Autumn comes to the Creek...

Down at the top of the creek this morning, there where the rain-swollen stream meets the rising tide, a kingfisher was fishing. It didn't see me approaching along the stream until I got within about five metres but then flew across to the far bank, calling quite loudly. As I could still hear it calling I stood quite still - even the d0g was being quiet behind me - and the bird came back to the same perch. It was a perfect photograph, silhouetted against the sun on the water. Unfortunately, by the time I had carefully eased the cameraphone out of the pocket and switched it on, the kingfisher had seen a fish, dived and was gone in a flash of blue over to the bank again.

It's not often I see kingfishers down there - they only seem to fish there just when the rising tide fills the creek and sweeps the little fishes up towards the mouth of the stream, and although it is my normal morning destination it doesn't often coincide with fishing hour. Today I also saw a sandpiper - a sign that winter is on its way - and a couple of jays, as well as the usual gang of blackheaded gulls in winter white. And having remarked to a friend a couple of weeks ago that it seemed the grey wagtails which used to nest by the little bridge seemed to have moved on this year, I've seen at least one every day for the last week!

In the garden, too, the balance of feathered visitors is changing with the season. The largest group now is the goldfinches, who often arrive ten or twelve strong and quarrel loudly and aerobatically over the niger seed feeder. The 'losers' aren't that bothered, though - they just move over to the 'normal' seed feeders and fill up from them. On the other hand, the sparrows, who keep together in a group through the whole of the spring and summer, split up and go their separate ways more at this time of the year. They still visit the garden, of course, but one or two at a time rather than in a flock. The largest number I've counted this year - about when the second brood was fledged and independent - was between thirty and forty strong. (They just won't keep still to be counted accurately!) Now, as well, the blue tits, chaffinches and great tits are reforming their loose winter flocks and including the garden on their daily patrols. In the summer they stay in the trees in the coombe, mostly.

There has been so much rain lately that all the winter springs have suddenly started flowing again in the coombe. Because the sides are so steep, it's not unusual for trees to fall occasionally, and we've lost two in the last week. A substantial young oak fell and blocked the path on the north side completely until the Council came and cleared it. They've left the fallen tree; just sawn through the trunk and branches which were blocking the path. On the other side, up at the top, a rather foolish badger had dug a new sett in the summer. At the edge of the path and under the roots of an alder, it was already beginning to undermine the path itself - my walking stick went through into a tunnel only last week - and now the tree has gone, down into the valley. I suspect it to have been a young one setting up home for the first time, and it will either start again in a better place or perhaps move in to one of the three big setts. The tree itself probably won't die, either - when they fall down the slope like that, with some roots still in the ground, they usually resurrect themselves. I hope so, anyway.

Across the seas to Lundy

Lundy Island sits in the middle of the Bristol Channel. It's had a chequered history, having been owned by, among others, in the thirteenth century a gentleman who plotted against his king, lived by piracy and was eventually hanged, drawn and quartered, in the eighteenth century by a corrupt MP who got a contract to transport criminals to America but took them to Lundy and used them as personal slaves, and in the nineteenth by a gentleman whose life's ambition was to build a church. Long (3.5 miles) and thin (half a mile) it also presents a hazard to shipping and boasts three lighthouses, one at each end (working) and one right on the top (abandoned because it was too often above cloud level).

Before yesterday all I could have told you about Lundy would have been where it is and that is has puffins. That's what we went for, basically, looking for puffins, but what we got was much, much more. It's a long way, too, from here to Bideford - a two hour drive - for the 7.30am boat ride, so the adventure got extended to an overnight in Barnstaple beforehand. Four of us set out from Plymouth on Monday evening, arriving in Barnstaple in time to have a very pleasant and reasonably priced meal in a lovely old place called The Cedars, which sadly was closing for refurbishment almost immediately afterward. And an early night for a 6.00am start for Lundy!

The weather's been settled, hot and sunny, for weeks now - it has become my habit to cover my face with factor 50 sunblock straight after my morning shower - but the forecast for Tuesday was a little uncertain. There was nothing uncertain, however, about the downpour which woke me just after 3.00am. And it was certainly still raining when we got up at 6. Still, we'd come all this way to visit Lundy, so I turned my sunhat inside out, put on all the layers of clothes I'd brought and off we went.

The Oldenburg makes regular trips from Bideford to Lundy. It takes supplies, passengers, post, everything. Assembled on the quay yesterday morning in the pouring rain were 262 souls, all a little dejected. Most, like us, were taking a day trip, a few would be staying in the holiday accommodation on the island. The other members of our group consisted of two from Exeter who had driven down in the morning and a family of five from Salisbury who had only arrived back in England from Sri Lanka the day before and were a little jetlagged, to put it mildly. We all filed on to the boat. Due to the inclemency of the weather, the interior accommodation was very quickly bagged by the people at the front of the queue and four of us found ourselves squashed on a bench for three outside by the aft gangway, sitting on a wet wooden bench in the wet air.

And we were off. The captain announced the sea state was 'slight' by which it quickly transpired he meant slightly choppy. A young crew member spent the whole two hour journey walking round solicitously dispensing sick bags. Our small corner of the deck quickly became even more crowded with unhappy clingers to the rails. On the plus side, it stopped raining, and there were bacon sandwiches to be had. A bacon sandwich, I always find, helps in a choppy sea. We reached our destination just after ten. As we arrived the captain announced that a (voluntary) round-the-island trip would be available in the afternoon before the scheduled departure back to Bideford - I didn't see much enthusiasm for the idea.

Our whole trip had been organised around the availability of our own personal guide to the island, and he was waiting for us on the quay. He was brilliant as a guide, was Simon, both knowledgeable and enthusiastic about all aspects of the island, its past, present and future prospects, the wildlife (puffins and other birds) and the introduced life (sika deer, soay sheep). After some brief introductions and a quick check on preferences as to what we'd like to see, off we set.

It's in the nature of islands, particularly small ones, that one arrives at the bottom and all the interesting bits are at the top. Four hundred feet up, to be precise, which was a bit of a challenge, but I got there. It helped that it was in short stages with stops for explanations. At the first stop, only fifty feet up or so (Trinity House landing stage) I was happy to get rid of the waterproof and fleece I'd started the day in, by the time we got to the Village (about two thirds of the way up) my sunhat was back the right way out, but I waited rather too long to get the anti-sun applied and went a bit pink in places by the end of the day - so did almost everybody else!

In the village there's a pub/tea room and a shop, and a mini museum which consists of wallboards with highlights of the island's history and a small display case in the middle. On top of the display case is a stuffed gannet in a glass case. I like gannets, but when I later enquired whether we would see any I was told that they don't nest on the island any more. I wonder whether this is in solidarity with their poor motheaten brother in the glass cage.

Upward and onward from the village to the central plateau of cultivated fields. As we passed through a gate there were a small herd of sika deer (a stag and a dozen or so hinds and young ones) posing beautifully on the skyline. They were far enough away to be unworried by us, but close enough for inspection through binoculars and photographs. Eventually they wandered off, down to a fence which they leapt in turn into an area of bracken and bushes. We went on through fields of sheep to a more open moorland area where there were Lundy ponies. These were originally a cross between New Forest ponies and a Welsh Mountain stallion but are now classed as a breed on their own. Tall for ponies, quite elegant, with beautiful gold or copper coloured coats.

By now we had crossed to the cliffs on the west side of the island and our guide took us to a clifftop where we had our picnic lunch and puffin watch. I must admit that given the amount of fuss they make about the puffins - almost every item in the shop was puffin branded, for example - I was expecting a large colony. Our guide explained that the colony had almost been wiped out by black rats, and was only just now recovering after the eradication of the rats. There are appoximately fifty birds, with about ten active nests, that's all. But they posed for us nicely on the other side of a little cove, halfway up a cliff. There were other birds on the cliff as well, guillemots and razorbills and a few gulls, but the puffins were the prize.

It's interesting that everybody present accepted the need to get rid of the rats to preserve the puffins without demur. When I mention to people that my nephew in New Zealand is working on the eradication of hedgehogs from his islands they are usually horrified. But the hedgehog in New Zealand is just as much of an introduced pest destroying the native wildlife as the black rat was on Lundy, surely?

After lunch we walked back inland, across moorland full of wheatears, skylarks and chocolate brown soay sheep, up to the original lighthouse on the very highest point. Built in 1819, designed by the same man who created Dartmoor prison, it wasn't a great success because it was too often invisible due to fog or low cloud. It makes a great vantage point, though; the one member of our party who made it to the top claimed he could see America! From there it was time to descend a little way back to the village for a most welcome tea break in the welcoming Marisco Tavern, which had a generous library of reference works, bird and wild flower field guides, and I amused myself by identifying an unknown pink flower we had come across as Centuary, one I'd not met before. One or two of our party opted for the trip round the island (they saw seals!) but most of us stayed on land, checking out the church and the castle, looking down on the South Lighthouse (unreachable from where we were) and generally wandering about until it was time to go home.

There was no sign of the sick bag dispenser on the way home; an altogether much more peaceful crossing. I did see one gannet and a few cormorants but, alas, no exotic marine creatures at all - I'd hoped for a basking shark or two. Altogether it was a memorable and thoroughly enjoyable day. The weather was kinder to us than we had anticipated, the deer and the puffins posed nicely, the island lived up to expectations. But it would not have been anywhere near as good a day without our guide. On the cliffs we met quite a few disappointed walkers who hadn't seen a single puffin, mostly because they didn't know where to look. Simon took the time to steer all of them in the right direction, as well as treating us to a proper display. But there was a lot more to the trip and the island than just bird watching, and it was thanks to him that we were able to get so much out of it.

I'd love to go again, I'd love to stay and explore Lundy properly. Unfortunately, however, the one strict rule they have there is that dogs are forbidden. And a day trip is about as much as I can manage without my dog. Or my man, come to think of it...

Avian eating habits

It's always exciting when a non-sparrow comes to eat in my garden. Bluetits, great tits and longtailed tits, chaffinches, goldfinches, blackbirds and starlings all pass by fairly regularly, and I still have my (hopefully) resident robin and wren, but it's the sparrows that come in the greatest numbers and most frequently.
At this time of year the fat balls are probably the most popular food on offer, but as those nylon nets they come in seem to me to be nothing but claw traps I have a special container for them. It's about the same size and shape as the traditional peanut feeder, but made of a much larger mesh - big enough for the sparrows to get their whole heads through. It also makes the fat balls accessible to larger birds such as starlings, which love them, especially as I have modified the original feeder by fixing a substantial twig across the bottom for birds to perch on.
Sparrows attack with gusto, frequently dropping bits, concerned to get in first and eat as much as possible as fast as possible. And three or four starlings in a concerted feeding frenzy can (and do) demolish a whole new fat ball in just over an hour. The feeding behaviour of this afternoon's new visitor appeared very strange by comparison.
A blackcap. A beautiful slim bird in shades of grey, almost blue on the breast, with a neat black crown, the first I've seen in my garden. Perching on the fat ball feeder, quietly enjoying a snack.
So what was strange about that? As it was feeding, every so often a crumb would fall onto the hebe about four or five inches below. And the blackcap would swing upside down on the perch, stretch out and very delicately retrieve it. The most elegant, fastidious eater it has been my privilege to watch from my kitchen window. I just hope it returns and that the sparrows learn some manners by example!

Wrens and Robins, Sparrows and Snow

So it's winter. A winter rather more severe than has been usual of late. It's been a bit late getting to us here in Saltash. There was dry snow on dry roads yesterday morning which didn't cause too much difficulty so I went into Liskeard to the resource centre as usual, but by 12 it was snowing again - big, wet, flakes - so I made an executive decision to close early and go home. By the time I got home the snow had turned to rain and disappeared altogether. Nice afternoon, just not quite nice enough to dry everything up before it all froze as soon as darkness fell. And then it snowed. The dog and I went out for a last midnight walk on a thin crunchy layer of 'proper' winteriness, owls hooting in the distance, crisply peaceful, pleasantly cold and still.

By morning there must have been almost an inch of snow. However, from shortly before dawn until slightly too late to go to work or school there were blizzard conditions and the world came to a halt. By the time I took the dog down to the creek (10ish) it was starting to melt and again was almost gone by the time everything froze at dusk. Apart from walking up and down the coombe twice I've not been out at all; I would have gone to aquacise tonight, but the leisure centre had also made an executive decision to cancel all classes, so I couldn't even do that.

One of the bright sides of this weather is that it's giving me more birds to watch. A robin has recently created a 'territory' which encompasses my garden, the birches on the grass by the car park, and (I believe) one garden on the other side. I've seen and heard him several times, singing that 'keep away all you inferior birds' song, and he was singing his heart out from a birch branch at 8 this morning when I looked out of the kitchen window. Then he came down to the feeders for the first time. There was a certain amount of exploration and hesitation before he settled on fat balls for breakfast. Ten minutes later the sparrows started wandering over from the escallonia over by the community room where they roost, and were quite viciously driven away from the 'robin' food. Or at least when they came one at a time. By lunchtime they were all sharing quite happily with only the usual sparrow squabbles.

I am now certain that at least one wren has taken up residence in the rare red jasmine, which is, let's face it, the only thing around with proper cover. It's an amazing bush, as high as the fence, and spreading out like a small tree. In milder winters it will flower all through, but even with this icy weather it's hardly lost a leaf. If anything startles the birds on the feeders, a couple of dozen of them can disappear instantly into its bulk. And every day now for more than a week I've seen a wren hopping out for a stroll along the fence rail and a dip down to the garden. Today I watched one come out, hop down behind the pond, then I saw it come out on to the fence from the top of the jasmine again! So maybe there's more than one. I do hope so... Normally I feed the sparrows and that's it, but today I have also seen bluetits, chaffinches, starlings, blackbirds, great tits and longtailed tits and a thrush all in my patch. There was at one time a line of 24 blackheaded gulls all facing into the wind and snow on the ridge of Hugo's roof opposite (two actually had black heads) with a lone herring gull behind them.

It's now (10.30pm) freezing hard again but the sky is clear. I shall shortly go out for a slide. Thank goodness for sensible hiking boots and spiky sticks!

New Year Walk - Camel Trail

A nice long walk on New Year's Day is getting to be a bit of a tradition, but I can't remember ever having better weather for it. Last night, New Year's Eve, was a full moon in a clear sky and the first morning of the new decade dawned clear and cold. Serious car windscreen defrosting was required - there was even ice on the inside, something I've never had before - even at 10 o'clock when I was getting ready to leave. And lots of layers of clothes, of course. There had been talk of a packed lunch, but at 9am an executive decision was taken that it was probably too cold for a picnic.

Wadebridge to Padstow along the Camel Trail - former railway now cycle track - is five and a half miles, flat but not boring. On the way there the tide was out, and we saw lots of different birds. We met a man who was properly watching the birdlife with a telescope on a tripod. When we expressed an interest he let us have a look - I have never seen an egret in so much detail. There were curlews, lapwings, oystercatchers, gulls of all descriptions, egrets and herons, sandpipers, greenshanks, and many smaller waders I was unable to identify with the naked eye and my incomplete knowledge. The trail itself was much busier than I expected, thanks to the good weather. All three collies are pretty well cycle track trained now, but the new cocker spaniel hadn't quite got the hang of stopping and waiting for the bikes to start with. By the end of the day he was fine, though.

Padstow was manic, with queues outside all the pubs, cafes and restaurants. We really should have taken a packed lunch, but in the end we got fish and chips (very nice) and ate them sitting on a bench on the quay in the sunshine, with dunlins pretending to big sparrows and nicking what crumbs they could. Not to mention dogs pretending to be gannets...

New Year's Day is a traditional 'Darkie Day' in Padstow, when the locals have always blacked their faces, put tinsel round their hats and made music through the town. I'd heard that it had been banned for political correctness, but apparently not. Or not quite. The repertoire now seems to consist of instrumental versions of 'Scotland the Brave' and 'My Grandfather's Clock' rather than the more controversial traditional songs. And I overheard a lady with a north country accent telling her friends that the black faces 'were something to do with the miners'. No, love, it's tin we mine (or used to) round here, not coal.

Then it was that long haul back to Wadebridge through the increasingly cooler afternoon. The tide was rushing in and many of the waders had moved along a bit, flocking here and there on a mudspit or the shore. Having been so pleased to spot a couple of individual lapwings earlier, I was really happy to see a big flock of them flying round before presumably settling down for the night. As we got nearly back to Wadebridge Ty did finally manage to sneak off for one quick swim and was quite unhappy that I wouldn't let him stay longer. The truth was, however, that on leaving Padstow for the return trip I had detected a certain unhappiness in my feet, and it got worse as we went along. I didn't dare stop for too long, for fear I'd be unable to carry on...

We got back to Wadebridge just as the sun was setting, 4.30ish. It had been a beautiful day and a wonderful way to start this new year, but I must confess that I was quite glad to stop. By the time I got home after an hour's driving my feet did not want to put themselves down, and when I took my boots off I found out why - my socks had worn completely through. They were only cheap kiddies' socks from the pound shop with pictures of huggy bears or something on, and I've probably been using them a couple of years, so I deserved to suffer. New socks tomorrow!

Seagull vs Crow and other birds

Nobody likes seagulls. In general they are loud, bold, intelligent, omnivorous, ubiquitous... and they do, I must admit, tend to make a nuisance of themselves in urban settings. Circumstances being what they are in the modern world, however, one can hardly blame the gulls for utilising the roofs of houses for look-out posts now that there are very few unoccupied cliffs.

Round here there are almost always rows of gulls perched on the rooftops, mostly blackheaded gulls with a few larger herring gulls among them. Early this morning - beautifully clear and dry but very cold - I watched as a whole row or eleven or twelve gulls were evicted from their rooftop by one single crow. It squawked, chased and chivvied them, not hesitating to nip at the tail feathers of the slowest to move, until, satisfied that it had the whole terrace of houses to itself, it perched on top of the highest TV aerial in sight and preened itself, croaking gently in pride in a job well done. Many times I've watched birds being mobbed by other species of birds, for all sorts of reasons, but never before have I seen a whole flock routed by one individual, slightly smaller if anything, bird.

The cold weather is making the sparrows much bolder, too. They are getting through a fat ball every two or three days, and they no longer move when anyone walks up or down the steps by the fence. All the birds visiting the garden seem less shy, but it's probably just that they are hungrier. The jackdaws who clamber over the roofs acting as moss removers have also removed all the moss I carefully planted round the edge of my precious pond. I shan't replace it now until the spring...

Windowgazing

Three times in the last four days I have seen an unknown bird hopping happily along my back fence. Like a grey robin, with just a hint of darker edges to the wings and reddish tail. Inspection of several bird books, the RSPB website, Google images etc have convinced me that she is a female Black Redstart, apparently not that unusual round here on migration, although they definitely breed much further north and winter much further south than Cornwall. I've carefully studied pictures of the male of the species in the hope that he too may be passing by my garden, but so far it would seem not. Just the one solitary female, but happy enough to stay a while with me.

Also happily bobbing along the fence the other day was a wren. Back and forth, then running along the horizontal rail, disappearing into the red jasmine, out the other side, back again... This is the first wren I've ever seen in my garden - there are lots in the coombe, but I'm surprised one has ventured three whole rows of houses uphill! That red jasmine would be an ideal place for a wren's nest or three - maybe in the spring...

I've been doing rather more birdgazing out of the kitchen window than usual over the last few days because I caught a cold. Actually Ron and I both started snuffling and sneezing more or less simultaneously last Wednesday evening and have generally gone downhill (and back up again) since then. Ironically enough, we were due for flu jabs on Saturday morning but were deemed too ill to have them, so will have to wait another month for the next flu jab clinic.

This is the first cold I've had for almost two years but of course it developed rapidly into a minor pulmonary crisis. A small salutary reminder of one's mortality every now and then isn't necessarily a bad thing; after a night where there were doubts as to whether the next breath was actually going to happen, a morning of wrens and redstarts, sparrows, starlings, even some sunshine, reinforces the fact that still being alive is, well, quite an achievement really.

Things with wings

I walked into the kitchen yesterday morning and there they were, a whole flock of them – great tits, blue tits, coal tits, chaffinches – dancing between the birch trees, swooping down to the feeders, back to the fence, back up to the trees... It’s a sign of approaching autumn when they group together like this, and there were fifty or more in this flock, the first such visitation of the year. Unlike the sparrows they take turns, playing follow my leader round and round, tree, tree, fence, tree, fence, feeder, fence, tree... All of them bright and shining with new feathers in the Late Summer Bank Holiday drizzle. What had I gone to the kitchen for? I’m afraid it was forgotten in the whirring, whistling, chirping exuberance of the display.
The phone rang, I went to answer it, and when I returned less than five minutes later it was as if they had never been, all was quiet and still apart from the few sparrows who had come over from Sparrow Central in the Escallonia hedge just to remind all comers that they had first dibs on this particular feeding station.
This flocking behaviour is a sure sign that the birds’ breeding season is over and autumn is on the way, as if one couldn’t already tell from the proliferation of blackberries, elderberries, hips, haws, sloes, etc in the hedgerows. Trees are still in full green leaf and the woods are as green as they ever get, but there’s still the feeling that the season will be turning any moment. The weather doesn’t help, of course – autumnal drizzle leads to autumnal thoughts and behaviour.

Another sign of autumn, so they tell me, is that wasps start to take an interest in beer and jam and that sort of thing. When I got to the Copley after walking through the valley with Ty in the drizzle in the afternoon, the gang was there on the terrace under the big umbrella, having a lovely time as usual, plus a couple of visitors and a wasp. Visitor from Midlands took delight in destroying said wasp by drowning it in J2O. Another wasp wandered in and was swatted with a menu. Yet another tried his luck – swatting AND drowning. This went on all afternoon and quite spoiled the day for me. Watching a man in his sixties take a delight in murdering things that weren’t doing him any harm or posing any threat, time after time, by methods as cruel as he could think of, was quite depressing. The wasps kept coming, though, one at a time - I wonder if they can sense that a sister is in trouble?
I can understand and accept that wasps’ nests occasionally have to be humanely destroyed if constructed in a place which clashes with human activity. It’s sad, but it’s life. This was something else altogether. He also mentioned casually in passing that the most stings he had ever had was 25. Why? He’d been digging out a nest to take the grubs as fishing bait. Serves him right, say I. Not out loud, though; he’s a very good friend of a very good friend and it was too trivial a matter to argue about, although it won’t be forgotten.

I do like to be beside the seaside

It was perfect picture postcard seaside weather on Sunday, warm, sunny, just enough breeze to make it bearable...
Our walk, for walking was the purpose of the trip, started at Bigbury-on-Sea, just a few miles east of Plymouth, famous mostly for having an almost island, Burgh Island, accessible along a causeway of perfect picture postcard golden seaside sand. We briefly admired the island, the causeway and the people enjoying the beach from above in the (pricey) car park before turning our backs on all that and trekking uphill and inland, climbing high above the Avon but following its path for a while. At the top of the hill we looped westwards through the village of Ringmore and back to the coast at Toby's Point. A magnificent look-out point this, with Burgh Island to the left and views all the way to Wembury at the entrance to Plymouth Sound to the right. From there we walked down through Challaborough, a small town of holiday caravans with its own shops and a more or less private beach, and back up and over to Bigbury again. About four miles in total.
I was once more extremely impressed by the standard of waymarking of the paths we followed and slightly surprised at the absence of any other walkers on the inland part of our route. South Hams council do seem to keep their public footpaths in better repair than most. Part of our walk was SW Coast Path, but not all of it, by any means.
The two most interesting bits of wildlife, oddly enough, were both right at the end of the walk, on the very busy path between Challaborough and Bigbury. I heard a peregrine falcon, looked up, and saw a buzzard. Strange! Then I saw that the buzzard was being buzzed by a pair of peregrines, who were flying up above it and divebombing it, while the buzzard flapped slowly round in circles. This is not behaviour I've seen before. Then, moments later, my eye was caught by a couple of scabious flowers which were being visited by three red and black variable burnet moths each (and one had a bumble bee as well). There were plenty of other scabious flowers around, but only these two seemed to be of interest. I thought perhaps the flowers only produce nectar for part of their flowering cycle, like gorse does, but they have such a short season that it would surely be counter productive.
Anyway, there it was, lunchtime, high tide, and the only pub on Burgh Island. Out of reach? No, not at all. There is a sea tractor which plies its way from Island to shore (about 200 metres) at high tide for those who do not wish to get their feet wet (and have £2 to spare) but with neap tides and a gentle sea there was only a matter of ten metres of ankle deep water to cross at the Island end to get to the pub, so we walked and paddled it. The pub is famous, apparently, for being a favourite of Agatha Christie, but I was somewhat disappointed in it. They know they have to cater for summer visitors, but they don't want to and do it with extreme ill grace. Half the pub is out of bounds to visitors; in the other half strangers who have braved the tide are allowed to queue (out of the door) for an overpriced drink and a choice of overpriced tired baguettes and sit on the non reserved benches outside in full sun to consume them, while the shady outdoor tables are reserved for 'proper' customers, of which there were none.
The island is privately owned, so I suppose one should be grateful for being allowed to step on to it at all. There is a path up to the top and back and after lunch my companions wandered up there, but I didn't bother. And another disappointment - two of my friends were determined to try to sea tractor to go back, but the tide had gone out again and it had stopped running by the time we were ready to leave. I paddled all the way back along the eastern side of the causeway, just so that I can say I have actually been in the sea (up to my knees anyway) this year, and Ty swam.
So there it was, our day beside the proper seaside. Enjoyable, as long as one can avoid actually sitting on a beach!

Nature Notes (assorted)

Here we are at the beginning of August. It's raining, which seems to be pretty much the norm for British summer weather. Nothing spectacular is happening, but I've seen lots of little things in the last few days which I don't want to forget...

Yesterday, 2nd August, I saw a moorhen chick which couldn't have been more than a day or two old. This was on the Dragonfly Pond in Seaton Country Park, which is pretty well covered with waterlilies this time of year, making it ideal moorhen territory. I also saw three adults and three full grown juveniles. The little one was being assiduously cared for, but only by one parent. There were five juvenile mallards in a group, as well. No sign of any dragonflies...

At home there are a fair number of baby sparrows sitting on the back fence and begging again. These must be the second or possibly even third brood of the year. There aren't nearly as many of them about as last year, however. I haven't seen more than about 20 at a time, parents and offspring, while on one occasion last year there were more than 100 in a single flock on my tiny patch.

Having devoured and no doubt relished my entire blueberry crop, the marauding gang of mixed tits and finches has now moved on to rowans. There are a dozen rowan trees around and about, all presumably planted when these houses were built. Every year they ripen in the same order over about six weeks - the first tree is feeding the birds now, while on another just along the road the berries haven't even started changing colour. The fact that the birds are now back in a flock shows that the breeding season is over for them, although there are still some fairly immature looking bluetits about.

Out of the window, right now - seven juvenile blackbirds, daddy and baby chaffinch on the fence with the rest of the family in the trees, one baby sparrow who is perching under one of the seed feeders with his mouth open (apparently quite an effective way to get fed) 13 other sparrows, lots of goldfinches in the silver birches, black headed gulls who've gone grey... Just arrived, a greenfinch and two baby bluetits. One of them is picking seeds out of the fat ball and spitting them out, which seems a little ungrateful.

Blackberries are ripe and are already being eaten. Again, like the rowans, there are places where they ripen earlier than others, but we know where to go... There's a pink early-flowering clematis on Henry's fence which is coming into flower again. Out of 12 nasturtium seeds I planted, only two have germinated, but they seem to be taking over the whole garden.

I saw my very first mole yesterday. It was dead, unfortunately, although only recently and seemingly non violently. It just seemed to be asleep at the side of a path through the woods in Seaton Valley - not at all what I would have considered mole country. Good to have the opportunity to study it (but not too closely!), sad that it had to die first.

In the Coombe, this morning, suddenly a fairy ring! Well, a fairy semicircle to one side of the path, to be precise, but the right shape and about four feet across. They looked just like the button mushrooms you see in the supermarket, but I doubt if they are, and I'm not hungry enough to take a chance on it.

I think that's about it for the nature notes, for now.

Feathered Felons, or "B****y Birds!"

I am a friend to birds. My little back yard has two bird seed feeders, fat balls, peanuts, home made wholemeal breadcrumbs, and a separate covered bird table for the shy little ones. I keep them all topped up at all times, and make sure they have a bowl of clean water. I am even cultivating (or deliberately chose not to weed out) a teasel which is now over seven feet tall and bears 19 flower heads, just so the goldfinches will have somewhere nice to come this winter. Mostly I am visited by sparrows, but there are many others as well. Lots of juvenile blackbirds at the moment, for example.

What with the gravel patch where the rotary clothes line goes and the vertical scree around the edges there's not much room in my garden for 'real' plants, especially edible ones, but I do have two blueberries, two strawberries and a tomato in pots. I've been eagerly watching my small crop of blueberries swell and ripen since early March. Two days ago they were almost ripe, bluish but not quite the colour they are in the supermarket. Yesterday it rained all day and the garden was full of birds. Today the sun is shining, there isn't a bird in sight and my blueberries are gone! And the first and biggest tomato, which was just beginning to change colour, is on the gravel, neatly hollowed out. I must confess to a certain disappointment. In hindsight, however, I suppose it was inevitable - they are encouraged to eat everything else, why would the blueberries be any different? Is it worth trying to save the four on one plant and two on the other, yet unripe, they left me? No, not now. Next year, netting. Maybe.

First Fledglings

I heard them first, of course, such loud noises for such tiny creatures. Just before half past eight, a sunny, windy morning, and I was taking Ty out. There they were, right on edge of the coombe, a nestful of wrens trying their wings for the first time. I counted seven in sight at once, though there were probably more. Three of them landed on a tree trunk just in front of me; two went off to the sides, the third came to a branch within two feet of my eyes and stayed there for more than a minute. I've never been that close for that long to a wren before, so close I could count the spots on those new shiny feathers. I didn't realise they fledged with such short tails - there is nothing there to take away the roundness of the outline.

Our local Lidl was advertising folding wooden garden chairs this week, available from Thursday. On Tuesday, or thereabouts, I showed the picture to Ron and we decided we'd have a couple. Yesterday (Friday) I went to get some - and discovered that they had sold out within a couple of hours of the shop opening on Thursday morning! They did, however, have some of the rather more substantial (and more expensive) folding armchairs, so I got one of those instead.

It's really too big for our 'garden' - I'm fairly certain I won't be able to use it when the rotary clothes dryer is opened out - but very comfortable, and I tested it for an hour yesterday afternoon with a cup of tea and a good book. If we have a summer (and it seems as if it may happen, judging by this week anyway) I am prepared. Next project is to get a laptop, after which I may well move outdoors altogether...

Tide out, tide in

It is always a pleasure to go down to the Creek. And often an unexpected pleasure, as it is impossible to see whether the tide is in or out, and what's there, until you cross the bridge and go down a narrow overgrown footpath beside the stream to where it suddenly opens out into a panorama framed by the railway viaduct.

This morning, a flock of upwards of two dozen house martins. Circling round and round, always gliding in to the same favoured bit of damp mud before taking off again. I hadn't seen them since this time last year, and I don't know whether they nest somewhere around here or are just passing through, although the mud testing seems to suggest they are thinking about settling.

When we lived in Spain our apartment block - and several others around the square - had big overhanging concrete porches supported by concrete columns, and it seemed that every corner had a martins' nest in it. They seem totally unfazed by the presence of people, cars, animals, noise, pollution...

The tide was right out this morning, but yesterday afternoon it was different. I'd somehow managed to acquire an extra dog on the way through the Coombe (well Ty and gone and charmed Marjorie into a nice heap of cookies, so it seemed only polite to take Tilly on our walk). She's not the most obedient of dogs, and she flew over the road and down the path to the creek faster than I could see that it was full of water and covered with swans (and Gordon the Goose, of course). By the time Ty and I had walked sedately to the water's edge she was in it, standing there staring at me in exactly the same way as Jake does. Not swimming, in fact refusing to swim when a stick is thrown, but wanting the stick to be thrown anyway.

I wasn't bothered about the swans as they were all the adolescent gang from the Waterside, well used to dogs and not protecting cygnets, although from the way Gordon bullies them I wouldn't put it past him to pick a fight with a collie. Anyway, as Tilly was in the water I had to let Ty go for a swim as well. Very noisy he was too, which got the swans all milling around staring at him from a safe distance of about ten feet away. And appeared to amuse the audience I eventually realised we had, standing in their garden looking down on us. I suppose they had been admiring the wildlife before the mad dogs and wild lady arrived...

On the way back I saw the first dog roses of the year in flower, and also suddenly a lot of brambles. Summer now seems to be well and truly here - all we need now is the weather to go with it.

Egyptian Geese

The Egyptian Goose is neither a goose nor from Egypt. It's not very British, not a native, but this afternoon there were a pair of them paddling up the river Avon (not 'that' Avon, either, but the one in the South Hams). They very obligingly came out of the water and posed for photographs, too.

We were looking at a boat for sale moored on the Avon near Aveton Gifford, out towards Kingsbridge. Ron was clambering all over it and I was watching swallows swooping down for mud for nest building when these strange birds suddenly appeared. They are actually shelduck, not geese, and only the second pair I have ever seen - the last time was in Holland on the Markermeer in 2002.

So why is there no photograph accompanying these words? Ah, well...

Last week I acquired a new printer through Freecycle. A rather posh one, all singing, all dancing, photos and faxes and scanning and everything. With card slots so that I could get the pictures from my outmoded digital camera - so old there's no software for it any more - actually on to the computer. Or so I thought. When we got home from our expedition I was keen to admire my wildlife shots (and some pictures of the boat). Unfortunately, however, the printer is so new that it doesn't accept the old photo card. Ebay will sell me a card reader for £6.95, thank you very much, and when it arrives I'll have something to try it out on.

This totally outmoded camera is probably less than ten years old. It takes very good photographs, and I don't see why I should replace it, but I may have to if I can't get it to work. Time was when good quality equipment lasted, now it's not supposed to...

May is Out...

...or at least there are flowers on one particular Hawthorn, a red flowered tree in Kings Road, Plymouth, which always seems to be a few weeks in advance of the rest. People are casting clouts all over the place - the sun is shining, true, but the wind's still cold and the temperature in no way justifies the shorts and suntops I am seeing all over the place. The nearest I will get to 'summer' clothes for a while is the replacement of the woolly hat by a cotton one and a slightly thinner fleece!

The last few days have been wonderfully springlike. Every day there is more and more evidence of the changing season - that Hawthorn is a case in point, but it is happening everywhere. This year, as so often before, I promised myself that I would faithfully record the 'firsts' of spring, but as usual much of it has got away from me and caught me by surprise. There are bluebells now on the sunnier hedgebanks, although not yet in the woods. The hedges are white with blackthorn blossom, gardens pink with flowering cherries. The smallest wild cherry in the coombe, not much taller than I am, is already in bloom, as is the despised cherry laurel. Primroses, celandines, violets, campion, are all competing with the ramsons for ground space among the trees. Cuckoo-pint has come up overnight, seemingly.

One 'first' this afternoon - the first lizard I have seen in the wild in England. A male common lizard walked across the path in front of me in Seaton Valley and I was able to follow its movements for quite a while through the undergrowth. It can only recently have come out of hibernation.

It's almost midnight, and there has just been some consideable commotion outside in the coombe. First a jackdaw started chattering and scolding, then a female tawny owl screeched back. The jackdaw and the owl argued for a minute or two (I guess the owl woke the jackdaw up, rather than the other way round). Now the male and female owls are calling to each other up and down the coombe.

I don't know where the sparrows are nesting this year - not in the escallonia, or at least not yet, and not in the eaves and soffits of the empty house in Frobisher Drive because it isn't empty any more and it's all been repaired. They still seem to be going round in groups at the moment, although most of the other birds I see are courting or fighting. Blackbirds are being particularly aggressive at the moment. I keep seeing one blackbird which is brown but with a bright orange beak - is it male or female? No clue in any of my books...

What a beautiful day for a walk! We started from Polkerris today and did a round trip, following a bit of The Saints Way to Ready Money Cove, where we had a picnic on the beach, then back along the coast path by way of St Catherine's Castle and the DayMark at Gribbin Head to where we started from. A long walk - we took about five hours to do the 7 or 8 miles, but it was far too nice to hurry.

The first (and shorter/easier) half of the walk is mostly through farmland along the Saints Way. After a steep climb to begin with it was fairly easy walking, well trodden and well signposted. On the way we passed a small herd of Large Black pigs, as black as their name with muddy highlights and long floppy ears. One or two of the younger ones were curious and came over to touch noses with the equally curious dogs. By the time we got down to the delightful Ready Money Cove with its turreted shelter we were ready for lunch, parked on the rocks in the sun. The dogs went straight to the water and did their various usual things. Ty swam loudly round in circles, Jake stood in the water with his head on one side, patiently waiting for someone to throw something, Meg raced madly up and down the surf line. As usual, they attracted playmates. We watched Ty patiently lure one woman from the top of the beach to the waterline with a heavy piece of driftwood which was quite unsuitable for throwing. Still, he persuaded her to throw it and patiently corrected her every time she threw it away from the water until finally he had her with her boots off paddling and correctly throwing the log into the water for him.

Back on the trail there's a steep climb (naturally) up from the cove to St Catherine's Castle, part of the Henry VIII's coastal fortifications against the French, now ruined but with lovely views. Past there it got very breezy with the wind in our faces along the cliffs. We heard our first skylark of the year. Five minutes later we could hear half a dozen all round us. Another steep down, this time to Polridmouth, where there is a rather odd obviously man made lake (three mallard and a swan) and a bit of concrete wall passing it with stepping stones. Odd enough for me to have googled it. It appears that the lake was built as a decoy for Fowey during WWII!

Up again, down again, up again, up a bit more on to Gribbin Head, where the DayMark tower was locked so Bob couldn't climb to the top. Shame. I had no intention of trying, me. I was quite high enough up already, thank you. From there it's cliff top all the way, very narrow and very close to the edge in places, but fairly flattish until you get back to the steep bit through the woods back down to Polkerris. And now that I'm home I see (and feel) that my face has gone a delightful shade of salmon pink.

Lapwings

I saw a couple of lapwings at Churchtown this afternoon, in the field where horses graze between the green lane and the cemetery. This is the first time I have ever seen lapwings in Cornwall, and was a great surprise. I wonder whether they are merely passing through, or looking for somewhere to settle.

When I lived on Harris the lapwings were a constant presence day and night - if you couldn't hear them you could see them - and in the nesting season were quite aggressive if you walked near a nest. The only place I have seen them in quantity since them was up at Strensham in the fields there. I thought they only liked flat grassland or arable fields, and that Cornwall would have been too hilly, but the girl I was talking to at Churchtown who also saw them said that she had been brought up in the Scillies and there were a lot of lapwings there.

While we were comparing notes on lapwings, Ty was haring round the fields with her two Borzois. One of them is quite young, although many times Ty's size, and it was comical to watch him being all submissive and puppyish. Ty, unusually for him, was quite happy to play too.

Ice in the Creek

The Big Freeze seems to be over. Well, it was a big freeze for here, anyway, two nights and two days with the temperature below zero - the stream was frozen and the creek itself was full of ice. It's put paid to all the unseasonal flowering things; even the heliotrope looks all withered and unhappy. There's blackthorn in blossom up at Churchtown, though.

This afternoon almost all the ice had gone from the creek, and there were a dozen swans there, including two which still have brown plumage, presumably the ones I saw at Waterside. They were all milling about quite calmly until suddenly one of the brown ones ran across the surface of the water, wings flapping wildly. I thought he was attempting to take off but actually he was just eager to be first to the crumbs which the lady who lives overlooking the creek was throwing off her balcony on to the shore. The other young one used the same technique to get on shore, while all the rest paddled as usual. Ty and I decided that we didn't want to walk past them while they were hoovering up the bread so made a tactical withdrawl back up the coombe.

Back in the garden, today for the first time I have actually seen a bird using the fat ball feeder, which has been up there for six weeks or so. It was a young male sparrow, obviously a little more adventurous than the rest, as he is the only sparrow to use the peanut feeder, as well. The others will learn, though. The peanut feeder I put up on the silver birch is being used more and more by the little groups of mixed tits and finches that pass through. Very few of them come down to the feeders in the garden, especially when there are big groups of sparrows quarrelling over what's there.

Signs of Spring!?! (2)

Today is the Winter Solstice, viewed by some as the start of winter, by me as the turning of the year, with longer days to look forward to. It is NOT normally the date on which blackheaded gulls show off their newly moulted black heads to the girlies, but there was one such on the roof opposite this morning. Through the eyeglass it still looked a bit sparse, actually, but definitely all over his head, not just the usual winter spots.

New (to my garden) birds on the red jasmine this morning - either marsh tits or willow tits, I can't tell the difference. Two of them and I watched them for half an hour or so, exploring everywhere. Of course, it doesn't lose its leaves very much, so it's one of the bushiest bushes around at the moment. There are lots of sparrows, of course, up to a dozen at a time again, and they seem to be roosting in the escallonia where they have their nesting colony; I do hope they aren't planning on nesting already! Also this morning at the feeders I have had a coal tit (on seeds, not peanuts) two collared doves who landed on the feeder, had a look round and went away again, and Christmas Dinner, the crumb addicted wood pigeon. Tomorrow I shall substitute sage and onion stuffing mix for the breadcrumbs, and on Wednesday glue, ready for the pot!

One of things I wonder about is the fat balls. I have never seen any bird, of any species, eating them, although they are gradually going down, and there are little beak marks in evidence. I only put them up about three weeks ago, in a proper fat ball feeder cage. I did see sparrows vainly trying to hover and peck (not having the sense or the ability, perhaps, to cling on to the wire of the cage), so I have fixed a piece of twig across the bottom to make perches. This was about four days ago, but I've yet to see any evidence that they are being used. One sparrow likes peanuts and often goes to the peanut feeder, but sits on the perch at the bottom. Another odd thing is that when I look at varieties of bird seed not one is intended for sparrows, but that's what I've got, pretty well, so that's what I shall cater for.

Nature notes again

On Thursday last I took the dog to Latchbrook, where I noticed lots of snowdrops (plants, not flowers). Yesterday I saw some daffodil shoots in the garden (both front and back), so at least some of the 50 bulbs I put in are still alive so far. I was a bit worried, though, because I thought it was way too soon. This morning, however, I observe that there are also daffodil shoots in the coombe, and a few bluebell shoots coming through.

On our way to Churchtown yesterday afternoon we passed a field with some young cattle in it, about thirty or so not quite calves but not yet bullocks or heifers sized. The farmer had put down some feed for them and they were walking all over it. In among their legs an egret was prowling, quite unconcerned for the nearness of muddy hooves and tails, rooting for insects in the hay.