Sunday stroll around Cranford Park

I was happily sitting at the wood circle this morning with my coffee, and sharing my breakfast with the resident Magpies and Robins, when an awful noise cut through the bird song...

I'm used to the M4 traffic noise, I'm used to the distant noise from Heathrow, but this sounded like there were a bunch of chainsaws operating. A quick investigation found a group of model car enthusiasts operating their remote controlled four wheelers right on the edge of the woods. I have no issue with the model aeroplane enthusiasts, they stay in the centre of the meadows and even mow their own landing strips which often attracts the fledged Kestrels during summer, and I would also have no issue with the new bunch of remote controlled model car enthusiasts..........if only their cars weren't so damn noisy !!!!!

Even Martin, our regular homeless guy, complained that the noise was drowning out his radio....and Martin rarely complains about anything !

Unfortunately I ended up leaving the park today after just five hours, which compared to my usual eight or nine hour stays, felt like I was having a half day at work but not in an enjoyable way.

I hope this isn't going to be a regular Sunday occurance.

 

Before I left, I did find some nice bits and bobs around.

 

A group of Siskins were making their way through the woods. As always they are nearly always up high in the tops of trees, so you'll have to trust my word that the photo below is of several Siskins.....

 

 

A lot of Wrens were out in the open calling their loud shrill song. Typical behaviour for this time of year when males sing out in the open in the hope of attracting a female or three. Male Wrens are quite promiscuous.

 

 

Before the model cars started up I had heard quite a bit of Kestrel calling and saw both the female and male fly over together. It wont be long before the female is on eggs, and we'll only see the male for a few weeks. A short while later I spotted the male landing near to the wood circle and grabbed a couple of distant photos. In the first one I'm getting the 'falcon stare' but that didn't last long as he scanned around looking for either his missus or a tasty prey....

 

 

As I mentioned earlier I shared my breakfast at the wood circle as I always do. The Robins are very used to me now, and before I've even sat down at my own log table they were on the bird feeding log table hoovering up the crumbs. The Magpies are a little more cautious and normally wait a few minutes before coming down and scooping as much as they can in their beaks before flying off to bury the food.......

 

 

Yesterday at Lake Farm (link to yesterdays blog post here ) I heard and saw at least ten Chiffchaffs. This morning at Cranford Park there were probably another ten but spread over a much larger area. One kept popping up tantalisingly close to me at the wood circle, but as always with my luck, the only really good view was against the sun......hence my very heavily lightened photo below...

 

 

There's a very shaded area near to the circle that often attracts Song Thrushes. When they do come down to the ground to hunt for tasty titbits amongst the leaves, they can become very hard to see. Spot the one below......

 

There's definitely a nesting pair of Long-tailed Tits near the wood circle. Several times this morning I saw both birds out gathering nesting material then flying back in to the same scrubby bush. From a discreet distance I had a look for the nest but with no luck. And I didn't have much luck photographing them either.....

 

 

The warm weather this weekend had bought out several bugs. This beautifully marked tiny beauty below is about the length of my little finger nail and is a Corizus hyoscypami.....

 

 

In one square metre of scrub I found fifteen Seven-spot Ladybirds and here are three of them.....

 

There were several of my favourite critters out today. The beautiful Bee-fly. They are about the same size as a Honey bee and despite the size of that long thing on its face, they are completely harmless to humans. That long thing is the proboscis and is used to feed nectar from flowers.......

 

 

 

There were several butterflies on the wing this morning but only two Commas settled long enough for a photo call....

 

 

Other butterflies seen today were Small Tortoiseshell and Peacock, plus an unidentified flying White.

 

I found one species of hoverfly today, a rather stunning Melanostoma scalare......

 

 

and a new one for me, a very very small bee....

 

I'm fairly certain it's a male Tawny Mining Bee but I don't mind being corrected. To give an indication of how small it was, that is a common daisy it is on.

 

I don't normally associate April with fungi, but it was nice to find a few aptly named Jelly Ear fungi on a fallen log.....

 

 

and even more nice to find the usual log that hosted the minute Eyelash fungi last autumn, has re-fruited some more.....

 

Also seen in the woods today but not photographed were two Green Woodpeckers, three Great Spotted Woodpeckers, the female Kestrel, a female Sparrowhawk, several singing Goldcrests, Mistle Thrush, lots of 'marmite' Parakeets, Jackdaws and Carrion Crows, and I heard at least two Nuthatch but couldn't locate them. The usual woodland birds (Blue Tits, Great Tits, Blackbirds and Jays) are all pairing up now for the new nesting season.

 

It was a shame that my visit was cut short by the incessant noise of the remote controlled cars, but it was a very pleasant visit none the less.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Chiffchaff chasing (amongst other things) at Lake Farm

I had to stay near to home today due to an appointment at 3pm. I couldn't trust myself to go my Cranford Park patch in case I lost track of time, so I went to my 'second', the nearest, and the very neglected patch, Lake Farm (aka Botwell Common).

 

Birdy friends and regular readers of my blog will know that Lake Farm used to be my number one patch. Back in the days when Peter Naylor was alive, and before the school was built on a third of the land, it was a great area. Stonechats overwintered there, as did Reed Buntings (one remarkable cold February day saw me count 22 individual buntings), Skylarks, House Sparrows and Meadow Pipits were common sights, Common Redstarts, Wheatears and Spotted Flycatchers were regular migrant visitors, and we had a memorable long staying male Red-backed Shrike one summer. But when the school was built amongst much disruption and destruction, my passion for the patch dwindled and I turned my attention to Cranford Park instead.

 

I've only been to Lake Farm a handful of times over the last two years and was quite disappointed in the lack of birds so it was with great apprehension that I visited this today......

 

Well, I have to say I quite enjoyed my 4 hour stroll around the old site. I had only been there ten minutes when I could hear Chiffchaff, Green Woodpecker, Great Spotted Woodpecker, Wren, Robin, Blackbird, 'Marmite' Parakeet, Goldfinch and Linnet. I also saw my first Brimstone butterfly of the year.

 

Unfortunately the one bird that I really wanted to see, the Northern Wheatear, wasn't there. I know there have been sightings of them around the country already this week, and several were spotted in the greater London area today, but they certainly weren't at Lake Farm !

 

But the Chiffchaffs are back and in full territorial song. There was a lot of action with these tiny little birds chasing each other around and then choosing a favoured perch to call their 'chiff chaff' song.

However, trying to get a photo of one of them (there must have been at least ten on site today) proved a little tricky.....

If it wasn't the sun glaring in my eyes, it was that the bird was distant, or right overhead......

 

 

But at least I got a shot to add to my 'Birds Bums' album......

 

Another bird that proved hard to photograph was the Linnet. Two came down to chew on gravel, but again the sun was against me and I only got one record shot.....

 

 

Even the Long-tailed Tits weren't being very obliging. They're all paired up now and no doubt constructing great domes of feather and moss nests glued together with spiders webs. I saw several pairs but only managed a couple of shots where both birds were looking everywhere else except at me.....

 

 

 

There were plenty of Wrens out singing and declaring boundary rights....

 

There are two old Willows near a natural flooded pond that have previously seen Great Spotted Woodpeckers nest in at least one of them. Today there were a pair of Green Woodpeckers checking out a few holes. There was a lot of 'waffling' calls coming from these two the whole time I was there today. I saw both on the same branch but couldn't get a photo, and I saw both feeding on the ground not far from the Willows.

 

 

Another regular is the Red Kite. I'm pretty certain that the three viewings I had today were all of the same bird.....

 

 

Along with the Brimstone butterfly I saw today, there were good numbers of Small Torts, Comma and Peacock. They all obliged for a few photo calls, except for the Brimstones, who despite following several around the site, just refused to settle for a photo !

 

The only downer today was finding eleven dead Buff-tailed bumbles along a very short 3 metre stretch of grass path.......

 

 

However after doing a bit of research via the UK Bees, Wasps and Ants Facebook page it's fairly right to assume that these poor individuals have probably been picked off by a Great Tit whilst leaving or entering an established nest site. The head or thorax is normally pecked off and the abdomen sometimes hollowed out as the bird searches for the protein rich egg contents.

 

So as is the chain of life, a bee dies to ensure a bird survives....

 

There's not much in the way of wild flowers at Lake Farm. It's mainly grass, with brambles and other scrubby bushes, a small wooded area, some hollies, mahonias and the odd daisy or dandelion, so it was nice to find an established spread of Lesser Celandine. However due to my appointment at 3pm, I hadn't packed my heavy macro lens, so no photos of the many hovers that were visiting the spread. 

 

and on my way to my appointment I found a wonderful spread of Sweet Violets in front of the church and some more Celandine.....

 

So......not a bad four hours on the old patch. Frustrated that I couldn't get the photos I wanted, but there you go.

Tomorrow I'm back at Cranford Park, but maybe I should start visiting Lake Farm more often again. Other birds seen today but not photographed included one male Reed Bunting and two singing Skylarks. Maybe the patch has got the potential after all.