Bittern

I was at Leighton Moss this morning and I’m sure I heard a bittern. They are active there at present, so it’s quite possible. It sounded like someone blowing across the top of a bottle – not a boom, more of a low toot. I heard the same sound later at the level crossing by Middleton quarry – not on the reserve but amongst the reed beds. I’d walked there via Trowbarrow and Gait Barrows and my destination was Arnside.

There are some years when I don’t go to a chippy at all, but in the past week I have had fish and chips three times. Arnside is not “the seaside” in the same exhilarating way Saltburn is, but it has its charms. They were a bit diminished when I discovered that my return journey was affected by all trains being cancelled because of a derailment, but I hitched a lift to somewhere with a better bus service, and so my day out became notable for that as well as the bitterns.

Blackbird nest

Last spring we kept disturbing a blackbird in the wood store behind the garage; I wondered if it was nesting there but didn’t investigate for fear of disturbing it. We use the wood-burner so infrequently that it was only this morning that I uncovered the nest. 

It’s beautifully constructed and I was very glad to see that the blackbird had found a use for sycamore seeds! Also noticeable were the bits of string and a piece of black plastic tie. I’ll put it back in the wood pile later.

Photography at Leighton Moss

It’s slightly milder – but still cold – and the sun has disappeared completely. It’s still icy at Leighton Moss: fewer ducks than usual on the iced-over ponds, but great for spotting glass “snakes” beside the path. I was on a morning wildlife photography course, which included wandering around with a camera. I didn’t learn anything new, but I was motivated to look and frame with care. It was too cold to fiddle about with camera settings: I just used a long lens, a high ISO and a wide aperture and pressed the button.

I really like the ice photos!

Leighton Moss today

It was another cold, still, overcast day so – prompted by the tawny owl that has taken to hooting in the garden at night (and at what point will that move from “nice” to “annoying”?) – I went to Leighton Moss.

As usual, I just missed the “biggies”: the bittern that had flown over just before I got to the hide, the otters that finished playing and went home for their tea as I arrived. But there is pleasure in small things: re-acquainting myself with the names of the over-wintering ducks; hearing a popping and twittering among the trees and remembering that was the sound of long-tailed tits just as a gang of them flitted overhead; noticing a line of coots at the water’s edge that reminded me of the Orthodox nuns that used to bathe in their habits in the September sea. There were tremendous reflections of the great white egret in the still water, and it wasn’t until someone else in the hide pointed it out that I noticed the snipe beside it.

It was sad to see a number of dead swans and cygnets around the water’s edges. The RSPB are not removing the bodies (for good reasons), so it is a constant reminder of the threat of bird flu.

Final morning

It was too beautiful a day to leave immediately after checking out so we walked the route I had followed on Wednesday afternoon. The highlight was seeing goosanders: the way they hopped onto the rock told me at once that they were not mallards, even though I couldn’t see them clearly enough to identify them. Thank you, zoom lens.

Garden birdwatch

A rare visitor to the garden today prompted me to do the RSPB garden birdwatch.

The final tally was:

• Goldfinch 1
• Wood pigeon 1
• Blackbird 1
• Hedge sparrow 2
• Robin 1
• Coal tit 1
• Blue tit 1
• Great tit 1
• Mistle thrush 1
• Magpie 1
• Pheasant 1

The pheasant was a legitimate sighting as he came back during my hour of counting. However when I realised that he was eating the primula flowers I chased him out of the garden. Oh, the irony!

Beside the river

With Christmas and the omicron variant, my recent walks have begun to resemble my lockdown walks: from canal to river and back again. Today I saw a solitary whopper swan amongst the usual suspects: hopefully it will eventually find its flock further south. In the past few days I have seen hundreds of lapwings and greylag geese, several wigeon, teal, tufted ducks, shelducks, little egrets, curlews and redshanks.

Kingfisher

Another (or the same) kingfisher pair beside the canal. Not a very good picture of one of them.

Leighton Moss

I’ve never been to Leighton Moss in snow. I saw hardly any birds (despite the warden’s “promises” of bitterns and otters walking on the ice!) but I enjoyed it nonetheless.

More birds in Norfolk

First of all, a walk to the post office, stopping to admire the building materials used in local buildings: brick, carrstone and flint. Then to Hunstanton cliffs (chalk, red chalk, ginger sandstone) to see the fulmars which have come inland early to claim their nesting place, like shoppers at a Boxing Day sale. Then to the Wash at Snettisham, with its old gravel pits and line of crumbling chalets. The Wash is a good place for cockles, and there was a whole line of shells.

Then to Welney across the Ouse Washes. The Fens are a difficult place to love, particularly on a grey day. Feeding time for the whooper swans – not something I enjoy experiencing, but it was interesting to watch which birds arrived: pochards, lapwings, mallards, shovellers, some of the bolder wigeon, a single coot and a greylag. Very few of them actually seemed interested in the food: just joining a group seemed more important. More of a social occasion! Or perhaps they came afterwards with their doggy bags.

It is a repeat of the previous time I came on this holiday, except that I have more knowledge now than then – and a better pair of binoculars.