Two more ‘What’s That Bird?’ videos to challenge your bird song identification skills.
The usual reminder - to watch the videos, go to www.liddells.co.uk and click on the Blog.
Two videos from the end of last month follow. The first is a great example of the art of concealment; the second shows the Tawny Owl with its own point of view.
1st February
It is not great watching the pond being emptied of newts, however this footage of the heron and its reflection is rather compelling.
2nd February
A hare performs its ablutions for the camera.
The bare-patch buck ambles through the Scrub and its antler growth is more than last year although not as great as with the oldest buck.
A flurry of Blackbird alarm calls in the Scrub as a Sparrowhawk flies through before perching in a tree. The hare seems pretty alarmed too.
The camera in the Scrub captured several clips of one or more badgers scent-marking in the same place. What made this more interesting is that a cat left a scent mark in the same place, to be followed three minutes later by a badger. Curious to see the two different species apparently vying for territory.
3rd February
Speaking of cats - an aversion to water is one of the best known characteristics of these creatures. What a surprise to see the following video -
7th February
Dave G helped out by strimming the sites where more new trees will go. Planting day planned for 9th.
Ruth sent through some data from the British Trust for Ornithology (BTO), for her ringing last year. She explained that their CES (Constant Effort Sites) scheme ‘is a nationwide project to monitor population trends (survival, productivity) for a range of common breeding birds.’ Ruth thinks there are about 250 or so sites across the country. Each site involves 12 visits between the start of May and the end of August.
In total Ruth caught 337 separate individual birds (some were caught several times. Ruth thinks the record was a Chiffchaff caught 5 or 6 times over the season). There were 29 different species in her totals (that excludes the Yellow-browed Warbler, which does not count as ‘common’ for this purpose). Ruth is really pleased with her first season ringing on Liddells as are Clare and John. All look forward to this year’s ringing.
9th February
The forecast was dire so John and Clare took a cautious view and cancelled the planting. Then, of course, the weather was not dire, so John and Clare decided to go up and plant a few trees. The Oaks that had been given through the Woodland Trust were small whips, so Clare and John whipped through them and planted all twenty-five. The baked goods went into the freezer for another time.
There is a lot of mole activity on the Hayfield and Wildflower Meadow. One of the moles seems to be making a mountain out of its own molehills. The photograph doesn’t do justice to the size - the largest is at least forty centimetres high and right in the middle of the roadway.
Three pairs of Mandarins and a pair of Mallards return to the now ice-free big pond. The Mandarins seem to dominate the territory.
10th February
A vixen adds to the many animals marking territory in the Scrub.
12th February
Great excitement - while John, and Sally with her son and two of her grandchildren, were on Liddells today, a Barn Owl put in an appearance. It is the first time a Barn Owl has been seen here for quite a while. Even more thrilling, after flying to the west end of the Wetland it entered the Barn Owl box on the Oak tree there. John waited for forty minutes and it didn’t emerge. Using the box is no guarantee that the bird will choose to breed there, even if it does find a mate, however to have the owl using the box as a roost is very pleasing. John managed to capture some footage with his phone.
13th February
There have been scores of videos of badgers heading east through the Scrub, so plentiful views of badger backsides. This video, for a change, shows a badger head first and marking close to the camera.
16th February
A rearranged planting day and with the help of Jane E, Colin, Sally and Barry, 50 more trees are now in the ground: Wych Elm, Alder Buckthorn, more Purging Buckthorn and Eared Willow (the latter another gift from the Woodland Trust). It was another terrific achievement. Jane worked so hard that she had finished before Clare came round to take her photograph. In case you think John and Clare do no work at all on these days, John acted as gofer-in-chief and Clare was project manager and supplementary planter.
Sally sent photographs she had taken during the lunch/baked goods break.
Clare noticed an abundance of catkins appearing on several of the Hazels. ‘…at this time of year my flower cravings really start to itch - spring is tantalisingly close, and yet still so far away. Until then, we have catkins. These bold yellow columns of time flowers are one of nature’s best timekeepers, associated with late winter and Candlemas for centuries…Catkins appear on a number of trees, among them birch, willow and alder, but hazel (Corylus avellana) is the one that scratches my late-winter floral itch.’ (Alice Vincent, ‘On Flowers’, The Guardian 22.02.25)
19th February
John strimmed a new path through the Pit Wood, going east-west just below the hide. He also prepared the last five remaining sites for Black Poplars on the Wetland. He had hoped to see the Barn Owl again as the conditions seemed right. He collected the camera from near the Barn Owl box (no footage captured thus far) and decided to investigate the box. As he drew near an owl flew out from inside.
A kestrel has also been seen several times, hunting over the Wetland recently. Clare had noticed a while ago the profusion of small mammal holes on the Wetland. It seems she is not alone in her spotting.
Although Magpies are very common, John and Clare don’t often see them on Liddells, although they are heard there. Here is one in the Scrub. Anyone who has enjoyed Gerald Durrell’s My Family and Other Animals will recognise the caption.
21st - 24th February
Three videos showed a Woodcock in the Pit Wood on different occasions. The woodcock's diet is made up of invertebrates. It eats spiders, earthworms, beetles and snails, in search of which it wanders the woodland floor. All the videos illustrated this perfectly. Here is one of the videos where the bird also makes some curious jumps. It is not clear why.
On 21st the Scrub camera recorded three badger movements away from the camera within the space of two minutes. This clearly suggests three badgers.
On the same night in the Pit Wood, the camera captured the old buck anointing. It is the first roe territory marking captured this year.
Clare and John planted the last of the trees - ten Black Poplars on the Wetland near the base of the Crag and in the Stank. In total there are now 134 more trees on Liddells than there were at the end of last year. The quick-witted among you will see that the list records 133 trees, the 134th is a donated Oak. To give you some idea of how the planting has made a difference, below is a view of the east end of the Hayfield now. Imagine it in fifty years time…
On her way to the planting site Clare noticed new patches of Soft Rush in the middle of the Hayfield. She decided to start removing them. 20 clumps later and with over a dozen left to go, she took a walk to see how the Snowdrops are faring this year. She was delighted to find that in every place where she had planted half a dozen or so bulbs over the last few years, the plants are clumping up beautifully. The ones beneath the Hawthorns on the Meadow even seem to be making their own rings round the trees. Clare has been waiting for the flowers to emerge so she can include a letter she saw in The Guardian in January. While the epithet nivalis is derived from the Latin, meaning "of the snow", the writer is probably referring to how the word "Snowdrop" may be derived from the German Schneetropfen (snow-drop), the tear drop shaped pearl earrings popular in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.
On the way to the Pit Wood snowdrops Clare walked through the Orchard and realised there was a hare lying in the sunshine very close to where she was walking. Unusually it didn’t move when she took a photograph and only ran off a few moments later. Clare measured the distance between where she had been standing and the hare lying and it was at most four yards.
The delight of the encounter more than made up for Clare’s frustration on discovering that mice had made a meal of the bellows part of her smoker in the bee shed.
26th February
John began the annual nesting box check, cleaning out used ones and noting which needed maintenance or replacement. On the way round he saw two Woodcock, one in the Scrub and one on the west side of the Pit Wood. Clare noted that with all the sightings, in person or on the trail cameras, there has been no Woodcock ever heard on Liddells. They have a distinctive call. You can listen to a recording on the RSPB website here. Clare will continue to hope…
27th February
Clare completed the nest box update and tried out John’s new path. It works perfectly. A bright piece of Yellow Brain fungus (Tremella mesenterica) on gorse, caught her eye. ‘Mesenterica’ comes from Ancient Greek for middle intestine. The plant neatly takes us to the idea of the gut brain. Also known as Witches’ Butter, and therefore the frilly sign of a witch’s curse, the fungus is parasitic and feeds on fungi that feed on dead wood. This food chain reminded Clare of the poem ‘Siphonaptera’ by Augustus de Morgan:
‘Great fleas have little fleas upon their backs to bite 'em,
And little fleas have lesser fleas, and so ad infinitum.
And the great fleas themselves, in turn, have greater fleas to go on;
While these again have greater still, and greater still, and so on.’
28th February
The Horse Chestnuts are ahead of tomorrow’s start of the meteorological spring.