbrel centre stage

A deceit of lapwings

Avocet

Cormorant, avocet, shelduck, curlew, lapwing, oystercatcher, pintail, wigeon, redshank, black-tailed godwit, dunlin, gulls and probably even more

Click below for gallery of photos from today:

Not really worth a blog today as it has been too rainy and foggy to take any nature photos. However, after lunch at The Crown at Westleton there appeared a smudge of blue in the sky and so we stopped off at the quay in Walberswick and I couldn’t resist a few snaps of some herring gulls and a redshank.

Well, we have been out in the fresh air for most of today; I think it’s the longest I’ve been outdoors on such a gloomy day. Fortunately, it’s been much milder and must have reached 6 degrees centigrade at some point. However, it has certainly not been a day for photographs (even with modern digital equipment).

We were a little frustrated in the morning as we tried to reach Benacre Broads National Nature Reserve but all the signs seemed to warn us off saying that the paths were private and part of a conservation area. Other signs warned of the danger of coastal erosion so we were well and truly stymied. Nonetheless we enjoyed our walk and even visited  St Andrew’s Church at Covehithe built in the ruins of the old church and which was where the P. D. James mystery, Death in Holy Orders, was set and a television episode was filmed at the church ruins.

St Andrew’s Church at Covehithe – built in the ruins of the old church

On our way back we stopped off at the Blyth Estuary near Blythburgh and managed to see plenty of waders and gulls. Even in the gloom, with everything looking black and white, we could make out shelduck, curlew, redshank, dunlin, black-tailed godwits. lapwings, avocets and a huge flock of (mainly) black-headed gulls.

The view across the Blyth Estuary towards Soutwold

Shelduck, redshank and dunlin

Silhouette of a redshank in flight

Black-tailed godwits

Curlew

Avocet

We then moved on to RSPB Minsmere but, other than seeing common snipe from two of the hides, there was nothing of interest (at least we could see nothing of interest) and settled for a cup of tea and a piece of cake.

Common snipe from the North Hide

Pied wagtail

Common snipe from the Wildlife Lookout

The only thing we saw from the Bittern Hide – a raptor on post D

Having had a nature free day yesterday (more out of necessity than choice as it was  even really too cold to enjoy pottering around the shops and cafés in Southwold) today we chose to have a walk around Walberswick National Nature Reserve. Fortunately the biting cold wind of the day before had subsided and, although the dismal light was not good for photography, it was not too unpleasant for walking.

The first part of the walk took us along the Sandlings Walk (long distance route from Ipswich to Southwold which explores what remains of the once extensive Sandlings Heath). There were great tits, blue tits, chaffinches, blackbirds, robins and wrens and a single buzzard. On the heath land to our right there were lots of crows and sometimes small flocks of starlings. To our left there were extensive silver birch woods. We passed Westwood Lodge, an interesting large 16th century manor house with a huge turret which was still sporting a very large fully-lit Christmas tree .

A pheasant more worried about the distant shots than our prescence

A robin breaking cover

Crows on the heath land

Not much bird life here

At the furthest point from our base in Walberswick we had a choice of taking a return route through Dunwich Forest or a route through the reedbeds of Westwood Marshes. We chose the latter in the hope of seeing some wildfowl but the reeds were so tall that all we saw were a pair of marsh harriers, a grey heron and a mute swan flying in the distance, although we did hear the pinging of bearded tits,  several Cetti’s warblers and occasionally a cacophony of wild fowl from behind the reeds.

The silver birches would have benefited from a ray of sunshine or two

Plenty of interesting fungi to see

… and lichen

The beginning of this section of the walk was interesting and testing. Our guidebook told  us that “the footpath takes you through an area of wet woodland with willow and alder trees and then through dryer birch and oak woodland before emerging in to the reedbed”. The footpath through the “wet” section was elevated and well maintained and quite easy, but the “dry” section was often a quagmire and at times almost unpassable.

Not much chance seeing the wild fowl in the marshes behind the reeds although we occasionally heard the pinging of bearded tits and the easily recognizable sound of Cetti’s warblers

We could just make out  tags on the distant marsh harriers

The welcome sight of the ruins of the wind pump which told us “home” was not much further

We missed out the shingle section at the end of the walk as we didn’t want to be subjected to the coastal winds and we could see a quicker route to the Bell Inn which, by that stage, was a more attractive option

Dunwich Bay in the distance

By the time we arrived home we had covered 10 miles and would have been feeling virtuous except that any good it had done us had probably been wrecked by the pint and the ploughman’s in the pub.

We went to RSPB Minsmere on a bright but bitterly cold day full of optimism. This time last year, although a dull dreary day, we had seen many species of birds and had had good views of lots of waders. This year, on arrival, we were told that many of the hides were inaccessible due to flooding and that the East Scrape was no longer a scrape but part of a larger lake caused by the rains and a series of high tides which prevented the area from draining.

This view from near the visitors’ centre showed the East Scrape in the distance fully flooded.

We were told that the Wildlife Lookout was accessible but when we reached the path we discovered that at least wellies were necessary if not waders. We went on to the Bittern Hide. As soon as we arrived there was plenty of action with cormorants, mute swans and marsh harriers in flight. But it was not a pleasant experience as the sunshine was so bright that it was painful to sit there alone watch the birds.

Marsh harrier from the Bittern Hide.

We reckoned that the same would apply at Island Mere and so we made our way back to the visitors’ centre for a coffee. Through the woods there were great tits and long-tailed tits.

Long-tailed tit.

After a warming coffee we decided to brave the cold winds of the North Wall and head towards the sea. There was nothing to see en route and only a few lesser black-backed gulls on the coast. It was, however, much too cold to hang around. We did find that we could get to the hide on the East Scrape by skirting the flooded path but the rewards were not great with only very distant waders (mainly lapwing) at the back of the East (formerly) Scrape and 3 dunlin.

In the bright sunshine Southwold lighthouse and pier can be seen across the heavy seas of Dunwich Bay

The heavy seas reminded me of the storms of 1286 and of the mid 14th Century which washed away the town of Dunwich which are mentioned in the book I am reading by Rosamund Richardson “Waiting for the Albino Duck – how birds can change your life” and which, if the cold weather persists this week, I shall get a good chance to read.

It really was much too cold to hang around so we scurried back to base to catch up with some sports action; however, this brought me no solace as Arsenal  put in a disgraceful performance to get evicted from the FA Cup in the 3rd Round. At least Wendy could feel some satisfaction as their victors were Nottingham Forest (although she was decent enough to hide her glee).