Highlights

I've found myself falling behind with updating this blog, 

partly because of other commitments, and partly because 

there is so much I could write about. So I'm going to try 

and just do a few highlights instead. 

Here's the highlights from the past week.

Last Friday Morning ~ We woke to snow! A rare occurrence this winter, only had one fall before now, right back at the end of November. Knowing that the forecast was for a warming day and not wanting to waste the clear skies and scenic views I allowed myself a few minutes after dropping my daughter off at school to visit one of my local patches: Park Hall Country Park.

The clear blue skies, low sun and crisp, fresh snow didn't disappoint and it was a beautiful morning. After taking a few pictures and walking ... not very far really, I heard a buzzard and turned to see it land in a tree overlooking a rising field of virgin snow. After a few minutes of repositioning to attempt to record this scene, inevitably perhaps the buzzard moved off. I managed to get a few images but none of them had quite the same impact as that first location. Regardless it was beautiful to see, made all the more special by the fleeting conditions that morning. 

I love the hidden world you are able to glimpse more clearly after snow - rabbit footprints mooching down a path, fox tracks stalking around the edge of a field, a few hopped prints from a bird bracketed by wing marks in the snow indicating a rushed departure. Nice to be out on a day like that, even if only for a few minutes.

Tuesday Morning ~ I was out around the farm where I manage woodland again today. I had arrived early, just before sunrise so had an early start but even before I parked the car I had seen 3 or 4 Barn Owls. They really did look spectral in the half light against the heavy frost on the fields that morning. Just minutes later what has to be one of the most beautiful sunrises I can remember seeing was breaking over the horizon. I only had my phone camera with me but wasn't going to miss recording that view.

Within 5 minutes of leaving the car I had seen 5 deer of two different species, several species of duck including Teal, a Little Egret along with several other water birds (I was walking along a drainage dike bank). The frozen ground had a perfectly recorded history of what had passed that way (the last time it was soft at least) - deer slots were prolific but badger and fox tracks along with game birds were frequent. 

I ended up walking 6 miles around the farm that morning, and what a morning, just a pleasure to be out of doors. The final bit of the walk included collecting the camera trap which I had placed out there last week. I managed to get another video of the stoat which was my initial target. I hope it won't be the last of my encounters with the little predator.

Thursday Morning ~ Another cold and frosty morning dawned, albeit a dull cloudy one. A lot has been said about the mild winter we've had so far and even now we've had a bit of a cold snap there are still little relics of that mild weather, like this flowering Daisy, one of quite a few I found in this frosty field on route to a short walk through some local woods. 

A little further on, in the woods, I was tracked along my route by birds, small flocks of Long-tailed Tits, Chaffinches, as well as a Tree Creeper and a Gold Crest. The Gold Crest is a particular favourite of mine. I love seeing them, and so often it starts as a game of hide and seek - the first glimpse is usually just that, a glimpse of something inconceivably small flitting in the vegetation, after a few more flits and glimpses you realise that it's one of two birds: a Wren or a Gold Crest, and then... finally a decent view and that flash of gold. I love those moments, they brighten my bird watching no end. I also love the old wives tale that they hitch a ride to the UK on the backs of Woodcock because there is no way a bird that small could fly across the sea itself! Photo's from oil rigs and boats in the North Sea covered in migrating birds, including a good share of Gold Crests indicates otherwise. 

Along with the weeks nature highlights an update to the 1000x1000 challenge.

I'm up to 15.7 miles (way behind, some serious catching up to do!) and 74 species (doing OK, need to keep on it though). 

Richard

Winter Woodland Wonders

Yet another account from 'my' woods, but at 

this time of year I am there pretty often - 

traditional woodland management types 

must have been hardy fellows because most 

of the work involved is winter work. 

Not that it has been much of a problem yet this year; our winter, until this weekend at least, really hasn't lived up to its title. For a few days this week I stayed in the woods and while the thermometer claimed it was down to just above freezing at night, and a frost outside the wood on at least one morning backed that up, it never really felt that cold. I wish it would get properly cold, cold enough to freeze the ground nice and hard so I can drive into the wood with a trailer to collect some of the seasoned wood from last year. At present, to avoid doing too much damage to the tracks the closest I can get is about 1/4 mile from camp - doesn't sound like much, but walking all that way, with all that equipment you might just change your mind.

Anyway, 'not feeling too cold' was not a sentiment shared by everyone in the woods this week. That's right - I had company for a change. My brother who works at an agricultural college had brought down a group of students to let them experience some woodland management work: protecting stools from browsing deer, building dead hedges with brash etc etc. By far their favourite task seemed to be burning the brash though, I can't think why?!

But this isn't about the students, it is about the wildlife and as always it didn't disappoint. For a start I had left out a borrowed camera trap when I left the week before; overlooking an obviously well used track with fresh deer slots I was confident it would not be collected empty, and to make double sure I had baited it with some squirrels culled as part of our ongoing control measures. Alongside the deer I was hoping for a scavenging Badger, but I suppose a fox would have been OK. Below is a video I put together from some of the footage - not all of it though... 

I got a bit bored of squirrels and pheasants, so have only added limited footage of those but the deer particularly I was very happy with. It shows at least two Muntjac bucks, at least one doe (but likely a few) and a nice Roe buck in velvet too. 

Towards the end of the video though you will have seen what I was particularly excited about this week - 'The Stoat'. Allow me to explain - those who have read this blog before will remember my find of what I thought to be a stoat 'nest' (den? - I'll have to check up on that). When I found it it contained half of a freshly dead Great-Spotted Woodpecker and a piece of Squirrel tail. Anyway, I was fairly confident that there was a stoat around and hopeful that one day I would catch a glimpse. Where the camera trap had been set up wasn't likely to catch it, at least no more likely than anywhere else in the wood, because it was some distance from where I had found the nest. Then...

We had been working on a coppice coupe across the wood from the camp, and some of the group, although not me (I either had my chainsaw ear defenders on or this is yet another indication that I need to expedite the hearing test my wife has told me I need to have) had heard a squealing, my brother had caught it and was confident that it had been a Rabbit squealing. Putting two and two together we reckoned it was quite likely to have been a sign of a successful stoat hunt and thought little more of it. Until a few minutes later when I headed back up to the main camp to collect some additional tools. 

Lost in my own little world for a few minutes having walked that section of woodland track dozens if not hundreds of times by now, I didn't even notice until I was nearly on top of it a very dirty rabbit lying in the path. Awoken from my revere by this realisation, I immediately realized several things: 1) we had been right about the stoat hunting,
2) based on roughly where the squeals were heard it had already been dragged a fair way to get it this far (how dirty the rabbit was confirmed that)
3) the stoat was unlikely to abandon a meal of that quality so I must have disturbed it and
4) it would be back, but not until I wasn't on the scene.

At this point the rabbit, having spotted me and not quite given up the fight gave a few feeble kicks until it came to rest against a pile of firewood, meanwhile I backtracked to a large tree 10 metres or so back to watch. After just a minute or two there I decided a much better idea was to get the camera trap which I had at camp waiting to reset, and set it up watching the Rabbit - so I did just that. 

The story at this point becomes a bit drawn out so I'll try to summarise. Having left the trap in said position I went back to check it and found the rabbit gone and three new triggers (but no way of viewing them - no screen on this model! Grrr!). I located the rabbit which had been dragged under a pallet of firewood several metres from where I had last seen it and lying in such a way it was pretty clear it hadn't got there by itself. I reset the camera again, this time overlooking the access point to the pallet and again left it be. That night I checked the trap again - no rabbit under the pallet, 60 triggers on the camera. The main path was probably in sensor range so I was expecting most of those to be distant views of me or the students going back and forth but hoped that at least one was my elusive little predator. Again I managed to locate the rabbit carcase, this time dragged another few metres and pushed (or pulled) under some old corrugated tin panels, with a clear path of disturbed leaves in its wake.

As I write this the camera trap is still watching that gap under the tin, but with a fresh memory card. I brought the original one home and got what you see at the end of the video. The three triggers in the original location turned out to be me setting it up, me collecting it and... a student, typical. I guess it was just a little to far away for the sensor to pick up but I was treading a delicate line between not disturbing the scene and catching the footage, this time I erred a little too much on the side of no disturbance, but it is what it is. The footage in the video is from the second location and were two of the first shots captured, perhaps just minutes after I placed the camera but I can't be sure because I forgot to note the time I relocated the camera! It certainly wasn't more than an hour. I can't wait to pick up the camera from its current location and see what I've got on there. Fingers crossed!

Anyway - while I think it is pretty clear what the highlight of my trip was it wasn't the only thing I did or saw. I also saw all three species of deer we get in the woods, loads of bird life, including, one morning without even leaving my bed: Great Tit, Blue Tit, Marsh Tit, Long-tailed Tit, Blackbird, Fieldfare and Robin and heard a Green Woodpecker; along with Tawny Owls and deer during the night - not a bad place for a bed. The bulbs are still determined to come through although with the weather taking the turn it has since I left on Thursday evening they may have at least started to weaken their resolve! I'll hopefully be back for a flying visit on Tuesday so I can check the camera trap then - updates will follow: excited hardly covers it!

1000x1000 species update:

Miles Walked: 7.74 m
Species Recorded: 57

I am a fair way behind on the walking side as you can probably tell!
Species recording I am doing OK but will need to do a few days of proper recording effort rather than just jotting down what I remember while I am out and about at this stage.

17 days down - 349 to go!

Richard 

New Year, New Opportunities, New Challenges

Happy New Year!

It's been an interesting year for me - wonderful in many ways, disappointing in others. I'm sure many others could say the same. 

This coming year presents a lot of opportunities, some ripe for the taking, others which will require more effort and preparation to come to fruition. I'm looking forward to these most of all. 

I'm not going to bore anyone reading this with a list of resolutions which I will probably fail to succeed in anyway, but there is one goal I have which I thought was worth sharing as it will likely form a quite significant portion of what I will write about in the course of the year. 

Country Walking Magazine are running a campaign (if you can call it that) to get people out and about on their feet. Walking 1000 miles in one year! I liked the sound of this and decided to adopt it. Sound like a lot? Well if you break it down it's less than 20 miles per week, or about 2 3/4 miles per day. Not a lot in the grand scheme of things. I have several times in my teenage years (read also fitter years) walked more than 40 miles in a single day. Due to various activities I am involved in I don't think just walking the distance would be all that difficult, especially if things like walking my daughter to school count. So I decided I'd discount walking on pavements (unless for a short distance on route to somewhere more interesting), and also ignore (which would hopefully be pretty obvious) the too-ing and fro-ing of day to day life. 

Even that didn't seem to be enough of a challenge though, I wanted to add another dimension so I came up with the idea, in the dying hours of New Years Eve, of doing another thousand something - making it a 1000²  challenge you might say. Something to add an extra level of interest, an extra level of challenge, something preferably to stretch me mentally along with the physical stretching of the walking. 

The 'optional extra' I settled on is identifying and recording 1000 species. This I thought would be a suitable challenge, it gives my thousand miles of walking an extra dimension, a purpose beyond the covering of distance. While I am the first to say I could do with being fitter, in all humility I am probably still fit enough that just walking 20 miles a week isn't going to make a massive difference to my fitness and losing weight is something I don't really need to worry about at present. This however will stretch me - while I have been pushing myself to expand my identification skills of late, this gives me a target. I've never been one to keep lists of sightings of anything like that, so this will be covering new ground for me. I will also aim to submit these records, or ones of significance anyway, to recording schemes where my efforts can be added to the efforts of many others to benefit real world conservation efforts. 

One more note to add - I've decided to make it extra hard for myself by not counting species I see while I'm just driving around, or out of windows. I actually have to be walking, or at least working, out and about to count it. Should keep me alert!

I hope you find some interesting, and hopefully educational ways to enjoy time out of doors with nature in this coming year. 

-------------------------------------------------------

1st Jan 2016 - 1.35 miles - 11 species

Total Count: 1.35 miles - 11 species

I dare say getting up early wasn't at the top of the to-do list for many people this morning, after the late night and potentially ... merry gatherings. But work doesn't sleep so I was up early and out before first light to continue the deer management work around the woodlands I manage. Next week I'll be back in the woods for a few days carrying on with the coppicing work and the knowledge that there are a few less teeth to nibble my future harvest will be satisfying.

It was a beautiful day, the first proper frost of the winter. Hovering around freezing with an as-good-as-clear sky gradually blueing I made my way to my piece of the ground having dropped off my fellow stalkers at predetermined positions. Because of time constraints it was a bit of a rushed trip but a needed one none the less, by the time I got where I was going and kitted up I needed to be back at the car in 50 minutes or so, usually these trips have more like 3 hours set aside. The first few hundred yards didn't reveal much - it seemed like nature might have been sleeping off celebrations from the night before as well. 

Track for my walk / stalk this morning: out and back along the same route - when you
have to cross numerous deep, steep sided ditches you only have so many options on routes!

Eventually the wide open fields bisected by ditches started to come to life: Reed Buntings and Gold Finches flitted through the reeds and other remnant vegetation left along ditch edges while Field Fares, Pigeons, Gulls and corvids criss-crossed over head at varying heights on routes to various destinations. Finally I spotted a deer, a Chinese Water deer a long way off and heading away, no point following that one. 20 minutes out from the car and with only 25 minutes of walking time remaining I'd written off the deer management trip as a failure and chalked up the morning to just 'a nice time to be out'. As it happened I did come across a suitable cull animal and was able to harvest it just before I reached the deadline for turning around. 

Whatever your opinion of this method for deer management, it provides me good opportunities to get out and about at times of day many prefer to spend in doors, or in bed! It is not about eradication or 'shooting anything that moves' - it is management, and it is required because of mans interference. It is also good exercise, my mere stroll this morning is nothing; clocking up more than 3 or 4 miles in an outing isn't unusual, and I've done more than 5 miles before now. 

Today was a nice start to my 1000²  challenge though, and a beautiful day to start the year. While I saw many more species during the course of the day than the 11 I've listed many were from the car and as such off limits for the count. If my prime purpose had been recording I think 30 or 40 could have been noted but I am up above the daily required average for now and happy to start steady so I don't burn out too soon! I hope you enjoy keeping tabs through the coming year on my recording and walking efforts (I'll add a dedicated page to the blog to allow anyone interested to keep up to date), alongside my (hopefully) regular reports on my local patch and my woodland management work.

Thanks for reading,

Richard