Sex On The Common

 Grizzled sex... damn auto focus, it preferred the tormentil!

 Male Bullfinch keeping an eye out

Basking dingy, pausing from its frantic territorial circuits

Just back from Foulden Common, finally a sunny and properly warm day... A couple of grizzled skippers were hard at it in the first bay on the right, allowing a very close approach and deeply engrossed in ensuring future generations of their kind grace the common. Brimstone and orange tips also in evidence, plus singing reed bunting, sedge warbler and several bullfinches, including a particularly obliging male. The next bay along had a very fine dingy skipper, beating the bounds very zealously and seeing off intruders, not least a very large bumble bee....

Shadwell Wood

Off on the oxlip trail, to Shadwell Wood, north of Saffron Walden. Totally delightful, a real working wood with pollards and coppices but still with a wistful and rather remote feel. Fencing helps keep rabbits and deer out, with the result that there's a fuller ground flora here than I can recall seeing for quite some time anywhere in East Anglia. The oxlips had largely done their thing, but early purple orchids and herb paris more than made up for that, and there were several plants of wild daphne and other treats such as sanicle and a peculiar arrowhead-leaved bindweed. Looks like a good potential site for nightingale, but the mercurial songster didn't dare brave the steely grey and cold day....

Latest Expeditions

Grrr, what a hapless blogger am I. Lots goin' on, but never enough time to talk about it. So, working backwards over the last couple of weeks, can start with an evening stroll today in the forest opposite Cockley Cley Lake...

CC Lake looking mellow and full, heron fishing and coot on nest, 

so all's well with the world.

Plenty of birdlife about - yellowhammers, willow warbler and whitethroat singing, plus a singing tree pipit - no parachuting though :-(

Tree pipit at full throttle, courtesy of my trusty Canon Powershot!

The dome-shaped tree is actually a Scots pine engulfed by rather artful ivy...

Breckland pines, somehow one never tires of them.

Home From The Valleys

Finally some time to catch up and look back on a great three days in mid-Wales with John Davies the week before last, based near Knighton in the wonderful Milebrook House Hotel. Lots of interesting stuff round and about, not least the hotel itself, once home to the Thesiger clan and visited by Haile Selassie no less. Chintz, log fires, great staff and stupendous food, it's all going on at the MHH. We arrived there (to tea and crumpets) after driving through great scenery on the way across from Norfolk, most notably at Mitchell's Fold Stone Circle. A real discovery this place, still in Shropshire but as remote as anywhere in the county and with amazing views. Dating back to the Bronze Age, there were once thirty (dolerite) stones ranged in a rough circle here; just fifteen left today, including one of a pair that once marked a doorway into the ring. A sobering and slightly eerie atmosphere pervaded, rather reinforced by the withered bunch of freesia we spotted tucked under one of the stones.... Not very clear who Mitchell was, however.

From there we motored to Bishop's Castle - my first visit for at least a decade and yet the charm is all still there, with shabby chic shops, a whiff of rainbow alternativism in the air, cafes bursting out with local produce (cakes from Mr Bunn the Baker, yes really) and friendly emigres from Manchester and a sense that everywhere is just so far away... Just how we like it.

Thence to Clun, with its stonking castle and THAT bridge... Top highlight is the green for the Clun Bowls Club, in the castle precinct and with a cracking view. If ever there were a reason to take up bowling, that would be it.

Silver Ghosts at Lakenheath Fen

A grim and cold afternoon. Tupperware skies, the air barely above freezing point, and not a good day to be performing that hard slog out to the main viewpoint at RSPB Lakenheath Fen. Hardly anything en route, the water frozen in the pools and dykes... Arrived to be told by (the only) one birder that he'd seen cranes, a army of marsh harriers and a beautiful male hen harrier earlier. "They come in at 3 o'clock," he said smugly. It was 3.30pm. Humph. We (Clive and I) sat on the benches looking out over the reedbeds, asking for good fortune. We got it. At least ten marsh harriers were out there, mostly distant but sailing around, often six together in one bino view. Then, a pair of cranes passed across, dropping down and landing out of sight. Next up, a superb male hen harrier, passing quite close before dropping into the reeds. A kestrel flew by. We turned round, and suddenly there were two male hen harriers, those grey ghosts of the fen, quartering the reedbed behind, beautifully contrasted against the dark poplars beyond. Meanwhile, back beyond the marsh harrier fest were huge numbers of corvids massing to roost, then a large skein of geese moved across, with two more cranes drifting above them. And it went on, with a barn owl passing close as we walked round and along the river path. Seven little egrets flew by. A flock of wigeon and a grey heron flushed from the flooded meadows. A whooper swan sitting on the riverbank. A common buzzard passed overhead, then a peregrine fleetingly and low (five raptors on the list for the afternoon). Finally, at least 5,000 corvids, mainly jackdaws, swirling and calling as they settled in the poplars to roost. Amazing sights, on a slate-grey but exhilarating winter's afternoon.

The ghostly figure of a male hen harrier (pic by Graham Catley, http://pewit.blogspot.co.uk)

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.