Swift Half update - 27th February 2011

• A big day here at Swift Half, at least electronically - as my last day of pro membership at my flickr site is upon me after a little over three years of being utterly addicted to that forum.
• It is certainly a wonderful photographic community, but as I've blogged here at least once before, its time for me to move on (at least in terms of what sites I pay to use!)
• If anyone from flickr is viewing this blog for the first time, welcome! It's me (TBR!) - this is where you'll find out what I'm up to and on my own personal photographic website, you'll see some photographs that you might recognise?! I've not had too much time to really get that website off the ground yet, but thats another reason for me to leave flickr.
• Anyway -big change for me, something of a wrench to be honest, but all's good...
• As for the Swift Half update, not much to report this week - a very mixed week weather-wise.
• The damson buds are just about turning green.
• The daffodils bloomed weakly yesterday.
• Counted fourteen palmate newts in the pond last night (mostly males) - I think there will be at least twenty in total - possibly a couple of dozen (as I only made a quick count of newts I could see quickly).

Swift Half update - 19th February 2011

• First frog of the year spotted in the pond tonight - photo above (this was taken underwater).


• Final prep to the swift nest spot were carried out yesterday -I am so excited by the set up this year - I just dearly hope they return!


• My images website now has a custom page - for embedding of the swift half videos of nesting swifts (from my youtube account). Click here for the test videos...


• Not much more than a week left on my flickr account now... a big change for me.

Swift Half update -17th February 2011

• A nice, calm day again, so a little more work in the garden.


• I'm glad to say the Couvmeister (photo above) is pretty well over her untimely moult now - Conker is picking on the old girl less, she's pretty well back to a full compliment of feathers now - and finally (temporarily I'm sure!) all is cozy in the coop.


• I'm not sure whether she'll lay an egg again though. She's two years old (and a week) and whilst all hens go off the lay when moulting, only some over two years old return to lay again. It matters not - Conker and Trouble are giving us two eggs a day, regular as clockwork.


• Spring is soytanly on its merry way - like two years ago, we have blue tits checking out the west eaves - they may have nested there last year as well as two years ago for all I know -I was obsessed with swift watching last summer!


• Its not often I see a green woodpecker flying from the garden (unlike our ever-present great spotted woodpeckers). In fact I've only seen one fly low over the garden in the past two years - until yesterday that is. Lovely impressive birds.


• The newts are really active now -last night I saw what appeared to be a newt orgy in the pond -seven newts (mainly young males and what appeared to be a heavily gravid female) all in a "newt ball", flicking their tails and being quite frisky.


• First real blowflies of the year today - Malu and Yala are already enjoying pouncing on them - I might invest in a "red top fly trap" to disuade da floys from da boyds.


• A couple of buzzards soaring on the thermals to add to the kites - its been a lovely week so far.

Swift Half update - 15th February 2011

• A relativley sunny day yesterday (with one hail shower at tea time) meant I started work on the garden for the year, helped of course by all three hens.


• Whilst clearing out the log pile and in the process blocking one of Malu's escape routes to the front garden (more on that later) I discovered the first seven-spot ladybirds, warming themselves in the weak sun.


• The local magpies are beginning to nest already (see photo above).


• Malu returned home after an evening explorin', with a pink, twitchy right eye again. Malu seems to get fur or twigs behind his eye rather a lot - but I think this episode is because he forced his way through a blocked (with honesuckle twigs) escape route for him, in the dark. I think he just got poked in the eye by one of the twigs. I'll keep an eye on it.


• I also think we've had bird activity in our swift nest space - probably sparrows, but I'll keep an eye on that too.

Swift Half update - 13th February 2011

• A pleasant day again yesterday (saturday) but more wind and rain in store I hear.



• Blackbirds seem to be nesting already (not unusual for blackbirds and woodpigeons to build nests and breed in February).



• First butterfly of the year yesterday - a rather tattered-looking adult red admiral which my wife's keen eyes plucked from the blue sky, as I trained my eyes on the three bickering woodpeckers we have visiting the garden each day still.



• The red admiral is very often the first butterfly you'll see in the UK each year (and the last) and like a few other species, often overwinters in sheds etc... as an adult.



• The butterfly landed on our very tattered gutter (needs replacing) and warmed itself in the blistering February sunshine! (see photo above)



• The daffodils are about 9" high now - no flowers as yet, but if the mild february continues - I think we'll have our first (and pretty-well last! (We've got hardly any flowers as such in the garden)) flowers in a week or so.



• The house sparrows have already taken to our swift nesting spot again - just like last year, but also like last year, when house sparrows and swifts used the same entrance hole to reach two separate nest sites in the roof, I'm not overly concerned just yet!



• The starling flock (1000 birds at its peak in january) has dispersed whilst its mild (I'm sure it will return in style if the weather gets colder again).



• Two birds of note in/over the garden yesterday - our little pied wagtail returned (always a favourite of mine) and a little egret flew overhead at dusk (I know they're not rare these days and I know they live locally, but I don't often see them overhead at dusk -so this was a treat again).



• As for our palmate newts in the pond - we have many. I counted 8 newts last night, visible at the same time, so I would guess we have many more - maybe a dozen, maybe two. They clearly love our shallow pond and have no fish to eat their young, or frogs this year yet (are we going to be frogless this year?). We have a mixture of male and female palmate newts in our pond, most quite young (I think these might have overwintered in the muck on the pond bed), but two fully-grown adults.



• I found a young female palmate newt on our back door mat last night, when I was wandering around in the dark. Almost squashed her! (She's back in the pond now).



• Spent a few minutes photographing her and watching a male greedily suck down a drowning earthworm (in the pond) like a string of spaghetti!



• I have still yet to see any smooth newts in our pond - only palmates - and many of them.

General (county) update - 9th February 2011

Please click any photo twice to see a larger version.

• A mixed week weather-wise. Yesterday was glorious, no wind, no clouds, cold and clear (but warm in the sun) and now we are back to leaden skies and blustery winds.


• I took the opportunity to go indulge in a spot of galanthophilia today under overcast skies as I find photographing flowers (be they snowdrops or my annual bluebell pilgrimage) far easier in cloud than strong sunlight.


• I drove up to Welford Estate - just north of the M4 between Newbury and Hungerford to see their display of snowdrops.


• I was the only one wandering around a) under 70 years old and b) on my own - but the trip was certainly worth it!


• Not only were there millions of snowdrops out, but they mingled rather nicely with the yellow "Winter Aconite" flowers also - a real splash of colour in winter.


• Welford Estate has the beautiful river Lambourn running through it - well.... its beautiful upstream of Newbury anyway. This winter, a solitary dipper has spent each evening under the weir bridge on the river - very rare down in Berks.


• I certainly enjoyed my snowdrop excursion and time on the estate (I'd thoroughly recommend it -but be quick - the park is only open to the public for 4 weeks each year - purely for the snowdrop extravaganza).


• I also saw maybe two dozen red-legged partridge on the road off the M4 (to Wickham) on the drive up there. Six were in the middle of the road, squabbling so ferociously that at least two of them actually went UNDER the car as I drove over them (no time to slow down). I don't think I killed any -bit of a shame actually - might have been quite nice to have a little frenchman for tea?


• On the subject of game, just up the road from Welford (at East Isley - very close to where I watch my winter short-eared owls and hare), I read that a few blokes had been done for hare coursing last week.


• I know hare coursing is illegal, and I suppose rightly so, but if these blokes were coursing for the pot, then I'm afraid to say I have no issue with that. (Apologies in advance if you're offended by that). I'd far rather non-working dogs (other than coursing hounds, ratting jack russells etc...) were made illegal - they seem to have no purpose, other than to yap and crap. But I guess that's just me!


• Its the theft of the vehicle that these men also allegedly were involved in, that I think warrants any attention at all.


• I took great delight in seeing a beautiful brown hare race across my path, the last time I was up at that neck of the woods but whilst its fair to say the brown hare population isn't exactly flourishing at present, it's not in serious trouble either -and I'm no bothered if a few souls want to course a few hares. Maybe I should be - but I'm not.


• Maybe 300,000 brown hares are shot each year anyway - coursing is certainly not a major influence on their numbers, but is deemed as cruel.


• So - was the fact that these men were coursing with dogs, enough reason to "pop a copper-chopper " in the air and catch them? I hope not. I really hope not...

General (county) update - 6th February 2011

• Hello. My name is Anas platyrhynchos. I know that sounds a bit rude (I'll explain why later), so I usually go by my colloquial name of "mallard". We mallards live at Caversham lock, on the Thames, in England, after arriving here last week - for the last part of winter.

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• A gurt big dirty human stopped by this morning (I think I've seen him all week on the towpath, actually) - and started to take my photograph, alongside all my mallard brothers. He seemed particularly interested in taking my photograph though - and left my bigger brothers alone.
  

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• It wasn't until I caught sight of my reflection in his lens, that it hit me like a brick.




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• I've always felt, you know, a little different from my brothers.
• They were always telling me how opinionated I was, or more specifically - how "black and white" my pinions were compared to them.
• How I liked diving down to the bottom of the water for my grub (see photo below), whereas they would just dabble around on the surface.
• How I liked to eat meat (well.... molluscs and crustaceans) and they liked to eat just slimy weed and weird processed wheat that small kids in brightly-coloured anoraks would throw in their direction.
• I do love my brothers (sometimes in a very homosexual-manner, like many waterbirds (sorry.... didn't you know?!)) but even though I knew I was different, I wasn't sure why...




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• Even for a nidifugous fledgling (like many waterbirds) like myself, I was extremely precocious - and as soon as I hatched last March, I waddled confidently away, never to see my family again. I joined up with some fun mallards and naturally thought I was a bolshy, bottle-green-headed common bird like them. But. I'd never caught sight of myself like I did this morning, in that strange human's lens.
• I'm no Anas platyrhynchos after all!
• I'm a beautiful , Aythya fuligula, or tufted duck. I have a wonderful piebald set of feathers, (sooooo that's what they meant by my black and white pinions!) bright yellow buttons of eyes and a super little flattened tail for all my underwater swimming. I'm quite a catch gentlemen, sorry, I mean laydeeez (I must get used to that now, I suppose).
• I may stay around Caversham lock for a little while longer, just to have my brothers, *cough* say goodbye to me (like only they can) - but I must NOT let them go too far..., but then I shall fly to a big lake (about a mile away I think, if memory serves me right), when the weather gets a little warmer -and try and find a brown tufted duck to chat up... Adios for now!

Swift Half update - 1st February 2011

Click photo twice to see at largest size.

• The local starling roost continues, although we're down to maybe a couple of hundred birds max now.


• Goldfinches have begun to belt out courtship songs for the first time this year (rather than just squabbling noisily).


• The blackbirds are fighting.


• Even a song thrush is singing from our neighbours' leylandii tree - a real treat and not seen from Swift Half before this year. (See my youtube video here)


• Blue tits and magpies seem paired up already.


• Just like the local waterbirds on the Thames - the passerines and garden birds seem intent on getting their mates early.


• Even the dunnocks (who generally do not pair -being the "swingers" of the bird world, and rather fond of threesomes etc...) seem to be in a fragile pair at present.


• This afternoon I photographed our female hawk eat one of our fighting cock blackbirds on our neighbours garden fence - she's stunning you know.

General (county) update - 1st February 2011

• Its beginning to kick off, 'ere.
• The coots are at it (the ducks have already finished), the kingfishers are at it and the lone tufted drake (who's shacked up with the lock mallards at Caversham) is getting a trifle confused.
• Birds a-courtin', I mean...