Wild Wanderings

Diary Entry 28th April 2018

River Walk, Tractors and Chattering GSW’s

A few beautiful days this week. The sun was shining, and it seemed spring had well and truly arrived. The birds were all busy gathering nesting materials and chasing each other all around the place. What a great sight. Spring is such a wonderful time of year filled with hope of what is to come and new starts. The insects too have arrived in large numbers. Bumble Bees, Butterflies, Spiders were all noted scurrying about their business. It is great to see so many Bees and Butterflies as both have been under severe pressure recently

I decided to take a stroll to the river. I haven’t visited just recently because the weather has been against me. I need to check the Kestrel boxes and generally take in the situation again.

I walked around the crop fields edge. After a small distance three Pheasants noisily took to the air, two females and a male. They are so noisy they awake the whole neighbourhood. They are always too fast for me to get a photo…. but I do try.

The crop is now about eight inches high and I thought I spotted a movement which seemed to be a bird or maybe a Hare keeping low. I squatted down onto my knees and tried to guess where it would emerge and what it was. I have not seen any Hares recently, so I was hoping it was a young one. About five minutes passed and then to my right I saw a feint movement. It was a Red Legged Partridge holding its head down low and skulking through the young wheat. My camera was set for a flight shot. At this point you never know whether to just wait a while or show yourself to initiate the take-off of the bird. Both are exciting. I raised myself up and sure enough it was airborne and raising the camera I got off a couple of shots. The bird was moving way from me quite quickly, so it was not an ideal scenario. The wing beats of the Red Leg are really fast, and the flight is level and direct. I prefer if the bird mover across my line of vision, but you have to take what you have and make the best of it. This is the way I prefer to take my wildlife photos. In the field is much more of a challenge than photos from hides. I feel it is more testing on your skills and reaction. But many times, I miss the shot and feel so disappointed. But I try to log it in my memory and hope for better luck next time.

The River was well and truly within its banks when I arrived. Not a lot of wildlife was on view. I sat on the bank raised up on a small hillock and put my camera down. Two Cormorants were standing rock steady on the Island in the centre. They were like bookends but with no books in between them. In unison they both stretched their wings and stood for about a minute wings outstretched as if drying them in the sun. Then they returned to their motionless state. A Swan was lazily feeding in the shallows of the river. I lay on the hillock and closed my eyes for a while and just listened to the sounds of nature all around me. A Buzzards eerie cry broke through the chattering of the smaller birds and reminded me of days gone by when I used to watch the small tractors ploughing the fields in the early spring summery evenings. Crows and Seagulls and the occasional Buzzard following in earnest on the lookout for worms and grubs. Days seemed so simple then. Chasing Butterflies with the net but never catching one. Rushing home to look up and identify what we had seen. Small Tortoiseshell, Peacock, Skipper they all held a wonderful mystery in their discovery as a child.

The Dock leaves are now emerging along the river bank and will provide alighting places for the Damselflies in a few weeks. Also, there are a few Horsetails along the waterline. A most ancient plant that reminds me of primordial times, particularly fossils which I have found from the Carboniferous Geological period whilst a Geology Student in my College days’. I loved Palaeontology the best.

My walk back across the fields was quiet I just paused to take a few shots of Spiders and a couple of Bees who were basking in the late afternoon sun on some Nettles.

A pair of Greater Spotted Woodpeckers flew across the paddock chattering away to each other. The undulating flight a giveaway. I think the chattering is a sign of pairing. I have noted two pairs recently.

All bodes well for the future.

‘Till tomorrow