Another Sunday social gathering at Cranford Park

Another Sunday and another great day at Cranford Park. Joining us stalwarts (Sue, Jasper and myself) during the course of the day were Scally, John, Phillip, Joe and Rick. It was also a pleasure to meet Kish, who follows my blog, and Sheila from the Cranford Park Friends Facebook page. Always nice to put a face to a name. The only members of the team missing were Tony and Audrey, and what a day they missed.......

 

Birds seen today around the park, and it is an impressive list considering it's late summer, included......

 

Three Whinchats (for the fourth consecutive day),

four Buzzards,

one Red Kite,

one Kestrel,

two Hobbys,

one Green Woodpecker,

one Great Spotted Woodpecker,

c10 Mistle Thrush,

four Blackcaps,

two Jays,

eight Linnets,

c40 Carrion Crow,

plus the usual large numbers of Great Tit, Blue Tit, Blackbirds, Woodpigeons and Robins.

 

Birds seen on Friday and Saturday when I wasn't around, included three Spotted Flycatchers by Kish, and a male Northern Wheatear by Sue.  

 

So here are some of my dreadful photos from todays batch of birds.

 

Our lovely staying Whinchats......

 

 

One of our resident Kestrels was again watching us.....

 

 

We got brief views of two of the Hobbys flying over Cranford Woods. This is one of them.

 

 

There were Mistle Thrushes galore in front of the Info Centre....

 

 

Several times today we saw four Buzzards going over. I'm guessing they were a family group as there was a lot of practise food passing going on. My photos are all in silhouette due to the bright glare of the sun, but you can get the general gist of the twisting and turning flying of the birds...

 

 

Jasper the bird-dog was impeccably behaved as always. Here he is looking bored while John shows Sue one of his photos...

 

 

However John, as always, was a very bad influence on me, and kept forcing me to drink whisky laced coffee !! Good job I was the only one that wasn't driving, as it was only me that knocked back a couple of large toddies.   

 

 

Last but not least, my blog would not be complete without a photo of our Jasper.

 

Whinchat overload at Cranford Park

I'm working the early shift this week, and was in the middle of a call to one of my drivers when my text alert went off at lunchtime. It was Sue saying there was a Whinchat at Cranford Park. I've been hoping to see one before the influx of birds moves through the London area. All over London for the past couple of weeks there have been daily reports of Whinchats being seen, so as I only got one distant record shot of one at Lake Farm last year, I knew I really had to make the effort to get to the park. But I had been up since 3.30am, at work at 5am, and it was now coming up to 2pm. Would my stamina hold out ? Would I need matchsticks to keep my eyes open ?

 

When I re-read Sues text, I realised she hadn't seen one Whinchat, she had seen THREE. That made my mind up, so as soon as I done my hand over to a work colleague, I was out of the door and praying all the buses were on time. I don't drive, so had to get two buses home to grab my bins and camera, then another bus to the park.

 

By 3.30pm I was walking through the long grass meadow. Except most of it has been mown now. Most of it that is..............

The area where the Skylarks and Mipits nested this year, is still long grass. And after a quick call to Sue she confirmed that's where she had seen all three Whinchats. It took me ten minutes to locate the first bird, by which time Sue had texted she was on her way with Jasper the bird-dog.

 

So for a very enjoyable 90 minutes, in dull light but warm conditions, we watched three beautifully marked Whinchats topping on scrubby bushes, tree guards and spindly young trees.

 

I will not apologise for my complete overload of Whinchat photos, even though some of them are pretty crap really. These tiny delightful birds are making the journey to Africa where they will over winter, before returning next April. It's been an absolute pleasure seeing them at Cranford Park.

 

 

 

 

 

 

No matter how hard I tried I couldn't get a photo with all three birds in the same frame, and as you can see above, I struggled to get a decent shot of two birds in the same frame !

One of our resident Kestrels watched us for quite a while, probably jealous that we weren't taking more photos of her for a change.

 

And of course my blog would not be complete without a photo of Jasper.

It's unusual to see him with his lead on, but as he has accepted me as one of his 'pack' we have to be careful now if Sue and I decide to go in different directions as Jasper has started following me, instead of walking along with Sue.

I think it's a great honour to be included in Jaspers 'pack'. Thanks mate :)

 And thanks Sue for the lunchtime text :)

Going quackers in Mum's garden aka an update from the gardens of Marks Mansion

During the week Mum found a rat in the compost bin (initially she thought it's tail was a worm !), so the plans today were to attack the compost and see off all the rats into the field, then rebuild the compost bin blocking off any holes.

 

But before we done that I was introduced to Mum's three new ladies. Jemima, Jessica and Geraldine. They are young females, not yet of laying age and I have fallen in love with them. Sadly they're not Mum's, they belong to her neighbours Terry and June, but there's a hole in the fence now so the ducks can wander between the two gardens.

 

 

More about the new ladies later.

 

Anyway, back to the compost bin. Decked out in thick gardening gloves each, we opened the lid. First thing we could see was indeed a worm like long tail. The front bottom section of the bin was open (we hadn't put the door back on properly after last sifting through the bin). As Mum banged her spade against the bin, one small solo rat shot out through the doorway and into the field. It was a bit of an anti-climax. I think we were both expecting hordes of rats to emerge. The rat, whilst living in the bin, had eaten all of the top layer of fresh veg peel and plant cuttings, and we think he may have also eaten the resident toad, as there was sadly no sign of it today. After putting the door back on securely, I chopped up some more cut down vegetation and thin woody sticks and built back up what the rat had chomped down.

 

Elsewhere around the garden of Marks Mansions, it's still looking lush......

 

The shallow clay bowl that I re-planted a few months ago, is looking well established now....

 

 

The crimson clover seeds that I had sown around the slab path separating my meadow patch from the Lady of the Manors shade garden, have really taken well.....

 

 

I was actually planning on sowing the rest of the slab path with clover seeds today, but with our three ladies pecking at everything and anything, I decided not to.

I really like my clover around the slabs, and it looks as if the ladies do to.....

 

 

The view up the garden towards Marks Mansion (spot the duck)...

 

 

I must admit I didn't get that much work done today. I was far too preoccupied watching the ladies. They were in and out of Mum's stream, hopping up and down the steps, rooting in and around the soil, drinking from their water bowl and generally being very cute and watchable....

 

 

And finally one last photo of them settling down for an afternoon siesta. That area will eventually become Mum's shade garden.

 

My wild meadow patch is still under cover, but the wild foxglove seeds I sowed have taken well in their pot, and will need thinning out soon.

 

So a very enjoyable afternoon with the ladies, and the Lady of the Manor of course. I got some pruning done, enjoyed the dry weather, watched the ducks and had a tasty home cooked dinner. I also saw another Muntjac deer in the horses field (but foolishly did not take my camera with me today) plus two Red Kites over, lots of juvenile Goldfinches, Green Woodpecker and several butterflies and hawkers.

 

 

Hobbys at Cranford Park and Redstarts at Lake Farm

It's been a looonnnng day.

 

It started with me bumping into Scally at the log circle at Cranford Park early this morning. He had successfully photographed three of the Hobbys on a branch eating a Blue Tit.

 

I went off for a wander hoping to spot a Whinchat or Wheatear, but the tractors were out cutting the grass, so any birds around were being spooked.

 

Not long after, I bumped into Tony. We went in separate directions maintaining contact and updates by text. Still no Whinchats although I did find a young Kestrel at the back of the stable blocks.

 

 

I also saw a male Sparrowhawk swoop down behind a wall, and minutes later emerge grasping a very dead Blackbird. No photos though, it all happened a bit too quickly.

 

Out on the newly mown grass I found 12 Mistle Thrushes. Couldn't get them all in one shot, so here's four of them instead.

 

and a solo one...

 

 

By the river I had a fleeting glimpse of a Kingfisher. Also found this variety of Shield Bug..

 

 

and a Blue-tailed Damsel....

 

Back at the log circle one of the juvenile Hobbys landed in front of me. It was hard trying to get a decent photo with all the branches, and this sorry picture was the best I could do..

 

 

Later on Tony and I located another juvenile deeper in the woods. It was continuously calling, and we couldn't work out why, until we went back to the log circle and saw four low flying soaring Buzzards. The adult Hobby was also flying around them. Once the Buzzards went over, the juvenile Hobby stopped calling.

 

There were several butterflies around today.

Speckled Wood...

 

 

Comma...

 

and this mating pair of Green-veined Whites...

 

 

Sue and  Jasper the bird-dog joined us, and we all had a wander around the park but there wasn't much to see. We were sitting under the ancient Sweet Chestnut watching one of the Hobbys flying around, when Roger Morton popped over to say hello. We were all comparing notes when a Kingfisher came from the river, over the grassland, went passed us and disappeared in to Cranford Woods. None of us had ever seen the Kingfisher take that route before.

 

Roger mentioned that he and Dave Morris had seen Whinchats at Lake Farm the previous week, so Sue, Tony, Jasper and I decided to have a gander over there.

 

Lake Farm used to be very special to me, but after Peter Naylor passed away and the council managed to cut through red tape to allow the new school to be built, I've lost interest in the site. Most of my spare time is now spent at Cranford Park.

Well we walked around and for the first half an hour we saw nothing except for a few Linnets.

Then something hopped down on to a path in front of us, and just as fast went back in to some scrubby bushes. A quick focus with our bins, and Sue confirmed it was a Common Redstart. A Female. After hanging around a little longer, we spotted a second bird, but our joy was to be short lived. A family with two kids on bikes came past us with the kids stopping right in front of the shrubs where we had seen the Redstarts.

 

 

We hung around a little longer but they didn't re-appear.

And we didn't find any Whinchats.

But we did find something else........

 

A rather beautiful and very tolerant young female Kestrel. She let us walk up to six feet away from her. Now you can all understand why the Kestrel is my favourite bird. Isn't she just stunning....

 

 

Of course last but not least, a photo of Jasper the bird-dog....