Wild Wanderings

Thursday January 25th 2018

Moving bark Badgers and a Fox

Monday

I spent most of the morning again repairing and filling all the little holes made by the visiting Badgers. I have identified a couple of likely spots where they are entering the paddock and have screened them with Chicken wire. The sheep wire, which is about 4inches square, doesn’t seem to do the trick. I have a video of the Badger just squeezing through it without a care in the world. The worms in my paddock must be extra tasty or it’s a rich supply of them for them to keep returning. I will put out the night camera and see what it captures tonight.

Tuesday

Got up early to retrieve the infra-red camera. The paddock looked quiet and there was no sign of any Badger activity. No more fresh holes. On checking the camera, it had fired six times. Sometimes this can be birds or even the wind blowing the trees. It was worth taking back in and uploading to the computer to see what had fired it.

On uploading there were no Badger shots at all, but there was a 20 second piece of a what looked like a dog Fox wandering past the field of view. This raised another mystery. How did he get in. I will re-site the Camera tonight to see if I can solve the mystery.

Thursday 25th

A nice sunny day was forecast so planting of a couple more trees is the task for today. I planted a Sorbus and a Malus tree in selected locations. I am hoping both will attract the birds this year. Last year we had Waxwings close by and this winter Fieldfare and Red Wing have both been on the fields next to the paddock. Hopefully the berries of the new trees will entice them in and I can get a couple of nice shots of these exotic birds.

Work completed, and it was far too nice to go indoors so I decided to walk around the edge of the fields. The borders of the fields are lined with old and ancient trees. Some are 200 years old. I am not very good at Tree identification, so I must try to learn a bit about them.

There is a coppice that is easily visible and situated on quite a steep hillside. I can view this from above and can usually see Grey Squirrels nipping about. Up and down and across the branches they skit with their tails flicking. Looking hard at the trees with my trusty Binoculars I saw what I first thought as the bark of an old dead tree moving from side to side. Getting a good fix on it I saw it was a Tree-creeper darting from side to side with its peculiar hooked beak probing the tree as it went. The bird was beautifully camouflaged with its brown and creamy back feathers rendering it almost invisible against the surface of the tree. Creeping in a spiral motion up the trunk of the tree it momentarily disappeared before re-emerging up side down on a high branch still probing away with its proboscis type beak. As it moved to the side I could see its almost plain white belly feathers. A stark contrast to the rest of the bird. What a lovely little bird and quite rare for me to see here. It finished its probing and took off for the next tree almost like a moth in flight and form. A very light flight like Long Tailed Tits in its delicacy and rhythm. I watched for a few more minutes scanning the trees for any more individuals but there were none. On the few occasions I have seen Tree- creepers’ they have always been solitary individuals. Quite a strange looking and mysterious bird

The walk was worth it just to see the Tree-creeper. I have noted where I spotted it and will return with my camera.

Till tomorrow