Little Owl family values

Sorry for the radio silence over the last couple of weeks; while the weather has been pretty glorious, a really hard stint at work has left me completely shattered, so days off have been mainly recovering!

We have managed a few short excursions to some of our local sites, with varying results. I got really frustrated when, after I'd spent several hours patiently in position waiting for the water voles to visit a particular spot I'd lined up with a series of shots in mind,  an extended family of noisy kids appeared, just as the male was climbing out where I wanted him. I'm all for kids getting interested in nature & wildlife -after all, that's how I got started - but needless to say, I was not best pleased with their grandparents for encouraging them to run over to see what I was looking at! Nevermind - next time. We did get to see 5 different individual voles while I was waiting - my 'usual' male, plus a female with two youngsters, and interestingly another huge male which I haven't seen before. I hope I get to catch a closer view of him again soon.

I mentioned in one of my recent posts that I'd been really pleased to see the lonesome male Great Crested Grebe I've been observing for the last 2 or 3 years on a private lake had finally found a mate. Sadly, when we paid the pair a visit at the weekend, it appears that their eggs have either failed or been predated. However we did witness them doing a short courtship dance, followed by the female getting into mating position and they seem to be constructing a new nest, so hopefully they may succeed with a second clutch. There are also two pairs of Little Grebe nesting along the same stretch, who were having a massive barney, as one of the more distant pair kept trying to cross the near pair's territory & they were not having any of it. The mute swan pair are doing well, with half a dozen signets all growing strongly at present. Also lots of moorhen & coot chicks of varying sizes keeping their parents very busy.

Great-crested Grebes - Ready to mate

A quick early evening drive around the Aldbourne area gave me a fairly close encounter with a lovely Roe Deer buck, now looking rather splendid in his russet summer coat. I'd also hoped for a few hares, but the difficulty is that the grass & barley crops are now so high in their favoured fields that it is nigh on impossible to spot them! We saw a couple towards the field margins, but too much in the way to be any good for photos.

Roe Deer - Buck

I also checked out my local Little Owl sites at the weekend- we had good views of one of the birds from a pair nesting in a hollow oak, but no sign of any owlets out & about yet. 

On the subject of Little Owls, on Tuesday evening I was lucky enough to be able to do a session at a private hide with a breeding pair and their youngsters. I spent the whole evening there, and had both parents visiting a post in front of the hide throughout the evening - and was able to play with a few different settings, particularily as the light changed as the day wore on. I got some great views of the parents feeding the youngster in a nearby tree. The 3 owlets were very active, hopping up and down the tree with lots of energy, so I'm sure they'll start exploring the wider world very soon. A great session with one of my favourite birds to photograph - I had a whale of a time, & already wondering if I can squeeze another visit in over the next few days. 

Female one of the Owlets

Sierra Morena spring birding trip - day 1; a bedazzlement of Bee-eaters

Welcome to the first installment of my slightly time-lapse write up of this week's short birding trip to the beautiful Sierra Morena area of Southern Spain. I had planned to do live daily updates (with a little help from my editorial assistant). However, after a very stressful two-hour game of hunt the passport seriously eroded my already limited pre-trip sleep time on Monday night, I was so flustered that I managed to leave without my memory-card reader, or my spare battery!

After flying into Malaga on the first flight out on Tuesday morning, my 3 guests and I met our local guide, Agustin, for a pleasant drive up into the Sierra Morena mountain range. The trip got off to a great start, with plenty of sightings along the way, including Black Kites, Buzzards, Griffon Vultures and Imperial Eagles. 

Arriving into the area, we spent some time driving around the Finca looking for the local male Lynx, as Agustin had had an amazingly close view the previous evening, and it had been spotted again earlier in the day. No luck, but we did see lots of other wildlife, including Barn Swallows, Red-Rumped Swallows, House Martins plus Common, Pallid and White-Rumped Swifts, Ravens and Hoopoes. A highlight for me was spotting a tiny Hare Leveret by the side of the road. Obviously only a few days old, we weren't 100% sure that it was a hare rather than a rabbit, until it put it's enormous ears up - just before dashing off into the undergrowth!

We also had some great views (through a scope) of one of the pairs of Spanish Imperial Eagles on their nest, with the chick clearly visible. It's wonderful to see these iconic birds doing so well in this area. We also saw several Little Owl nest sites, and one of the birds close to the side of the road.

We then split into two small groups for the afternoon, to visit our choice of bird hides. I had a fantastic few hours watching a Bee-Eater colony at their nest sight on the river bank. I absolutely love Bee-Eaters; they are one of my favourite birds and always a pleasure to send time with. From my pop-up hide, I had over 20 birds directly in front of me most of the time, with well over a hundred zipping around in the fields & scrub.

Interesting displaying posture, which was followed but the male catching a bee and feeding it to the his partner

Passing a ladybird to the female

Bee Eaters copulating

There was lots of courtship behaviour going on, with the females begging the males for food, and pairs displaying to each other. Some pairs had clearly already established strong bonds already, spending all their time close together and much passing of food going on. We also witnessed lots of mating activity. It was really interesting to see how similar much of their courtship behaviour is to kingfisher - their close relatives - albeit passing insects to their mates as little billet-doux, rather than fish! I was also surprised to see them eating ladybirds, as well as the more familiar hoverflies, dragonflies - and of course, the eponymous bees.

Bee Eater with no blue colour

There was lots of other wildlife to be seen along the river bank, too. At times, there was a veritable frog chorus, with what sounded like hundreds croaking away merrily. Lots of waders in action too, including Little-Ringed Plover, Common Sandpiper, Black Winged Stilt, several Little Egret and a Grey Heron fishing. A kingfisher passed by several times, and on one occasion, landed right by my hide - however as soon as I moved my lens to try for a shot, he was off in a flash of electric blue! It was also nice to see both types of Yellow Wag-tail & Hoopoes darting back and worth caring various insects to their waiting chicks.  

Little Ringed Plover

Common Sandpiper

Iberian Yellow Wag-tail

Yellow Wag-tail - Juvenile 

As the evening wore on, the softer light showed up the dazzling colours of the Bee-Eaters to best advantage. There is lots of variation in their plummage, with some being really intense azure blue, with vibrant coppery backs & wings, and other being much more slately blue-green on the body. It was interesting to also see one with no blue at all (photo shown). Needless to say, I took rather a lot of shots of the course of the session! 

My other guests,Piotr and Manny also had a great session in the Bebedero (woodland drinking pool) hide, with 5 visits from their target species, Hawfinch, as well as Jays, Nutchatch, Greenfinch and other woodland species. All in all, a brilliant first day. Check back tomorrow for the next installment! 

Hawfinch (I took this one at the same hide back in February)

Back from the brink?

Despite a very busy day at work, the beautiful sunny evening yesterday tempted me out for a quick scoot round some of the back roads to see what was around. The hedgerows are all in full bloom, lots of bluebells & wild garlic flowering in copses, and plenty of bird-life zipping around. We took a bit of a different route (well, OK - we got mildly lost!) and ended up in the lanes around Lambourne, where we came across a herd of around 25 Fallow Deer, including several bucks who are just re-growing their antlers. They are still shedding out their shaggy winter coats, so are looking a bit scruffy at present, but always nice to see - especially a couple of melanistic youngsters. We also got some nice eye-level views of a trio of Red-Legged Partridges, foraging on a small village green. 

Fallow Deer

Red-legged Partridge

As usual in this area, plenty of Buzzards, Red Kites and Kestrels to be seen on the way. We made our way home via Aldbourne to see if we could pick up a hare or two. We did get some cracking views, but they were wide awake & very active, so zipped off at high-speed. We also found a small group of the local Fallows, browsing along the edge of a copse - including one of the leucistic individuals. We were also privileged  to get a glimpse of a Tawney Owl hunting in the twilight. It glided back into a copse with it's prey; presumably to chicks? Lou also spotted a Stoat dashing into the undergrowth.

Today, we decided to put the WWT membership to good use & popped over to Slimbridge for a pleasant few hours; mainly as Lou was keen to see some of the wild Common Cranes which have been hanging around the reserve lately. They're one of her rather long list of favourite birds! We'd heard that there was even a pair nesting on the site, but weren't expecting to get more than a distant view through the bins. How wrong we were!

Common Crane

We were surprised and delighted to find that one pair have decided to nest directly in front of one of the hides, so we were able to get some great views of the female sticking her head out of the reeds, as she waited not-so-patiently for her mate to relieve her. We were lucky enough to witness a changeover between the pair, wit the male flying in & cautiously wading across the marsh to the nest. His mate seemed very pleased to get a chance to stretch her wings ; not really surprising - the volunteer observer on duty said she'd been on the eggs for the last 7 hours! They are such graceful birds, it's wonderful to see them getting a toehold back after centuries of persecution and habitat loss. It would be wonderful if they succeed in raising a chick this year; it would be the first known in England for about 400 years!

Crane Pair - at the nest

Crane - on the nest

An added bonus, on the same pool, was a beautiful Spoonbill, in full breeding plumage. We see these birds a lot on our trips to Spain, but this was our closest view of one in England. Also present were a Mute Swan, Mallards, Shellducks, Canada Geese and Greylag Geese. I also saw a watervole swimming across the channel,

Spoonbill

Spoonbill - displaying

There were lots of young waterbirds appearing already all over the reserve - particularly Coots & Moorhens. We saw several real hatchlings, plus some surprisingly well-grown juveniles - all very cute! We also got a good (though not very close) view of the male of one of Slimbridge's pairs of Kingfishers, taking fish into the nest hole for his mate. From the same hide, we also enjoyed watching the antics of a pair of Reed Warblers, and Lou had a great view of a Reed Bunting; shame she didn't bother pointing it out to me! 

Coots - Adult & Chick

Distant Kingfisher

Polchard

Later this afternoon, we decided to check out a new site for us; a local beech & hazel copse, which seemed promising. We saw a lot of Bank Voles, presumably foraging for hazel nuts, so I've got a few ideas for working with these in the coming weeks. Another highlight was a large - and rather noisy - rookery, obviously with lots of young chicks, to judge from the noise!

A smattering of voles

Wet and wild weather most of the weekend, coupled with an exhausting week at work put a bit of a crimp in my wildlife watching, so this will be a bit of a short post! 

We spent a couple of hours watching the Water Voles on Saturday, after the worst of the heavy showers had blown over. There are quite a few juveniles out and about now; we saw a couple of half-grown youngsters happily foraging - although still spending time with their mother- as well as a very tiny, black-coated baby just starting to come out of the burrow for short explorations.

Juvenile Water Vole

Young Water Vole

The adult female is remarkably relaxed, and came incredibly close to me, swimming past just yards from my nose! The male was also out and about, although he seemed to be on a bit of a mission - swimming up & down his stretch of stream at top-speed, a little like a furry wind-up bath toy. I've got a few more shots in mind after seeing their activity, so I'll be paying them another visit on my day off on Wednesday; weather permitting.

We also took another drive around the Aldbourne area, mainly to point out a few of the best fields for Brown Hares this season to my friend, Steve. We arrived in the area around 5.30, so it was a little bit earlier in the evening then our last couple of visits. The optimal time forgetting the hares active seems to be about 7pm onwards; we quickly spotted a number resting in the fields, but with their heads down & showing few signs of movement. However we did find one juvenile resting on the edge of the hedgerow right by the side of the road, so hopefully Steve got some decent shots before it spooked & dashed off into the cover of the oil-seed rape. As the evening wore on, the hares became more active - and we also had a few Roe Deer appearing out of the thickets to graze, too.  

Distant Brown Hare

The usual Pheasants, Red-legged Partridges, Red Kites etc were all present - and we had a close encounter with one of the local Buzzards, who glided along above the road just ahead of the car. We also spotted one of the small population of Jays; always a pleasure to see. 

Hares galore

Being back in full-time employment may help pay the bills, but it doesn't half impact on wildlife-watching time! At least the sunny evenings this week have meant that we've been able to get out & visit a few of the local spots after work, to get a bit of a nature fix! 

Driving around the country lanes through the downs in the hour or so before dusk has proved particularly productive this week, especially for mammals. On Friday evening we had at least 25 Brown Hares within a 3 or 4 mile radius, with up to 8 in the same field. Returning about the same time yesterday, we again saw over 20 in the same area - including one or two very close up. 

Can't see me

Into the sunset!

Both evenings we also saw lots of Roe Deer - approximately a dozen on Friday, and 7 or 8 on Thursday - all in small groups. The females are now looking heavily pregnant- although several still had last year's fawns with them. We also spotted one that had recently given birth as we could hear a fawn calling. Most of them are in the process of shedding their dense winter coats, so are looking a bit moth-eaten at present. However a pair of young bucks were looking quite smart in their reddish summer coats. 
We had a close view of a mature stag - still with velvet on his antlers - grazing with his mate. We  also spotted a trio of young Fallow Deer bucks grazing along the edge of a small copse. Their antlers have still got a fair bit of growing to do - just nubbs at the moment!

Roe Deer - Doe

Roe Deer - Pair (Doe very pregnant)

Roe Deer - Doe (Fawn in the Grass)

Lots of bird life to be seen, too. On Friday, we saw our first cuckoo of the year - although as it was in flight it took us a few minutes to work out what it was! The usual Red-legged Partridge & Pheasants were plentiful - although interestingly I did see a very dark, melanistic female pheasant; possibly the offspring of a blue-black male bird we spotted last year? As usual, plenty of raptors around too; several Red Kites, Buzzards and a pair of Kestrels.

On my day off on Thursday, I spend an hour or two watching the Water Voles again. The babies were out - still very small and surprisingly dark-coloured. It was fun seeing them splashing around, under the watchful eyes of their mum.

Water Vole

I also took a drive around the Aldbourne area, and was pleased to come across the main herd of Fallow Deer - over 45 of them, including one of the leutistic does & tan bucks. It's been a while since I've seen them together in such a large group!

Fallow Deer

Other interesting sightings this week included a Grasshopper Warbler, Pipestrelle Bats and a probable Honey Buzzard (in flight). Lou and Hurley also had a close encounter with one of the local urban foxes last night... it seemed quite interested in Hurley; maybe huskies look like a giant fox?

A Wind in the Willows sort of day

This afternoon, Lou & I took a gentle wander through the ancient mixed woodlands of Savernake Forest. Everything is starting to look very green and lush, and the woods were full of birdsong. We spent a very relaxed hour or so sitting on the banks of a small pool, just waiting to see what appeared. We had a pair of Lesser Spotted Woodpeckers calling from the surrounding trees, and got a few glimpses of one of the birds. One day I'll get a decent shot of them! There were also plenty of the usual woodland birds; Long-tailed Tits, Wrens, Pheasants, Great Tits, Chaffinches and Wrens, as well as a pair of Buzzards patrolling across the clearing, and a Sparrowhawk on the hunt. Green Woodpeckers were heard, but not seen today. 

The highlight of the day was the huge number of Common Toads congregating in the pool to spawn. More and more kept creeping out of the undergrowth to make their way down to the water, to join the hundreds already there. I had fun playing with different shots, and Lou was in seventh heaven, as toads have long been one of her favourite beasties. 

Male Common Toad

Reflection of a Male

Female carrying Male to the pool

We drove back towards Swindon through the smaller country lanes, passing several Red Kites and more Buzzards. I was saddened to come across an uncommon Grey Partridge which had been freshly struck by a car. There are only a few pairs of these lovely little birds in the area, and I've been on the lookout for them for ages, so such a shame to come across a dead one. However, at least it proves they are around. 

We also found a very promising looking Badger sett, judging by the freshly dug earth around the entrances. We do know of several other setts in the area, but have yet to find one in as good a location for staking out, so I think I'll be back with a few peanuts in the very near future!

Finally, we stopped off so that Lou could have a look at the Water Voles, as she hadn't yet seen any this year. We got some great views of the male swimming along his stretch of stream and browsing on various reeds and stems only feet away from us. I experimented with trying a few different shots looking through the rushes, but can't quite make up my mind whether I like the results or not. No doubt I'll be back again soon for another go.

If only we'd found a mole, we'd have almost a full house of characters for the Wind in the Willows!