Archive for August, 2008

With no recorded sunshine in the last seven days, this month has to be one of the dullest and wettest ever recorded.

Over a dozen Greenfinches are now feeding in the garden and three Jays come regularly for peanuts. At dusk one evening a young Tawny Owl was calling for food in some beeches at the back of the garden. The adults were visible against the darkening sky as they fed it.

I was awoken one morning by a calling Curlew as it headed off the moors to the coast. Skylarks and Snipe are now also moving through.

On the local golf course parties of up to a dozen goldfinches are hunting the thistles for seeds and good numbers of Siskin are still around. A family party of six Stoat have also been seen.

This weeks photo is of the last Barn Owl to fledge from the five that have flown locally. The tiny black specks down the flank of the young indicate that it is a female – the males breast being completely white. What with the extremely wet weather this week and the Olympics I have only managed two visits to the site this week and there are now only two birds present, these being the adults. The young having been driven away from their breeding territory.

In the garden there are fourteen Greenfinches feeding and the first two Jays have now appeared but very few Goldfinches.

On the local Golf Course Skylarks are now moving through and a Wheatear was on the first tee one morning this week. A family party of Kestrels were also mobile looking for voles.

This weeks photo shows four of the five young Barn Owls that have fledged locally this year. After a gap of thirty five years Barn Owls returned last year and fledged two broods. This year they started a little later and probably only have one brood but to have five young flying around is a magnificent sight and one I have waited a long time to see. Lets hope now that they have some dry nights to learn how to hunt for themselves because after ten days they will be on their own. It’s a sad fact that no more than two of these young will survive to this time next year. I wish them well!

During the week a Green Woodpecker has returned to feed on the golf course after going somewhere to breed but where? Good numbers of Siskins are also present and seem to be feeding in the Silver Birches.

The local wildlife event of the week has been the continued presence of Fox cubs both in the woods and on the local golf course. By now this years cubs are quite big and one in particular is in superb condition and very bold. Most of the golfers have got used to it and some offer tit bits on their way round. One golfer approached a tee, teed up his ball and was watched by the fox. When he walked back to his bag for a club the fox cub ran over, pinched his yellow ball and ran off with it. I would have liked to have got this on film but I was laughing that much it was not possible!

Bullfinches can be heard in the bracken and I have in the past found two Bullfinches nests built in the canopy of new bracken growth. It’s a challenge to find them but I am sure that there are second broods waiting to fledge – whether they survive the torrential downpours of the past few days we will never know.

For the second year running Swallows have fledged more than fifty young from the buggy shed at the local Golf Club.

I couldn’t resist including this last shot of a Hen Harrier from Islay. The eyes of this attacking male are the last thing that a poor Meadow Pipit will see before it is captured. What a way to go. I decided to avoid contact with his talons!

Locally this is now a quiet time from a filming point of view , after a very hectic breeding season. On the local Golf course whilst there are still Willow Warblers singing all the Whitethroats have now become silent. It would appear that they are not having second broods this year and I have read a recent article in one of the bird magazines that claims they are returning south earlier these days and this could certainly confirm this. A Kingfisher on the stream that traverses the Golf course was an added bonus.

At Dovestones there was still a flock of up to thirty Crossbills feeding in the plantation. They seem to be feeding on the Scots pine cones now which have ripened later than the Larch cones what they were feeding on in June.