Viewing entries tagged
Long-tailed Tit

Feed The Birds

Wasn't long ago I was talking about Spring! With spring flowers in full bloom and lots of birds singing. Some pretty cold temperatures have been replaced with that however, followed by a Red Warning for wind and snow. Gusty cold conditions like this make it really tough for birds to survive. While some are extremely good at surviving in harsh conditions, others aren't, and they do perish as a result. Small birds like Coal Tits need to consume at-least 30% of their body weight per day in order to survive, some may need up to 100%!. Theres no better time to put high fat seeds, fat balls and meal worms out for your Garden Birds, as without it, they may struggle. 
The images below were taken yesterday at Ian Howell's Woodland Bird Hide. A fabulous hide with a great selection of species. The cold snap even brought in a Greenfinch which was a new species for the feeders. I wish I had a setup like this at home but I'll still continue to feed the birds, even if it's only Jackdaws and Black-headed Gulls that make the most of it. 

Forest Farm

Last week I made a visit to Forest Farm on what ended up being a beautiful sunny (but cold) day. Most of the day was spent in the first hide with a perfectly lit perch!.. but no Kingfishers. My patience in this case was working against me, as a later trip along the canal brought about some great opportunity with the Kingfishers along the canal, where they are so used to people, you can stand 10ft away from them without them flying away. I wished it was always that easy! A brief day time visit of a Red Fox was a highlight, that and sharing the hide with some great like minded people who share my love for wildlife. 

Is spring here already? Snowdrops and Daff's seem to think so, and I'm happy with that. 

Spring is near

Despite being wet, windy and cold, spring is very much so around the corner. Spring plants are already emerging, my Daffodils in the Garden are almost flowering and Snowdrops are popping up everywhere. Saw my first yesterday at my local fishing ponds. 

Birds are also sensing this change, with temperatures slowly rising as the days get longer and those cold nights shorten. One bird particularly has adopted the help of family in order to survive the cold winter nights and thats the Long-tailed Tit. Once fledged from the nest, the youngsters will even help their parents to raise a second brood of chicks. This includes assisting to build new nests, chick feeding and maintenance. This family bond takes them right through the winter also, with strength in numbers, not just for the extra eyes to look out for predators and food, but to physically huddle up with to keep warm at night.

Frosty Morning!

Averaging around 0ºc this morning and the birds were really showing a difference in behaviour. On the way to my feeding station I watched a poor Jackdaw getting malled by another Jackdaw and a few Magpies. Birds only really have one thing worth fighting for in the Winter and that's food. Same sort of behaviour at the feeding station also with Blue Tits fighting, rolling on the floor like Dogs! 

Another good morning though and todays surprise visitors came with attitude. Both Great Spotted Woodpecker and Nuthatch were jealously competing for the peanuts before I ran out. 

Had lunch at the visitors centre @ Llandegfedd afterwards and the cold weather had brought in a lot more wildfowl that usual. Red / Fieldfare numbers were quite high too, especially at the north end. The annual Peregrine Falcon's are still using the Osprey Pole as a look out along the mud flats. 

Christmas Break

Hope you're all having a lovely Christmas! I certainly am, all things considering. (I won't go there).  Today, I visited my winter feeding station which is still going really well despite having spent very little time there. The species list is growing with new visitors every day. Today I had my first Nuthatch which took longer than I thought it would.. I've been having some surprise visitors too which I'm not going to reveal until I get a decent picture of them. Fingers crossed on that one!. For now, I'm still enjoying getting photographs of the beautiful common Blue, Great, Coal and Long-tailed Tits that are regulars all throughout the day. Here are some photos from today. 

Easter Migration

Despite the bad weather this easter weekend, spring migrants have still been turning up. Chiffchaff being my first this year followed by a Swallow and Sand Martin. Llandegfedd is yet to pull up an Osprey though and with some already arriving in their breeding grounds up North, we may not get one at all this spring. I hardly took any photographs today as I spent most of my time at Llandegfedd helping general public navigate their way around the Res. Till this day, I really don't condone the actions of Welsh Water to open the site to Public. I feel that a lot has been rushed and therefor neglected since the opening of the new visitors centre. Our wildlife conservation has since been forgotten. The only comfort I have at the moment about securing the future of Llandegfedds Wildlife is the fact that I'm well connected with staff onsite. I hope that my contacts and influence will have an effect on decisions made for this SSSI site. My patience is wearing thin however so alternative solutions are being considered. 

Llandegfedd Magic / Woodpeckers, Ravens and Long-tailed Tits

Bit of a feature in the last couple days with the Great Spotted Woodpeckers but today I took things to another level and not only brought you pictures and sound recordings but I actually managed to get a short video of a male GSW finding the sweet spot on the wood like I mentioned yesterday. I hope you enjoy the video! 

Here is another recording from the morning session which shows much more enthusiasm from the Male than my last recording. 
 

Something I didn't expect to get today was some decent recordings of a pair of Ravens. They were taking interest in something that I couldn't quite see (which could of been a Goshawk). During this time they were making all kinds of creative noises. At the very start of the recording you'll hear a quiet 'droplet' like sound: that is actually the Raven making that sound. 

The Feeding station was alive again today with a couple of new visitors in the form of 2 Redpoll and numbers of all species are increasing. The Long-tailed Tits are still my favourites though!

Life Line

If it wasn't for Llandegfedd's Feeding Station this winter, I'd be pretty depressed with all this bad weather! If it's not raining, it's dark and if it's not dark, it's windy! Sat inside a hide is the best way to go when the weather is bad and to be fair, it has got me out of the house more often knowing that I have a dry hide to take refuge in. 

Long-tailed Tit are so much fun!

These birds are so entertaining! We're so lucky to get these in are Gardens and if you're yet to get them, put out Fat Balls or Suit Blocks of any kind and I'm sure it won't be long before you start to get them, especially if you have a lot of hedges and cover. Long-tailed Tits don't like to fly out in the open for long distances so key to these is to make a connection between your Garden and the next woodland. That said, if the weather is cold and harsh enough, you may get them anyway. I'll continue to photograph these till my camera gives up. 

Key to their success is the way in which they commute on their day to day activities. They are among the very few species that survive thanks to sticking to a group but not just any random group, they survive with their own family. Evidence of this can be seen in the picture below taken a couple years ago on the top of my street. 

This is the first years brood of 2014. Sticking together means more eyes to look out for predators and in this case, the chicks even help the parents feed their next brood of chicks which will drastically increase their chances of survival. You'll often hear the birds way before you see them and this is another sign that they are group orientated because they are constantly communicating which each other with a broad variety of different calls to which each individual has to learn. This communication doesn't always work to their advantage though as it can give away their position to predators and top predator of these birds is the Sparrowhawk. 

Gutted

Those closest to me would have known that I applied for a Placement called the 'Lemur+Project' early this year. The Lemur+Project would have allowed me to spend 9 months training in the area of conservation within Gwent, which was more than ideal for me and would have given me more skills to get the conservation Job I'm after, but sadly I found out today that I was unsuccessful and didn't even get to the interview stage. I think I got a little too excited about this opportunity I'm I am truly gutted I didn't get it. 

In other news, I attended my third meeting for Torfaens Biodiversity Partnership today which so far I'm really enjoying and can't wait for the next meeting. It feels great to even be invited along, especially considering everyone else in the room plays pivotal roles for conservation in Gwent. 

I guess I'll just have to keep trying. I'll leave you with a happy Long-tailed Tit. These guys always put a smile back on my face and I've been after this pose for a long long time! It's called 'The Wren Pose' and they don't often do it but it does allow you to see the orange/red shorts that they sport underneath that beautifully long tail.