It has been a while, much has happened. The first of which is some sad news, our blackbird of up to eight years has disappeared. He was last seen continually fighting with another male, that male is about and is quite tame enough to come close to the house for meal worms, but THE Blackbird has not been seen for four weeks, I can only hope he will maybe turn up, but he and his partner of last year are missing.
The good news is that the Robins are still about and they are clearly getting ready for breeding with partners feeding the other. "Donald" is currently the tamer, coming to the back door, while the other keeps its distance, but as the breeding season hots up I am sure that will change.
It was because of the other regular that I went out at lunchtime, parking at the pond where there were some changes, probably as a result of the storms through the later part of the winter. This tree bough broken off and fallen in the pond itself.
On the water there were five pairs of Mallard, but it was on the bank, the sunny bank where there was activity of interest. The first Bee Flys of the year, nectaring on the Lesser Celandine.
Walking to the wood there were Brimstones flying past me, but as usual at this time of year they were not stopping, only teasing as they hovered around the celandines to check whether or not it could be a butterfly. The only other butterfly seen on the walk was a couple of Peacock, there was though a Small White in the garden as I set off.
Walking into the wood I was greeted by the song of several Chiffchaffs, but above these were the 'kronking' calls of Raven and above the wood were six Raven circling and calling to each other. Here are three of them close together.
As mentioned earlier the reason for coming today was to look out for another long term resident, the Tawny Owl. Unfortunately the tree was empty but there were positive signs in dropping down the trunk of the tree.
As I walked away from the Owl's tree I passed a clump of Holly where a Firecrest was singing. It soon became clear that there could be too and when one appeared it was evident they were not happy. The photographs taken were of one bird, I never actually saw the other. The full portfolio of the photographs are found on my
other blog, here is a selection of the gorgeous bird that has become a regular occurrence around the village.
As I left the wood a Nuthatch was calling rom a telegraph pole, interestingly the same telegraph pole Starlings were using as a nest.
A short but rewarding walk, hopefully I can catch up with the Tawny Owl soon.
