Wild and Wonderful: Grey Heron

Showing posts with label Grey Heron. Show all posts

Monday, 15 January 2018

New Year greetings... and today's (grey) visitors

Belated wishes for a happy new year!

I saw two Grey Squirrels in the garden today: while this one had knocked his food off the Silver Birch branch and was gorging away at ground level, the other was scampering up the bark, only to find an empty tree.

The Grey Heron has become a fairly regular visitor in, or usually above, our local patch. I love watching the touchdown as those ungainly wings come in to land.

Friday, 13 October 2017

Heron on the Roof

We have often seen Grey Herons flying over the rooftops to reach the stream that runs through the Local Nature Reserve just beyond our garden, but this one was a bit closer and was probably after fish in a neighbouring pond. I wonder if it will return...

Monday, 7 March 2016

Tree Following - February and early March 2016

Welcome to my Tree Following post for February and early March 2016.

These tree posts form part of a wider project initiated by Lucy Corrander from the Loose and Leafy blog and continued by Pat at The Squirrelbasket.

I am based in Suffolk, UK, where I have been keeping an eye on an Acer negundo (aka a Box-leaf Maple) and watching a Silver birch, B. pendula. I really enjoy following the Silver Birch, but have not found the Acer negundo such a rewarding tree to follow. I shall keep the Silver Birch but am swapping the Maple for a small Cherry sapling for my second tree.

You will find the other Tree Follower links by clicking the Mr Linky link here (or here) ... so do take the chance to have a look at these new posts!

The Silver birch is awash with catkins (see photo above), but I am still waiting for the first bits of greenery to break through. It has been a mild winter here with a reasonable amount of rain, so it should not be long now. I have seen small shoots of green on the Hawthorns in my area.

No sign of any green yet ...

The small Cherry, Prunus avium Sylvia, has two 'trunks' at present. These are really 'thin stems', and I have a feeling I should probably remove the newer one. The original trunk (which is more like a twig) has some fine buds on it, which I will keep an eye on over the next four weeks. This little tree began life with us in a pot, but we planted it in the garden last year, and it seems to have weathered the winter.

Prunus avium Sylvia ... bursting buds to watch

This is an odd-numbered month, so I will keep the update on my total tally of species seen around the Silver Birch or Cherry for April. I will, however, give a list of species seen since my last TF post:

Robin (and another Robin) - busy collecting leaves under the Silver Birch
Blue tits, a large cluster, often feeding on the fat-balls
Great tits, again a good number of these
Long-tailed tits, always in a small group, chittering as they fly
Dunnocks, a pair under the Silver Birch
Wren, in the undergrowth around the Silver Birch
Starlings, every so often
Blackbird, around the tree, rather than on it
Magpies, quite a few
Wood pigeons, the usual suspects
Carrion Crows, noisy ones at dusk!
Great Spotted Woodpecker - a male and a female
Grey Heron, flying quite low over the Silver Birch
Sparrowhawk, which perched on the fence
Goldfinches, a charm. These birds come and go
Chaffinch, along the fence from the Cherry

We have had a couple of icy mornings this last month and one or two rather beautiful spells of stormy light at dusk. During yesterday's stormy sunset I noticed the fall of light on some tree trunks in the distance, way beyond my garden boundary (see photo below). I had seen the trees many times but had not realised until then that some of them were also Silver Birch.

Speaking of which, I also discovered that Silver Birch (Betula pendula) trees were encroaching on a nearby SSSI with sandy soil, noted for its population of Silver-studded Blue butterflies (Plebejus argus - which sometimes appears in print as Plebeius argus). These butterflies - and I would love to see one - need a spread of heather, meaning that an increase in the amount of Silver Birch trees in this particular context is apparently not good news.

Sadly I have no new mammal sightings to report. The Grey Squirrel continues to visit the Silver Birch, in its attempt to carry off the coconut and berry feeders before the birds have a look in! I have now seen my first (active) 7-spot Ladybirds of the season, but they were not in the vicinity of either of my Tree Following trees.

And finally, a little more about the small Cherry. It flowered for the first time the year before last when it was in a pot. It seemed to be growing very slowly and we thought it was probably pot-bound, so we planted it next to the Acer negundo. It has certainly grown significantly and survived the winter, but we hope to have the chance to ask a garden expert about it soon. I would love to think that there will be more blossom this year!

MY PREVIOUS TREE FOLLOWING POST

Thursday, 8 January 2015

Tree Following ~ Silver Birch in December 2014 and early January 2015

and early 2015

This post is the ninth in my Tree Following series, part of a wider project run by Lucy Corrander from the Loose and Leafy blog. It is the first post of the new year, but is actually largely about December 2014. I am following a Silver Birch, B. pendula, in Suffolk, UK. You will find the other Tree Follower links on the Loose and Leafy blog ... so do take the chance to catch up with happenings in the arboreal world!

2015! Silver Birch Sunrise

Welcome or welcome back!

December has, inevitably, been a month of bare branches. Unlike this time last year when the weather was mild and damp, we have had a run of sub-zero temperatures, with wonderful frost-flower patterns on the car roof.

The chill factor has not prevented the Silver Birch from developing: take note of those forked 'twig ends'! Spring may not quite be on the way and last year's seeds are still winging their way on to my windowsill, but this kind of new 2015 growth is good to see. As I write the sky is overcast and the air is saturated with moisture, but it was bitterly cold at dawn.

New growth at the end of each twig!

I see the occasional Grey Squirrel in the tall tree that marks the start of the Local Nature Reserve, some 200 metres beyond our garden, but I have not seen a squirrel our side of the fence since December 11th. We have been trying hard to keep our supply of bird food topped up, and the squirrel in question discovered a feast of fat balls inside the feeder that hangs from the Silver Birch.

The creature climbed, dangled, hung upside down and gorged.

There came a point at which s/he could no longer reach the remaining bits of food, so s/he tried biting the wood on the outside of the feeder to enlarge the hole. I hope it didn't cause indigestion!

Then when that ploy no longer seemed the best option, the creature simply flipped off the lid of the feeder and climbed inside the cylinder. One very overstuffed Squirrel, and the only mammal noted in the vicinity during this period.

I can't *really* count this as a Tree-Following sighting as it was way up above the Silver Birch, but it was lovely to watch a Grey Heron flying past. This is an infrequent occurrence in my neck of the woods. I noticed a charm of Goldfinches on the Nature Reserve tree on 15 December: I have not seen this species in the vicinity of the Silver Birch since the early summer (May-June post).

David, my husband, spotted the Green Woodpecker on the Silver Birch for the first time. I went to grab my camera, and the bird flew off, so alas, no photos.

We have hardly seen the Great Spotted Woodpecker this month. The Starlings have been frequent visitors, and when they are busy squabbling among themselves and slicing of bits of fat, there is usually a wily Robin underneath, waiting for the bits that fall. I have also noticed the Blackbird in the undergrowth and the Magpies up to their usual dive-bombing antics.

The Blue tits and Great tits have been constant visitors to the coconuts. A Thrush has been seen under the drooping birch branches from time to time. I'm guessing it is a Song Thrush. According to this BTO fact sheet, the little heart-shaped markings would suggest as much, since Mistle Thrush markings are more pointed like arrowheads.

The stars of the Christmas show (acrobatic squirrel apart) have been the Long-tailed tits, who have delighted us with their intermittent appearances. They visit the coconuts on the Silver Birch in groups of three and four and are such fascinating birds to watch as they interact with one another.

Moving on to insects and other creatures, I have seen a few moths, but these have been less frequent sightings. It was slightly off-limits in terms of distance from the tree, but we had a sleepy seven-spot Ladybird on our front door over the holiday. This morning there was a spider, but it vanished before I could take a close look.

For a list of species seen in, on or around the Silver Birch to date (nothing new to report for this last month), please follow the link here and scroll down.

Don't forget that the RSPB Big Garden Birdwatch is just around the corner, taking place on 24-25 January. And if you can't wait until then, you might consider subscribing to the BTO Garden Bird Watch, which I have only just heard about.

What surprises does February have in store?

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Postscript
Just to show that I am keeping my eyes open, here is a mature Silver Birch I noticed on Dunwich Heath some days ago, making my tree seem barely more than a mere sapling! Look at the rather grotesque fungus ...