Jan 30th Strumpshaw Fen

Snow at Strumpshaw

Strumpshaw looked a lot whiter than usual this morning. This was because it had been snowing over night. Though it was only a light dusting that remained, it was still exciting to walk around the reserve while it was covered in snow. With snow on the ground, even if its just a couple of inches deep, it is always important to check for animal prints. I was walking down Sandy Wall when I noticed a trail of fox prints that I followed to where it started near the top of the path that led to Fen Hide. The prints are pretty distinctive. It is very similar to a dog's, but is smaller and more compact with two toes at the top, two toes at the side, a triangular pad beneath them all and a small dot above each toe, which are the fox's claws. Following the prints is like reading a book as they provide a clue to where its going and what its doing along the way. For the most part, this fox was using the path as a highway to get to the woods, but it did check beyond the borders a couple of times as its prints were on the tops of the wooden sleepers.

View from Reception Hide

Fox prints

Fieldfare

The prints weren't the only thing I saw on my way to Fen Hide during my early walk. As I was following the print trail along Sandy Wall, I also noticed a large thrush perch atop of a tall dead branch. It was a fieldfare. This winter visitor posed for a moment before moving onto the next bare tree further up and then to the next after that before it finally disappeared into the thickets. A couple of Chinese water deer in the snow-dusted meadow fields caught sight of me and bolted to safety as I made a quick detour to the river for a quick check over. It was too cold to stay inside Fen Hide for long, not that there were much to see other than two mute swans and two coots anyway, so I made my way back to the woodland trail, seeing a treecreeper, snowdrops in the snow and hearing bullfinches calling tantalizingly close by. I ended up seeing just one later that morning.

View from Fen Hide

Coot

Mute Swan

Snowy Rosehips

Snowy Reed



Snowdrops in the snow



Goldcrest

Mallard

At Reception Hide, I watched the snow and ice slowly melt away as the morning moved closer to midday. The ducks were doing their usual thing, though the gadwall were acting more livelier than the other species. The males were chasing one another across the broad as they were protecting their female that they were paring up with. The coots were also fiercely aggressive to one another. It was like handbags at dawn as they launched their attacks and letting rip with a fury of kicks. A duel would then develop into a free for all as more individuals joined in. They and everything else on the broad were soon forced to flee the area briefly as a marsh harrier flew over to harass them all. One bird even landed by the broad's edge a couple of times in the freshly cut areas at the far end. However, it was the buzzards that truly dominated the sky today with at least 12 of them up in the air at once just as I was about to leave.

Shovelers

Shoveler

Teal

Gadwall

Mute Swan

Marsh Harriers

Marsh Harrier

Jan 26th & 27th Waterloo Park and Norwich

It is the RSPB's Big Garden Birdwatch weekend once again. It happens to be the 40th anniversary since the this nationwide public garden bird survey began. Since 1979, this annual event in which anyone with a garden can record the number of birds that visit it for an hour has been a valuable source of data that acts like a health check to see how each winter has effected the numbers of each of the commonest garden visiting species. Throughout the years, the information received has indicated that there has been plenty of ups and downs in each species population numbers, some interesting trends and so much more. It is time to do it all over again for the 40th time.

The RSPB event at Waterloo Park

On Saturday, I was at Waterloo Park where the RSPB were holding a special event to help promote the Big Garden Birdwatch. Small RSPB tents were put up in two areas of the park. One was a bird feeder building station for children to build basic bird feeders with a loop of wire and pieces of fruit lard to slot into. A second tent was in a much quieter corner of the park overlooking some feeders that had recently been placed in the last month. This was where I was stationed for a couple of hours that morning, busy counting the birds and showing them to families while also teaching children as young as 4 on how to use binoculars properly. Of course, I was not the only one helping out, other RSPB volunteers and members of the Friends of Waterloo Park had turned up to lend a hand too.

Preparing the bird feeder building tent

The bird spotting tent

Doing my part at the bird spotting tent

Me with Lindsey Chapman

The event was a lot of fun and so many people showed up. We also had Lindsey Chapman from Springwatch turn up as our celebrity guest and was doing hourly vlogs on Facebook about what's happening at the park. As for birds, the feeder area was definitely the place to be. We used our tent as a makeshift hide, though it was better spotting the birds by standing outside it. Greenfinches and blue tits were the most numerous species using the feeders and the trees close by, though we also had dunnocks, great tits, coal tit, robins, blackbirds, chaffinches, goldfinches, collard doves, woodpigeons and in the sky, a sparrowhawk circling high above as well as a pied wagtail and 4 gull species. The public helped to tally up what we saw on a whiteboard and the count continued throughout the day long after my couple of hours were over. So, I have no idea what the final count was in the end. However, I do know that the event was a massive hit!

Blue Tit

Greenfinch

Collard Dove



Goldfinch



Coal Tit

Robin

My parent's garden

This morning (Sunday 27th), it was finally time to do my part in the Big Garden Birdwatch by helping out with two surveys in two different gardens as I don't have one myself. First up was my parent's garden. Dad was prepared for the survey and went outside before I started to set up the feeders. What I was not expecting was that he had bought some cakes, biscuits and a loaf of bread in preparation for the occasion and covered his lawn with them all in the hope of luring in the birds. The plan started well, but in the end, a majority of the hour was quiet and I only tallied up 2 blackbirds, 1 dunnock, 1 woodpigeon, 1 blue tit and 3 great tits. That's 8 birds in total. The banquet that Dad set up was largely untouched during the survey.

Blackbird

Great Tit

My Aunt Barbara's Garden

Next up was my Aunt Barbara's garden. Last year, we failed to count a single bird within the hour here. So expectation wasn't very high. However, in the first few minutes of this year's survey, we had already did one better than last year by one bird; a woodpigeon. But then, nothing. As the clock ticked by, we were just staring at an empty, bird-less garden. Was one single pigeon all we were going to get? Thankfully, the answer was no as the birds decided to show up in the last 5 minutes. And what an eventful 5 minutes they were! We ended up with 2 woodpigeons, 1 robin, 2 blackbirds and 4 starlings. A total of 9 birds. That's one more than we counted at my parent's garden!

Woodpigeon

Blackbird

Starling

Gulls coming in to pinch Dad's food offerings!

While Dad and I were at Barbara's, Mum was watching the garden and the banquet Dad set up was attracting some attention. From above, a flock of black-headed gulls dived down into the garden for the cake, biscuits and bread. In minutes, the lawn was empty of food offerings. Mum took these photos with her phone. If only it happened during the hour I was surveying in!