A few days ago I did a post on the pair of Mandarin Ducks
that I'd found on a small pond in Ashridge Estate in Buckinghamshire, also on
the pond were a pair of Mallard Ducks doing what Mallard Ducks do well... dabbling!
I won't bore you with lots of info on the Mallard as I'm
sure you already know everything there is to know about one of our most
numerous and friendly ducks!
However I couldn't resist taking a few photos and some
video...so I'll bore you with those instead!!
After reading the
local bird reports on the internet over the weekend I noticed that a
Grasshopper Warbler had been 'found' not too far from me ,and as the weather
forecast looked not to bad for this
morning, I decided to go on a 'gropper' search!
It was quite pleasant as I left home at 9.30am, 9 degrees C,
sunshine, some blue sky....buuut... some dark clouds were lurking here and
there in the sky! When I arrived at the reservoir car park the sun had all but
gone being replaced by a brisk cold wind. After a short walk I arrived at the
reed beds were the bird had been sighted
and almost immediately I could hear the sounds of both Reed and Sedge Warbler
I got a few glimpses of the Reed Warbler as it swiftly relocated to
different areas of the reeds. And then,
coming from the base of an Willow bush, the unmistakable reeling song of a
Grasshopper Warbler. It was quite difficult to spot him at first and even more difficult
to get good pictures, I had to manually focus through the reeds that were
constantly being blown about in the wind.
As you can see the pictures are massively cropped and poorly
focused but I'm quite pleased that I managed to find, and photograph without
too much hassle, the bird that I'd set as my target for the morning. (the images on the video are a little
better!!)
And yes ...the black clouds won, it got cold, it rained. I
got cold, I got wet...... happy cold and wet though!
It's amazing to think
that a few short weeks ago this little bird, singing his heart out in a bush in
the Buckinghamshire countryside, was enjoying the warm sunshine of West Africa!
I'm still trying to sort, file and catch up with all the
images that I've taken over the last couple of months, or in other words, I'm consigning the majority of my recent photographic endeavours to the trash can!!
I did however find these that I thought I might share with
you.
Exactly a month ago I went to Ashridge Estatein search of
the Lesser Spotted Woodpeckers which had recently been seen there. Unfortunately
I didn't find the Woodpeckers , but what I did find, on a small muddy pond
about 300 yards from the very noisy visitor centre, were a pair of beautiful
and very confiding Mandarin Ducks.
The adult male is a striking and unmistakable bird. It has a
red bill with a white tip, a large white crescent above the eye, a reddish face
and long reddish neck feathers that resemble a beard or whiskers. The breast is
purple with two vertical white bars, and the flanks ruddy, with two orange
"sails" at the back.
The adult female is
mainly a drab grey -brown in colour with a white belly and large white spots on
her neck, breast and flanks she also has a white eye-ring and stripe running back from
the eye,(like a pair of spectacles!) and a pale tip to the end of the bill.
~~~~~
The true range of the Mandarin Duck (aix galericulata) is
Eastern Asia where it was once widespread, but large-scale exports and the
destruction of its forest habitat have reduced populations in eastern Russia and
in China to below 1,000 pairs in each country; Japan however, is thought to
still hold some 5,000 pairs. The small UK breeding population has derived from
escapee birds from private collections, and for this reason most 'grown up' birders
class them as 'plastic'!
I guess this pair might also have been escapees as they
didn't seem to be too worried by my presence and only took flight when a group
of (about 30!) red uniformed, very noisy, young (infants class) school kids
arrived to do some pond dipping!!
It's yet another grey, wet, windy and dismal day just like yesterday and the
day before that and the day........ anyway, as I didn't feel inclined to go out
in this not too pleasant weather I've taken the time to sort through some of
the images that I've taken over the last couple of months and I though these
few would make for an interesting post.
These images of a Queen Common Wasp resting on a shed in my garden were taken on the
30th. of March during a week or so of Summer like weather that had temperatures
reaching 20+ degrees C (70F.)!
A couple of days later I noticed this inside the shed....the beginnings of a
nest?
And this after another two days....looks like things are progressing nicely!
Since these images were taken there has been no further developments on the
nest construction, although the Queen is still in attendance!
Below is an article I found on the internet, courtesy of The Tameside Citizen
a local news and information publication for Greater Manchester, it explains
nicely what's going on!
Although 11 species of true wasp are
found in Europe, only two, the Common Wasp (Vespula Vulgaris) and the German
Wasp (Vespula Germanica) are important as pest species. Both species overwinter
as queens, the Common Wasp usually hibernates in buildings and the German Wasp
typically overwintering under the bark of trees. In spring the overwintering queens
leave their hibernating quarters to seek nesting sites which could be in a hole
in the ground, a hollow tree or artificial structures such as eaves, lofts and
attics, garden sheds etc. The queen starts to build her nest with a papery
material that she makes by chewing small pieces of wood mixed with saliva; this
is known as Wasp paper. She will raise the first few workers by her own efforts
and those workers will then commence the enlargement of the nest and caring for
the immature Wasps to follow. Nest construction starts in earnest in June and
will reach its maximum in size in September, when 5 - 10,000 workers may be
present. These workers will forage for food up to 400 metres from the nest. The
size of wasp colonies will vary from year to year, the severity of the previous
winter is probably the key factor. In the Autumn the young queens mate and
leave the nest to hibernate, the rest of the nest dies out and the nest is
never used again.
The video below shows the Queen Wasp having a wash and brush up, (now you
get the title!!). And the last few seconds
are just me experimenting with the close up capabilities of the camera!
Last week there were reports all over the local birding
blogs of up to 13 Ring Ouzels (turdus
torquatus) being spotted on Ivinghoe Beacon. The Beacon is a well known
feeding and 'resting up' point for the
birds during their Spring migration from
their winter home in the Mediterranean region
back to their breeding sites in the remote highlands of the North of England,
Scotland and Scandinavia.
So, on Saturday I made a phone call to Keith and we arranged
to meet at the Beacon car park at 6 o'clock the next (Sunday) morning. Keith
had already been to the Beacon on the Saturday morning but readily agreed to
another visit!! (see his blog here)
Sunday morning dawned cold and frosty (-3 degrees C overnight) but a clear sky was heralding the prospect of a sunny
day. After meeting at the appointed hour
and a quick cup of coffee (thanks Keith!) we started to walk down the path to
the Beacon. In the silence of the early morning we heard a sound... "what
was that", said Keith," did
you hear it?.. sounds like elephants! " Then we heard it again..." no !" I
said, "I reckon it sounds like lions roaring"....then the penny
dropped what we could hear were the lions roaring from Whipsnade (London) zoo,
about two and a half miles away across
the valley, we were on our own little safari !!
Whipsnade chalk Lion with the zoo and Hippo house in the background
After noting Chiffchaff, a Nuthatch and Linnets we soon arrived
at the area where the Ring Ouzels, about ten, were already showing well in the
early morning sun. Unfortunately the sun was behind the birds, not in the
perfect position for photography!
Also showing well were about eight to ten Wheatears.
Occasionally little
skirmishes would break out.
Keith feeling all penned in...or was he on the lookout for Lions?
Skylarks 'performing' in the clear blue sky and Meadow
Pipits posing on prominent perches also added interest to the scene.
Have you ever had one of those moments when your mind starts
to drift off and you start to 'see'
things that are not really there? well,
I had one of those moments and saw Snoopy
flying through the sky!!...what do you think?
So after around five and a half hours of excellent 'Ouzel
watching it was time to call it a day and make our way back to the cars and home, via a brief visit
to a nearby Bluebell wood (see Keith's excellent imagehere).
I enjoyed the day so much that I decided to go back for
another visit on the Monday morning!
Again the birds were showing well. Unfortunately the day was
spoilt by a few mindless people - idiots - and mostly photographers I'm ashamed
to say, who decided it was good practice to stalk and chase the birds across
the entire hillside.
Don't these people
realise that the birds need to rest and
feed up to be able to continue on their long migration journey, and if they
just pick a spot, stand quietly and wait, most birds will eventually 'come' to
them? Rant over!
On the way back to the car this Chiffchaff was singing his
heart out from his lofty perch.
I did take some video, not very good I'm afraid ...but
anyway, here it is!!
I've not
posted for the best part of a month due to various reasons, not least a 'back
problem' that just appeared for no good reason ,which in turn aggravated an old
work related shoulder injury and together they made it very painful to sit at
the computer for more than a couple of minutes at a time, in fact the only
comfortable place was laying flat out on the floor!!
I'm glad
to say that after about ten days, of doing a good job at doing nothing, the
back and shoulder slowly got back to
normal ( or as good as they for an old
wrinkly, I guess!!). the rest of the time has been taken up with catching up on
all the jobs that I didn't manage to get around to whilst laying about on the
floor!
So, many
apologiesfor not being able to leave
any comments on all of your wonderful blogs, however I did manage to keep
reasonably up to date with reading most of them, and as always a grand job is
being done by all of you.
I did
manage to get out and about on a couple of days (good back days!) and take a
few 'snaps'.
So by
way of easing myself back into Blogland here are a few old and new portraits.
