Sunday sun at Cranford Park and St Dunstans

Firstly I must share Duncan Eames short vid clip of the Rainham stalking Kestrel from Friday. Sometimes photos just don't capture the true essence of what was seen. Duncans' great little clip, really shows how that Kestrel was looking around for the prey it had been disturbed from eating.

Duncans vid clip 

If you are unable to view this clip, can you please let me know, and I'll ask Duncan to post it on to Youtube.

 

Secondly, I must mention I was at Cranford Park yesterday, but due to human error, my camera settings were all wrong, and no usable photos were uploaded last night. Therefore I didn't do a usual Saturday blog. However the day was not in vain, as the London Wildlife Trust treated a large group of us to a winter tree identification walk. It was incredibly informative, and I can now say I know the difference between a Horse and a Sweet Chestnut tree, just by looking at the twigs. And I never knew there were two varieties of native Oak, and that the only way to tell the difference is to see how the acorns are attached. It was also nice to put faces to names, of a couple of people from the Friends of Cranford Park Facebook group (hi Ian May and Mark Collins).

 

Thirdly, today I wasn't even sure if I was going to make it out and about. Yesterday afternoon, Sue and I were crashing and thrashing about in dense undergrowth, climbing over and under fallen trees, all because I wanted to find a suitable location to place my portable hide for a day to hopefully see the CP Kingfisher. Last night, one of my knees doubled in size with some very colourful bruise like markings, but I'm glad to say after a nights elevation, a painkiller in the form of wine, and a coating of arnica, this morning I appeared to be back to normal.

 

Within the St Dunstans church boundary is a huge Yew tree. Sue and I noticed yesterday that bird activity there was good, but getting any photos was not easy due to the low light that falls on the tree in the afternoon. So today I popped back to see if a morning light would make a difference, and it did.

 

Because the main entrance to the church is partially blocked with a skip and building materials (St Dunstans is currently under restoration), I entered from the other end and had a wander around the gravestones. St Dunstans is a very old church, and is mentioned in the Domesday book. I've attached a link to a particularly good website, that really explains the history.

Link to St Dunstans website

 

There are some really interesting headstones. This one below has intrigued me before. Several years ago I tried researching the story behind it, but never made a break through.

 

The famous comedian, Tony Hancock, has his ashes buried a St Dunstans as his mother, Lucie Sennett was local to the area.

 

 

 

 

So back to the Yew tree. The morning light meant the top of the tree was in complete sun. However the bottom branches still weren't. So please excuse the colour variations in my photos below. I can promise you they were all taken within the same one hour window.

 

The berries on the tree seem to be drawing in a big selection of bird.

I found Ring-necked Parakeets....

 

 

Great Tits......

 

Goldcrests......

 

Song Thrushes......

 

Blackbirds.....

 

 

and to my delight, Redwings and Fieldfares. This is a very very poor capture of a Redwing, they tended to fly deeper in to the tree and weren't as happy to be photographed as the rest of the birds......

 

And it wasn't just birds that were making the most of the berries. Several squirrels were also attracted to them....

 

As the sun moved over, it became harder to get any decent photos so I had a wander around the woods. The usual birds were viewable.

 

A wren.....

 

A Dunnock.....

 

A Great Tit.....

 

and the usual Long-tailed Tits...

 

 

Even though most of the leaves have now fallen, there is still plenty of autumnal colour around.

 

The huge Sweet Chestnut by the car park, has now lost all of its leaves, so you can really see what a magnificent tree it is. It's estimated this beauty is around 400 years old.

 

Up on the river, the three Little Grebes are still playing hard to get. I surprised this one when it popped up in front of me.....

 

one of the Kestrels was found perched on a tree. This is the second time in a week that I've seen it perched in the same place. This is one of the females (there are two pairs of resident Kestrels at CP). The tree is about half way between the stone car bridge and the pedestrian iron bridge (which used to be painted green, but is now black)

 

the green-black bridge.....

 

Today my blog does not end on a happy note. My close friends know I love foxes, so I was quite upset to find a dead one laying by the river. It also seems a little strange. It cannot have been killed by a car, as its nowhere near a road. If it had been injured by a car strike, a dying fox would crawl away into undergrowth. There were no visible signs of injury to this poor creature, so my only assumption is it could have been poisoned. Any thoughts would be welcome on this.