Smew-tiful!

A great day's winter birding in Cambridgeshire, of all places. Headed for Paxton Pits, near St Neots, stopping off in Cambourne en route. Got out of the car there and immediately heard that fantastic tinkling sound of waxwings! Sure enough, perched in the top of a tree next to the car were 22 of them, busy preening and showing off their crests, red waxtips and that showstopping yellow band at the end of their tail...

pic by R Nason/www.sogonline.org.uk

While I was watching, almost the entire flock suddenly flew down to within six feet of me to feed on the last few berries on a garden shrub. They are remarkably acrobatic birds, thinking nothing of hanging upside down or even dangling by one leg to reach a particularly tempting berry. Then, suddenly, they were off again, back up into the top of their tree. Typically for waxwings, they were within a stone's throw of a supermarket - in this case a Morrison's. Shame really, as these definitely are a blue riband Waitrose-type of bird!

From Cambourne to Paxton Pits, thick with snow and with much of the open water frozen over. Plenty of passerines hanging about the visitor centre feeding station and flocks of fieldfares chacking away and feeding on rose hips. Wildfowl busy in the open water between the ice - plenty of gadwall and wigeon, a few teal and at least ten goldeneye, including several stunning males. A buzzard (one of three I saw today, how times have changed!) flew in low over the ice. But the best bird of the day (sorry, waxwings) came at the end of our walk, when we snuck a look at the Sailing Lake. There, looking totally resplendent, was a drake smew - the legendary "White Nun", and surely the best of all ducks? I don't think I've seen a male smew since the mid 1970s, when they used to overwinter regularly at Stoke Newington Reservoirs. This one gave great views as it preened and then began to feed, diving with great aplomb and travelling impressive distances underwater before resurfacing. Typically, no camera with me, but it looked like this!

pic from pewit.blogspot.com

Classical Cluj

First trip of the year and off last week to Cluj in Transylvania, for a magazine travel feature. It was suitably cold and snowy and full of bling Baroque, an extravaganza of curls, twirls and frills. Prague or Krakow it is not, but there's enough there for a couple of days and plenty of bars and cafes to loll about in. University city = prodigious alcohol opportunities and lots of youf skittling about. Some good old crones too (selling crafts, perfect!) and excellent winter hatwear, often fashioned from the pelts of endangered species... Astrakhan Ceaucescu-style hats for the fashionable man over 60 were my fave.

A Cold Blast from the Urals

Fantastic winter weather this week, temperature fell to minus 13 at RAF Marham (just down the road from us) on Tuesday night, and the next day the thermometer didn't rise above minus 5 all day! Eek. But bright blue skies and incredible hoar frosts... All pics below were taken on the fields next to our house. The small bear-like creature is actually Roger, in full fur mode.

Carnage on the Drive

The Indian Summer rolls on, and with it some more butterfly moments. Foulden Common looking great with late summer flowers - devil's bit scabious all over, with restharrow, agrimony and clustered bellflower also still in flower. Plenty of butterflies jinking about: four speckled woods, five small coppers, three small whites, a comma, a red admiral and a late and very tired-looking meadow brown. Back home, comma, brimstone and peacock in the garden. Pics below thanks to Sue Pennell:

 Devil's bit scabious

 Autumn gentian

Clustered bell-flower

Late afternoon, and great drama on the drive. A male sparrowhawk had landed a pigeon, started to feed and refused to budge, even when confronted by me in the car on my way out. I got out and walked within a foot of the bird - eyes glaring, it stayed in situ, wings mantling the partly-plucked/eaten-but-still-just-about-alive wood pigeon. Quite extraordinary. With the pigeon too heavy to carry, the sparrowhawk gave me one last "how very dare you" look and flew off, only to perch on the wall at the end of the drive, scowling at me. I was hopeful that it would return to claim its prize later, but sadly not as the carcass was still there later, untouched...

It's mine, all mine!

All A Flutter

Pathetic, really. No blogging since the second week of May, despite a summer of wildlife adventures! Will certainly be doing something soon on the fab Scottish trip in late June but meanwhile have been enjoying some great butterfly moments. Finally made it last week to Chambers Farm Wood in Lincolnshire for the brown hairstreak.... Made a great start in Clive's garden beforehand with brown argus (unbelievably, my first of the year), common blue and small copper, and arrived at CFW in bright sunshine and 20-plus degrees, so it was all shaping up very well! Speckled woods showing well, plus brimstone, comma and the three whites doing their thing. We wandered down to "the" place - the junction known as Fiveways (despite there only being three paths?) and hung about. I thought I saw something likely flitting over the top of the blackthorn but couldn't be sure. Then, seemingly from nowhere, a brown butterfly showing flashes of orange appeared around our heads and then settled briefly on my hand. There she blows! A stunning female brown hairstreak, which then moved into low blackthorn nearby and sunned herself most obligingly. Just when we thought things couldn't get any better, she started ovipositing! We watched her for about 20 minutes - walking through the foliage, as the textbooks say - before she moved into denser vegetation rather higher up. A second individual blasted past a bit later, and then a very worn purple hairstreak turned up in the same stand as the original female brown. My first-ever brown hairstreak sighting, and something of a red-letter day. Thanks to Clive for the pics!

After a dismal summer for butterflies, the last couple of weeks have seen more on the wing than for months, literally. Three great male common blues on the field at the back of the house the other day, plus plenty of red ads, peacock, small torts and commas. Still haven't seen a hummingbird hawkmoth yet this year... And then this last week, to Hickling, back to Rowland Ward's studio on the edge of the broad. As blissful as ever, with epic sunsets every evening bar one and roasting weather for the first weekend. Birds were generally quiet, but with some notable highlights: a honey buzzard at the NWT reserve, several kingfisher sightings, at least three hobbies - including stonking views of one hawking dragonflies above our boat on Ranworth Broad - and a great white egret at Horsey Mere! But an Olympian gold medal goes to the swallowtail larva we found busy feeding up on milk parsley...

The Emperors Come to Town

At last a brightish day and time for some moth sex! Clive came over with his "girls" - recently hatched Emperor moths - all ready to do their thing and get pheromoning in the hope of luring in some wild males.  We tried them out in various locations around the garden, dangling them in their net and periodically trying them out in the greenhouse to warm them up and get them in the mood. They started shaking their bits and "calling", but males came there none.... Only the captive ones that Clive had also brought, and even they didn't want to mate - perhaps just as well, as the girls are their sisters! Some nice stuff in the garden meanwhile, however - orange tip females laying their eggs on hedge mustard, and various bees going about their business. Clive spotted that blue tits are nesting in the apple tree again - that had passed me by! Anyway, we left the girls to it and scooted off to Foulden Common, where we met Sue P. Fitful sunshine didn't look great for butterflies, but speckled wood and peacock (one each) showed up and then we saw a couple of very fresh-looking grizzled skippers, nectaring on milkwort, and then another two in the old car park area near the gate - never seen them there before. Great to see them, the brave vanguard of this season's flight!

Sad Wet Spring

Spare a thought for the ground-nesting birds. All this rain and cold can't be good news for eggs and tiny chicks, nor indeed for butterflies, who cannot fly in this mess and therefore cannot feed = death. Well into May now and no change. Somehow the summer migrants are struggling in - swifts over Oxborough today, the nightingale still singing at Boughton Fen (plus cuckoo there daily), sedge, reed and grasshopper warbs all busy at Lakenheath Fen yesterday evening, where also a female garganey and pair of cranes flying into the reedbed - two two-week-old chicks tucked away in there, apparently - and a very fine hobby low over the reeds... Made a very wet trip to Sculthorpe Moor last Thurs, looked Irish and emerald-like in the rain, lovely marsh harrier male sailing about and my best ever views of bullfinches, with two pairs feeding on the seed table near one of the hides. Foulden Common also looking wonderful right now, with rafts of cowslips, cuckoo, willow warbs and a garden warb in fine voice - no turtle doves yet tho :-(. And this evening a great discovery on the edge of the very wet centre: butterworts! I've never found them there before and am hopeful that the rain will at least give us a good show of orchids there next month.

Not the best pic ever taken of bullfinches, but you get the point... 

Foulden Common - can't remember the cowslips ever being this good there.

Butterworts! Just coming out, so must go back in a day or two and 

hopefully when not so gusty. Might just get it in focus...