Northern Experience Wildlife Tours

The last few days have been fairly quiet, although quite varied.  On Thursday I was at the North Northumberland Tourism Association AGM at Paxton House.  On arrival the car park was close to full, with just a couple of spaces not occupied.  I reversed my Mondeo into one of them, thinking that the snow sounded very crunchy, and went into the meeting.  For me the highlight of the event was a talk by Laurie Campbell, covering things that he’s photographed in and around North Northumberland.  Returning to my car and the inevitable…it wouldn’t move anywhere with the wheels spinning on the snow.  Luckily Chris Calvert from Bamburgh Castle was leaving at the same time and, along with Verity from the Grace Darling Museum, he helped to push the car clear of the snow.  I wouldn’t have had that problem in the Landrover…

On Friday I chaired a committee meeting of the Southeast Northumberland Tourism Association.  As a new project, all of the committee are putting in a lot of effort and our AGM will be in February, the website should be up and running soon and we’re designing a leaflet to highlight the tourist attractions in our area.

On Sunday we carried out our WeBS count (a week late but the Birdwatching Northumberland Press Trip coincided with the scheduled count date).  Northeasterly winds at the start of the month have deposited huge volumes of sand a long way up the beach (and along the footpath in Cresswell village) almost to the height of the dunes in some places.  The highlight was a loose group of divers on the sea, 15 Red-throated, 2 Great Northern and 1 Black-throated.  As we approached the Chibburn mouth, the end of our survey section, Sarah commented on the sheer walls of sand next to the Chibburn as it wound it’s way down the beach.  Not surprisingly, Sarah took the sensible approach and walked well away from the edge…at least I earned some brownie points by removing Sarah’s ‘scope and tripod from my shoulder and throwing it clear as the sand gave way beneath my feet.

Now I’ve got a day in the office and it’s gloomy and overcast.  Two Jays and a Great Spotted Woodpecker are in the apple tree and Siskins have started visiting the feeders (after merely flirting with the boundary of our garden earlier in the winter).  Lesser Redpolls are still around the edge of Choppington Woods.  Can we set a new high total for our garden when it’s the Big Garden Birdwatch next weekend?

No, not a post about the culinary delight I conjoured up yesterday for Sarah (butternut squash stuffed with bacon, blue cheese, garlic, creme fraiche and honey) although that was a bit of a milestone in my domestication

No, it’s a post about an unexpected bounty that our garden birds are reaping currently.  I usually try to fill all of our bird feeders just as it’s getting dark, that way the birds don’t get disturbed (not that it seems to bother some of them – Coal Tits will often just move to slightly higher branches in the apple tree, Robins seem to have no problem sitting just a few feet away).  Inevitably some seed gets spilled.  There’s also a reasonable amount of seed on the ground because the Coal Tits will sit on the feeders and discard anything they don’t fancy at the time.  With several days of snowfall over the last few weeks this was creating something that I hadn’t realised; layers of food sandwiched between each successive snowfall.  Now that the thaw is well under way, although there is still plenty of snow down here on the low ground, these layers of chilled bird seed are being exposed.  30 Chaffinches have been under the tree for most of today, and 8 Greenfinches have been around as well.   After a complete absence of sightings in recent weeks, a Great Spotted Woodpecker has returned to the garden.  At least one Brambling is still making sporadic appearances and the Blue, Coal and Great Tits are almost too numerous to count.  As we’re feeding in parts of Choppington Woods, and some of our neighbours have well-stocked bird feeders we might expect numbers to decrease but we’ve got more birds now than in the depths of the snow and ice last week.  Time to refill the feeders and dream of a rare thrush, bunting or accentor

With Sarah back at work, we finally had some time to go out together on Saturday morning.  Watching a procession of cars skidding and sliding along the road outside our house, we decided to leave the Landy on the drive and go for a walk around Choppington Woods.  First though, there was an icicle that had been developing steadily over the last two weeks and should have made a good image.  Unfortunately it was above our bedroom window so required an uncomfortable, and potentially risky, manouvre.

Rack of icicles above our window

The start of the interesting icicle can be seen along the branch on the right of the image.  In total it was over 2 feet long, and dangling above Sarah’s car…

Apparently, in some countries it's illegal to let icicles develop on your property

The first golden light of the day began to selectively illuminate some of the trees around our garden, so I took a quick shot before we went to see if we could find the same light in the woods.

Our patio, golden light and eleven bird feeders

Sarah has, for some time now, been the guinea-pig for the ‘how to take your camera off auto’ approach that we’re employing on our beginners photography courses this year.  It’s a good job we’re both so relaxed about things, as a teacher-student relationship between husband and wife has so many potential pitfalls

We found that golden light that we were searching for and, as photographically beautiful light often does, it offered just a few seconds of opportunity.

A fleeting chance

As we continued our walk, finding tracks of Red Fox, Roe Deer and Otter, Sarah decided to turn her hand to portraiture.  Now, I’m much happier behind the lens (and I’ve photographed quite a few weddings, and more baby portraits than I care to remember) but this wasn’t too bad an experience.

As happy as a Polar Bear in snow...

OK, not quite, but since December 31st we’ve had about a foot of snow in total.  I cancelled our Otter Safari on Tuesday for safety reasons.  That decision proved to be the right one as we had heavy snowfall on Tuesday afternoon, making the roads even more hazardous than they already were.  I drove to Wallsend to collect Sarah from work, and the 13 miles took 80 minutes – and that was mainly on 3 of Northumberland’s major roads (A1068, A19 and A1058).  Cars were sliding from one lane to the next and I’m amazed that I didn’t witness any collisions.  We’ve been using the Landrover for the last couple of weeks so when Sarah wanted her car to drive to work yesterday we had to dig it out of the snow.  I can’t recall having to do that in the 17 years that we’ve lived up here.

For the last day and a bit I’ve had a throat infection so I’ve stayed in the house.  That hasn’t been a huge burden though as it’s allowed me to spend a lot of time watching (and filming) the birds around our feeding station.  For as long as I can remember, birdwatching has been something that’s always been an option when I’m unwell.  The Brambling that Sarah found on Sunday is still around, Long-tailed Tits are visiting much more frequently than they ever have before, the Blackbird count has risen to 9, at least 5 Robins are trying to hold dominion over the patio and flocks of Siskin and Lesser Redpoll are patrolling the edge of Choppington Woods and the bottom of our allotment.  Yesterday even a Goldcrest joined the chirping masses around the apple tree.  With niger seed, peanuts, fat balls, mixed seed and windfall apples our garden is like an all-you-can-eat buffet.  The one notable absentee from our usual list of visitors is Great Spotted Woodpecker, although we did see one in the woods on New Year’s Day.  Has one of our neighbours set up a more attractive feeding station?  We’d better raise our game, just in case.

As we drove past Cresswell, Sarah spotted a family of Whooper Swans in a roadside field.  As they seemed fairly settled, Sarah decided to capture an image of them in the snow.  Luckliy we did this there and then, as there was no sign of them when we passed by there an hour later.

Whooper Swans near Bell's Farm

Checking all of the unfrozen water that we could find in southeast Northumberland did eventually produce a brief sighting of an Otter.

Druridge Pools was remarkably photogenic; a handy dog-walker added to the photo opportunities and Teasels are really attractive covered in snow or frost.  There was a noticeable movement of Skylarks along the coast as well; 200+ as we walked from the Oddie Hide back to the car.

Druridge in the snow

More attractive than when they're in flower?

Once we were back at home, Sarah was watching the comings and goings at the feeding station when she called through to the living room “Brambling!”.  I ran to the window just in time to see it fly over our neighbour’s garden and out of sight.  I set the camera up ready and eventually it appeared at the end of our garden with a flock of Chaffinches.  Then it vanished again…and appeared in our neighbour’s garden.  Another disappearing act and, after what seemed like an eternity, it flew in from the churchyard on the opposite side of our house.  That wasn’t the end of the story though, as it hid in the thickest tangles of our apple tree for over an hour before offering up a reasonable shot.

A cracking winter garden visitor

Now I’m back at the desk in my office, collating survey data, preparing newsletters and catching up on e-mails…but I can still see the birds at our feeding station, and a rather optimistic Sparrowhawk displaying over Choppington Woods.  A New Year but some old friends; Birdwatching, Northumberland and a dSLR.

The world around us was cloaked in white as we walked home from The Swan early this morning.  A Tawny Owl was calling from the woods, but there was little other sound – muffled as it was by the snow.  By the time we woke up, there was a lot more snow than there had been when we finally fell into bed.  To shake off the lingering after-effects of Old Year’s Night we decided to take a walk around Choppington Woods, wrapped up warm and armed with a camera.  Photography, rather than birdwatching was our main aim, and that was fortunate as there were a lot more birds in our garden than we encountered on the walk; Great, Blue, Coal and Willow Tits, Greenfinch, Chaffinch and Bullfinch, Robin, Wren, Dunnock and Blackbird were around the feeders and, bird of the day, a Common Buzzard flying north over our allotment.  Snow can make a relatively mundane landscape into a photogenic delight, but exposure calculations can be tricky and we spent a lot of time checking compositions and looking for obvious ‘lead-in’ lines.  As we made our way back towards home 350 Pink-footed Geese flew south overhead.  Moving ahead of more wintry weather maybe?

The view from our patio 01/01/2010

Willowburn Pasture and a frozen flood

Following in a Moorhen's footsteps

Choppington Woods pond from the new boardwalk

Sarah scanning the trees

Footpath and fence along the Willow Water

The feeders in our garden have been busier in the last couple of days than at any time during this winter.  No less than 6 Blackbirds have taken up residence, 3 or 4 Robins are posturing and defending territories, a steady stream of Blue, Great and Coal Tits, along with our 2 regular Willow Tits, are emptying the feeders rapidly and a flock of 8 Long-tailed Tits are putting in daily appearances.  Chaffinch numbers are way down on previous winters, but Greenfinches are now almost ever-present during daylight hours and three pairs of Bullfinches are never far away.  It’s interesting that, even on a very short-distance scale, there’s such a noticeable movement of birds from their ‘normal’ habitat (Choppington Woods) to the gardens around the edge of the woods whenever the weather turns colder.  Birdwatching doesn’t get any easier than sitting in the kitchen, glass of port in one hand and a slice of Christmas cake in the other

First thing this morning everything was frozen solid again.  However, by lunchtime when Martin took Dad to the railway station there was a noticeable thaw – even though the thermometer was showing the temperature having only just crept above freezing.  Then it started to rain and most of the remaining patches of ice and snow vanished.  The birds were still around in the numbers of recent days though and, if the weather forecasts are anything to go by, we’re in for some more very hard winter weather at the end of this year and the start of the new one.  Wrap up warm.

After seeing my photos appearing in Martin’s blog posts for the last couple of days, I thought I’d turn my hand to writing today’s blog.

I started the day by taking my father-in-law for a birdwatching walk around Choppington Woods although, with everything frozen solid, there were very few birds to be seen.  We did find a couple of distant Roe Deer but, on the whole, the walk consisted of a consistent attempt to not fall on the ice.  With the partial thaw and heavy rain of yesterday, followed by another hard freeze overnight, all of the footpaths were covered with a treacherous layer of transparent ice.  A couple we passed were complaining about their new walking boots not being any help to remaining upright.

Back at home, lunch was home-made vegetable soup, baked ham and a selection of cheeses.  Just the thing in this weather.  Martin had spent the whole morning in bed with a sore throat, ear-ache and a splitting headache; probably the outcome of having a puncture on the Landrover late last night and being outside in the bitter cold…without a hat or gloves!  I have to wonder sometimes…

He did perk up a bit once lunch was ready though, and then spent most of the afternoon processing and backing-up the images from the last few days.  Tomorrow the plan (weather permitting) is to try and photograph Kingfishers, and to get closer shots of Roe Deer. Good job we’ve got two cameras

There’s little that’s better than going for a walk with snow on the ground.  On Christmas Day I took dad for a walk around Choppington Woods, mainly so we weren’t under Sarah’s feet   Today all three of us walked along the River Blyth and through the dunes in Druridge Bay.  The traditional boxing Day pheasant shoots in the woodland of Druridge Bay provided an ‘interesting’ aural backdrop.  I’ve had some fascinating conversations about hunting recently, with wildlife photographers and with friends who have hunted for several years.  What some people may find surprising is that two apparently disparate groups have much in common; not least a love and appreciation of the countryside.    Wildlife- and birdwatching with a camera may have a very different outcome (certainly for the wildlife) from hunting, with the only thing getting fired being a camera shutter, and the only things getting shot being images of wildlife, but there’s a lot we can learn as photographers and wildlife watchers, from the techniques employed by hunters.  Wildlife crime may still be a major issue in many areas, but that’s a topic for another blog on another day.

With NEWT events on Holy Island, in the Harthope Valley and around Lee Moor Farm before the end of the year, and places to go and things to photograph on our days ‘off’ in-between, we’re looking forward to the last five days of 2009.  Here are a few images from today:

It may be a cliche...

Captured in the split-second before it noticed me

Northumberland's iconic mammal

Dashing through the snow

Roe doe and Roe buck

One of our favourite events at this time of year is the Friends of Choppington Woods Christmas Walk. 

First today though, we had the little task of finishing our grocery shopping.  We took delivery of a fantastic goose yesterday, and most of our shopping had been completed a couple of weeks ago but there were a few things outstanding.  Sainsbury’s opened at 06:00, so by 07:15 we were standing in their carpark listening to Robins and Blackbirds singing, and Redwings flying over.  Soon we were on our way home with the more perishable ingredients for the next few days…but no Mince Pies as they had sold out of them already!

After a warming bacon and egg sandwich, we gathered for the walk, missing a few of our regular attendees; ill-health, the treacherous conditions underfoot and a recent family bereavement for one committee member had all taken a toll.

The two of us, Glen Graham (FOCW Secretary since the group formed), Barry Wilson (NCC Woodland Management Officer) and Heather O’Neill (Northumberland Wildlife Trust) set out from the main entrance to the reserve, with the aim of combining our walk with a good look at all of the improvements that have been made to the reserve this year.  We raised £10k in grant funding, but we’ve got a lot more value from it than would normally be achievable with that amount of money.

A stunning viewpoint, woodland ride clearances, forest tracks and multi-user path surfacing, boardwalk and pond-dipping platform, hibernacula for reptiles and amphibians, wildflower meadows and an education pack for the local primary schools all add up to the most successful year for the reserve since it was designated in 2003.

The pond was frozen solid…although none of us risked venturing onto the ice.  A set of animal tracks across the frozen surface generated much discussion before we concluded that they had been left by a Red Fox.  Evidence of some of our other mammalian neighbors was in evidence too. (and we had a Pygmy Shrew Sorex minutus on our patio this morning , but that’s another story…).

Much of the vegetation on the reserve was still encased in ice and snow as well (although the thaw started during our walk), but the white fruits of Common Snowberry Symphoricarpos albus stood out amongst the bare branches.

After our journey through the woods we arrived at Glen’s house, where Karen had prepared a delicious chili and there was a pan of mulled wine heating on the stove.  Inspired by this we warmed another bottle ourselves once we were back at home, ready for the arrival of Martin’s dad, and one of us (the one with a PhD in Medicinal Chemistry) hit on the bright idea of ‘enhancing the oranginess’ with a good shot of Cointreau…