6.Kitchen sink drama

There have been times when, as a scene unfolds in front of me, I find it difficult to believe that what I am watching is not being stage-managed. Yet these dramas are often played out in the most mundane of circumstances. I shall never forget one particular drama that was acted out as I was washing the dishes during the particularly cold winter of 2009-10 – a kitchen sink drama if ever there was one.
As is so often the case, it started with a glimpse of movement. This time it was directly beneath the window, and once again my first guess, that it was a bird ducking underneath the small gate, was wrong. I leant forward to see what had distracted me from my chores (it doesn’t take very much) and was quite surprised to see that it was a stoat, struggling to make its way out of the drive towards the bridge. The reason for its exertions was shockingly clear – visible to the right of its head, which it held impossibly high, were the wings of a small bird, probably a chaffinch, still flapping desperately.
The stoat struggled on past the brambles on the river bank, and then lifted its front legs and its struggling captive onto the low wall that runs alongside the bridge. I knew there was no time to reach for my camera, so I shifted my position to see more clearly. What happened next took my breath away. Without warning a bird of prey, obviously attracted by the flapping of wings, dropped from above and covered the stoat with its own outstretched wings. It was a female sparrow hawk, a regular visitor to the garden, but by the time I had recognised her she was taking off again. Her talons were empty and the wall was bare. The only winner in this cruel drama was the stoat – it had disappeared into the cover of the brambles. The hawk went hungry, but the fate of the finch was much worse.
The whole episode had lasted no more than ten seconds, but what an experience! How many hours, days or even years would I have to sit with a camera to capture such a sequence of events? The lesson, of course, is ‘be vigilant’. Anyone interested in wildlife can be a witness to such events, as long as their eyes are open and not glued to the washing-up bowl or the television.

7.An overseas visitor

Watching wildlife is not all joy and excitement. There are moments of shock and sadness, too, yet even these moments contribute to the fascination. The death of one of ‘our’ adult barn owls meant there was to be no repeat of the owl watching experiences of the previous two years, but the presence of the surviving partner throughout the summer and autumn gave me hope that things would soon return to normal. As an optimist I had clung to the words of Matthew Twigg of the ‘Barn Owl Trust’: “a site that is attractive to one (pair of) Barn Owl(s) is likely to be attractive to the species as a whole, and there is always the chance that a similarly unpaired individual may be looking for a mate”.
The New Year repaid my optimism, and by early January 2010 we saw two barn owls entering and leaving the garage. A new mate had been found!
There was to be another sad sight, though, before the winter was over. After a particularly cold spell, I was tidying the garden in mid-January and took a look inside the garage – or rather an open out-building in which we could park the car if we ever cleared out all the junk. On the floor in the corner was the body of a bird - but not just any bird. This was a bird of prey, with a large, hooked beak and huge talons at the end of its long yellow legs. Viewed at a distance (and I had seen one on only three previous occasions), identification can be difficult, but this close it took me only seconds – it was a Peregrine Falcon, the fastest animal on Earth.
Its eyes were sunken, and it seemed to have very little flesh under its feathers. Around its left leg was an alloy ring with clear lettering. It identified the ring as having originated at the Zoological department of the University of Helsinki, in Finland. I checked the website and learnt that they would like the ring returned, together with information on where, when and how it had died. I weighed and photographed the body in the hope that this would help to determine its cause of death. It weighed just 450g, only about three quarters the minimum weight for an adult male.
This pointed to starvation as the cause of death, despite my first guess that it had pursued a bird into the garage at high speed and been unable to avoid a collision with the wall. I had quickly dismissed this possibility, given the incredible flying skill of a bird accustomed to hunting at up to 100 mph around cliffs and crags.
I received a reply several weeks later, and it confirmed my suspicions. The bird had been ringed in its nest in Lapland at the age of 4 weeks, just six months earlier, in July 2009. It had flown to Lincolnshire in search of better weather and a reliable food supply, a distance of more than 2000 km, yet it died weighing just 450 g – at four weeks it had weighed 705 g.
Occasionally, the death of other, less spectacular, birds has had a profound effect on me. This may be surprising given the enormous death toll on our roads – it is not possible to drive a mile without passing a dead bird or mammal, from pheasant to badger. I once paused on a bike ride to pick up a wren. It appeared completely undamaged, probably killed by its proximity to half a ton of metal travelling at 88 feet per second rather than a collision. In its beak, as intact as the wren, was a mayfly – obviously being carried lovingly to its chicks, noisily demanding food in a nest somewhere nearby. Its surviving partner would now have a real struggle to feed a brood of 5 or 6 hungry chicks – assuming they were lucky enough to have had two parents around in the first place.

8.A wake-up call

The cat was moving the curtains with her paw, letting in some of the early morning July sunlight. Being woken at 5.30 a.m. on a Sunday, even on a warm summer morning, was very unwelcome. We had both had busy weeks at work, and had spent most of Saturday working, and the nature of our wake-up call was worrying too. The last time we had experienced a feline alarm clock had been when a burglar had entered our house several years earlier, before we had escaped to the country.
I leapt out of bed and pulled back the curtains. It took a few seconds to realise that this time it was burglars of a different kind. Moving slowly along the drive in front of the house and squeezing past the car was a herd of cattle. In seconds they would reach the garden or the garage, neither a suitable place for several tonnes of prime beef.
In boxer shorts and flip-flops it took me less than half a minute to make it to the garden – they weren’t there. Around the outbuildings in another few seconds and I was face to face with the invaders. Half a dozen were exploring the garage and the others were in the drive, apparently waiting their turn. I startled them, but they made no move. I raised my arms, conscious of the need to avoid panic – there was no stampede, but enough of a rush to rock the car and remove the wing mirror in their efforts to pass through the narrow gap.
A call to the local stockman resolved the escapee problem very quickly, but the excitement was not yet over, and our early rise proved to be a positive experience after all. There was no chance of a lie-in now, so we settled in the conservatory with a cup of tea. Within minutes we had another visitor. Around the corner, glancing furtively from side to side was a small chestnut brown creature with short legs and white under parts – unmistakably a weasel, lacking the longer black-tipped tail of a stoat. It explored briefly, sniffing the doorstep and the plant pots and standing on its hind legs to sniff the air. Within seconds it was gone, back the way it had come.
As if the voles in our garden didn’t have enough problems, with resident barn owls and a cat that spent most of its time waiting for a vole to appear. Here was one of the most efficient killers in the British countryside - but it wasn’t hunting today. It returned a few seconds later with a playmate and they proceeded to entertain us with one of the most spectacular acrobatic displays I have ever seen. They leapt in the air in unison, appeared to dance exotically together, and for a few seconds they resembled a furry brown ball rolling across the patio. We were mesmerised, but again they were gone almost before we could catch our breath.
Being deprived of a lie-in on a Sunday morning was not so bad after all.

9.Humour

Excitement, pathos and heartbreak are all features of nature watching, but there have been moments of unbelievable humour, too – often to do with my own ‘bad bird watching’ credentials rather than any humour inherent in the natural world.
I had at last bought myself a new camera and a telephoto lens, determined to move my owl watching on to a new level, and turn all those missed opportunities into prize-winning pictures. I had been watching our resident barn owls all summer, but all I had to show for it were a couple of distant shots, taken with an old digital camera, of one of the parents perched on the roof. Now I had the new equipment, all I had to do was get close enough and I would be a contender for ‘Wildlife Photographer of the Year’.
How could I get close enough, though? When we were in the garden the owls used the front of the garage to gain access to their nest. I had seen Simon King and his portable hides, and decided to use my granddad’s old army blanket for the purpose. I settled down on the grass in the owls’ flight path, half in and half out of a shrub, covered myself in the blanket and rested my elbows on my knees, the lens protruding unobtrusively from the blanket. It was going to be a long evening, but I had the patience – it would be worth it.
After what seemed an age I could not understand why there had been no sign of the owls – my camouflage couldn’t be that bad. I shifted slightly to relieve my numb buttocks, and glanced towards the house to see if a cup of tea was on its way. Then I saw the cause of my failure. Sitting alongside me, staring along the line of sight of my lens, was Holly, our longhaired black and white cat. The vet had once, rather tactfully, described Holly as ‘built for comfort, not speed' and there she was, making no attempt to camouflage her far from insubstantial presence! She was as interested in the owls as I was, but for a very different reason – and I’m sure the owls were well aware of it.
One of the things I love about cats is that they are always a great source of humour. Holly’s build means that she has never caught a bird, and her only hunting success has been in exploiting the habit of field voles to use the same ‘runs’ at all times. Once she has found one she just lies in wait and the voles come to her. Not that she kills many – unlike our previous cat, Sooty, she is easily distracted by the offer of food, and her prey is usually able to make its escape.
Sooty, on the other hand, was a fearsome predator, and efforts to persuade her to release her unfortunate prey could go on for some time. She was a rather fastidious eater too, and, occasionally, her refusal to eat anything below the waist resulted in the bottom half of a mouse being left at the door – rather like a pair of mouse trousers.
One mouse, though, was determined not to end its life in this way. As soon as I spotted that she had caught something I shouted. It distracted her momentarily, but when she turned her attention back to the mouse, its refusal to play the role of victim resulted in it rearing up on its hind legs and adopting the stance of a prizefighter, waving its tiny paws and baring its teeth. That was my opening, and I scooped up the startled cat and shut her in the house. I approached the quivering little rodent carefully and reached out to help it to reach cover, but it could not distinguish between attacker and saviour, and reared up once again, ready to take on all comers. I must say, its courage was impressive.

10.At last!

At last, after 10 years it has happened. Twice in less than a week there has been a kingfisher, not just perched on the paving stones by the edge of the water beneath our bedroom window but actually fishing from them. What it caught was not particularly spectacular, but I have never seen such aggression meted out to such tiny prey.
I was becoming increasingly worried that our stretch of the river had been abandoned by both kingfisher and water vole as, for the first time since we moved here, we had seen neither all summer. This week I have seen a kingfisher every day, and on several occasions it has landed within view. I even saw two flying side by side over the water on one morning, and on what must rate as the most hectic few minutes in my history of river watching I saw a kingfisher perched on the gate, followed immediately by a cormorant wrestling with a large, bloodied fish. I was then amazed to see a squirrel hopping up the river bank as though he had just arrived by boat.
Kingfishers really are special British birds, with vibrant colours and fascinating habits and, although most people would recognize one, I suspect that relatively few people have actually seen one. My nephew Paul is a civil servant working at the heart of government in London but as a child he would sometimes join us on country walks in Lincolnshire. One of our favourite walks was along a disused railway track and around some fishing ponds near Donington-on-Bain and there was something of a family ritual about the way we would react to the sight of a kingfisher. One of us would spot the flash of iridescent turquoise over the water’s surface and a loud whisper would announce the sighting – “kingfisher!” Our twin daughters would then run ahead, desperate to see it again, frequently calling out that they had indeed seen it again.
Paul and his sister would always join in with this ritual when they were with us and I was pleased that we were able to share such a thrilling experience – it would be something to hang on to later in life during those endless meetings discussing pensions with his colleagues. But Paul had a guilty secret. More than twenty five years later, at a family occasion and at the age of 33, Paul owned up. Yes, he had joined his cousins in the kingfisher routine on several occasions, and yes, it had been fun – but no, he had never actually seen a kingfisher. He had always been very short-sighted but none of us had realized just how much this had limited his wildlife watching ability. Paul was the first one to receive a copy of the photograph I took this week from the bedroom window.
An interesting post script to this story concerns the kingfisher’s toilet habits. Shortly before we had been privileged to witness one feeding from what we call our ‘jetty’ we had been intrigued by the mystery of the white ‘chalk’ lines on the paving stones. Who or what could be responsible for those? They were each about 15 to 20 cm long, starting about 10cm from the edge of the river and at right angles to its direction of flow. They were easily washed away by rain, but re-appeared in different pattern and numbers each day.
The mystery was soon solved and all it took was a glimpse of a tail briefly raised. My view was obscured and I missed the small quantity of excrement propelled at great speed from beneath it, but I have seen enough wildlife films to recall this behaviour. Once again I was left wondering why I had been so slow to pick up on such obvious visual clues.

11.Brief encounters

Kneeling in the sand dunes behind the old RAF base at North Cotes, I was scanning the tidal lagoon for unusual winter visitors. There were dunlin, redshank and numerous lapwings – nothing ‘special’. As I gave my eyes a brief rest from my binoculars I spotted something flying leisurely along the edge of the dunes towards me. This was very special! I turned with my binoculars to get a clearer view.
It was gliding between sporadic wing beats, following the contours of the dunes as it searched the rough vegetation for its next meal. Its white rump and its metre-long wing span gave away its identity – it was a female hen harrier, and it was getting closer by the second.
I held my breath and remained absolutely motionless as it approached to within what through my binoculars appeared to be a few feet. It was actually only a few metres and I was waiting for it to react to my presence in what was hardly an inconspicuous position. When it did react it was in spectacular fashion and not because it had caught sight of me.
Appearing over my left shoulder and almost flying head-on into the harrier was another large bird of prey, flying in the opposite direction but hunting in the same way, head down in deep concentration. I recognised it immediately as a short eared owl, probably the same one that I had watched hunting over the airfield earlier that morning. Both birds reacted in exactly the same way, like mirror images of each other, appearing to rear up and hang momentarily in mid-air, face to face with their wings outstretched. This stand-off lasted less than a second before they continued nonchalantly on their way, discretion definitely being the better part of valour for both of them.
Chance encounters like this can give wildlife watchers really magical moments. The previous month had been extremely cold and I had spent a frosty couple of hours on Sunday morning on the coastal nature reserve at Rimac. Not unusually for this time of the year I had seen next to nothing. This was particularly galling as I had my Christmas present with me – a brand new Kowa spotting ‘scope and tripod. I drove homewards but, even with feet numb from the cold, I was not going home without one last try.
I turned off the coast road, drove down a track with frozen puddles and parked on Howden’s Pullover, a rough car park on the edge of the salt marsh. I walked south along the sea bank towards an area of scrub, reeds and buckthorn. As I approached I spotted a barn owl hunting, so I ducked down on the landward side of the bank with the intention of getting as close as possible to the owl and trying out my ‘scope. After another 50 metres or so I chanced a peep over the bank. There it was, perched about 2 metres above the reeds on a branch of what appeared to be a small elder. Through my binoculars I could see it was agitated and taking a keen interest in the reeds directly beneath it. There was something there.
I quickly set up the ‘scope, located the owl and turned the focus wheel. What a thrill, one of Britain’s most beautiful birds magnified to appear just a few feet away. But its fidgeting was now more obvious than ever. I adjusted the tripod slightly so that I could see what had the owl’s attention, and there it was. Sitting in the reeds below, looking up at the owl and licking its lips – yes, I actually saw its tongue slide across its upper lip – was a fox.
There was frost on the reeds and the branches, the dark buckthorn in the background was out of focus, and the two subjects were framed perfectly and their colours exquisitely complementary. This would surely have been a winning picture in any wildlife photography competition. The only problem – I didn’t have a camera!

12.Red in tooth and claw

It is impossible to observe wildlife without constant reminders of Alfred Lord Tennyson’s description of Nature as ‘Red in tooth and claw’. It is sometimes easy to forget that some of the most thrilling encounters in the natural world will culminate in the death of one of the participants, the thrill being tempered with sadness and a little guilt – rather, I imagine, like the observers of the aerial battles during the Battle of Britain.
One of the most spectacular flying machines in the natural world is the dragonfly. It has the agility of a small helicopter but it wasn’t until I witnessed a kill that I realised what awesome predators they are. I was walking in the woods above Betws-y Coed in Snowdonia, marvelling at several dragonflies putting on an aerial display, when a large specimen suddenly swooped onto the bracken by the side of the footpath. I had no idea what it had seen, but, even though I was lucky enough to locate it almost immediately, by the time I had it had already eaten its way through the lower half of a wasp.
The master of aerial hunting is undoubtedly the peregrine falcon and, although one chose our garden in which to die last year, I have never been privileged to witness one stoop and take its prey. I have seen a peregrine in its typical rocky habitat in Cornwall and close to a recent choice of nest site high on one of the towers of Lincoln Cathedral, but my best views have been on the Lincolnshire coast, where they frequently spend several weeks during the winter.I even spotted one trying to take a lapwing as I watching great black backed gulls scavenge the after-births of newly-born grey seals at Donna Nook.

Although the peregrine is acknowledged as the supreme aerial hunter the sight of a sparrow hawk in relentless pursuit of anything from a wren to a pigeon is still something that is guaranteed to make the pulse race. The Sparrow hawk population crashed in the 1950s and 1960s because of the use of synthetic pesticides such as DDT. My first sighting of one was in the early eighties, soaring over Weelsby Woods in Grimsby, but their numbers have improved so dramatically that hardly a week passes when I fail to see a sparrow hawk, frequently a distraction whilst driving as prey is pursued across a road or roundabout. There can be few people who feed their garden birds who have not witnessed the gruesome sight of a sparrow hawk plucking its prey on the ground before tearing it to pieces.A visit to the sands and salt marshes of the east coast at low tide will explain the presence of birds of prey during the winter. There are often tens of thousands of small waders feeding in the invertebrate-rich mud and it was this scenario that provided me with a fascinating glimpse of the feeding habits of our smallest birds of prey. I had set off early to drive the tortuous route through Hull and East Yorkshire to Spurn Point, the only positive being a stunning view of the sun-rise from the Humber Bridge. I had just parked the car and was stretching my legs and scanning the waders feeding on the wet sand when I was suddenly aware of a rapid movement a few feet above their heads. A bird of prey without doubt, but I was unsure exactly what it was at first. Before the waders had chance to take flight the merlin, as I later identified it, seemed to reach down and grasp one of them before continuing its flight towards the beach. It was as if it were snatching an item of food from a supermarket shelf. As hundreds of waders rose into the air, accompanied by the belated alarm calls of numerous red shanks, the merlin settled on the dry sand and proceeded to pluck and devour what I could now see was a dunlin.
Another scene had unfolded, as exciting as any wildlife film, and I had the fortune to have witnessed it first hand. One of the great pleasures but also one of the great sadnesses of such encounters is that, unlike a scene from a film, I was the only person in the world to have seen it.

13.Survival

During December 2010 it was difficult to believe that any bird could survive such a prolonged spell of extremely cold weather. The temperature in our garden dropped to well below -10oC on several occasions and was consistently below freezing throughout the day and night for much of the month. The sight of a pair of wrens, one of our smallest birds, apparently looking for somewhere warm to roost one evening was quite moving. They flitted about under the garden furniture for several minutes but nowhere was suitable. I once read that 61 wrens had been counted coming out of the same nest box after a particularly cold night – it reminded me of the ‘how many people can you cram into a mini’ challenge. I wondered if they were coming out and going back in again through a rear entrance.
The smallest birds obviously face the biggest challenge but there are serious threats to birds of all sizes. I watched from the bedroom window as a heron fished very successfully at the edge of the river, amazed by the speed at which it turned and lunged when it had a fish in its sights. The movement of the water had prevented it freezing over and the heron seemed to have no difficulty in finding prey of a suitable size. I concluded, wrongly as it turned out, that the local heron population would see out the cold spell with little problem as long as the river didn’t freeze over.

The next day I observed from the bedroom window what I thought was a strange aspect of heron behaviour and searched the internet in vain for an explanation. One individual was standing in the water, patiently awaiting its next meal, whilst another was lying face down on the river bank a few metres away, its wings spread out on the snow-covered grass. I left for just a few seconds to tell my wife to come and see the dead heron and when I looked out of the window again the ‘dead’ bird had gone. I could find no description of herons playing dead but the odd behaviour remained a mystery for only a few more hours. The sight that met me as I crossed the bridge the following morning made it all too clear why the heron had been behaving in such a bizarre way. There it was, lying dead in the water with its neck twisted in a grotesque pose – it hadn’t been ‘playing dead’, it had been dying.

It was by no means the only casualty in and around our garden. A few days later, only a few metres from the last resting place of the heron, a dead mallard was seen floating on its back. This was the second mallard victim of the winter near the house. The first had been floating upright, the only indication that all was not well being the fact that its head was under the surface of the water.
Such was the severity and length of the cold weather that I was seriously concerned about the chances of survival of our resident barn owls. I read recently that barn owls originally evolved in a warmer and drier climate than we have in the UK and that mortality peaks from December to March. They have a higher metabolic rate than most other owls and their feathers do not have good insulating properties. During very extreme winters (such as 1946/7 and 1962/3) it is thought that more than half the population of Britain may be wiped out. Given all of this I thought the chances of survival were slim and I resorted to tossing the odd dead mouse, caught in traps in the workshop, into the roof space near the nest box.One of my Christmas presents had been a nest box camera with infra red illumination. I had decided to place it in the roof space pointing towards the owl box entrance rather than inside one of our many small nest boxes usually occupied by tits, robins and tree sparrows. This I did towards the end of February and for the next couple of weeks I had several glimpses on the old TV set in the stable of one of our owls. I knew for sure now that one of the pair had survived but I was becoming increasingly concerned that for the second time in two years we had lost the other one. Then, during one of my frequent visits to the stable, I witnessed something I had only ever read about. Not only had both owls survived but there they were, sitting on a roof beam in front of the camera, engaged in what the Barn Owl Trust describes as ‘mutual preening and cheek rubbing’. Spring had well and truly arrived.

14.The eagle has landed

As I have said before, I am not a twitcher and I am not a great keeper of lists. News of a rarity fills me with neither excitement nor the desire to travel to remote places to add a tick to my yet-to-be-compiled lifetime list. Sometimes, though, an opportunity is just too good to miss!
In late April I heard that a Tawny Pipit, enticingly described as ‘scarce’ on the ‘Birdguides’ website, was less than half a mile from our house. Breeding in much of continental Europe and wintering in the Middle East or sub-Saharan Africa, Tetney Lock is not exactly on its migration route, but this is just what gives keen birders their adrenaline fix and I am not completely immune.
It didn’t take long to pack up my equipment, including several layers of insulating clothing - the easterly wind that brings rarities to this part of Lincolnshire is also notorious for bringing hypothermia to visitors. Two hours later and the group of half a dozen or so birders I had teamed up with agreed that the pipit had probably moved on. Disappointing as it was it must have been much worse for the man who had travelled all the way from Bristol. It was also less of a disappointment than my belated attempt to see a Steppe Grey Shrike two years earlier.
So rare in the U.K. is this bird that ‘Birdguides’ gives it the magnificent rarity classification ‘Mega’ and one had been seen regularly over several days just five miles from my home. ‘Mega’ means ‘not yet occurred in the British Isles or exceedingly rare, or otherwise highly desirable’ Even with that recommendation it wasn’t until I saw a couple of photographs showing it perched on the hat of a birder and then on a telescope and tripod that I decided to face the inevitable large number of birders and attempt to see it for myself.
I had done this successfully a few years earlier with an American Robin, also a ‘Mega’ bird in the U.K., which had been spotted on an industrial estate in North East Lincolnshire. A colleague described where it was and I made the short trip from work in the lunch break. Within five minutes of parking the car and looking into a couple of shrubs by the gate to one of the units I saw it. It was a thrill to see a bird so rarely seen in the U.K. but it was a sad experience too. Like an exotic caged animal it was far away from home in bleak and unnatural surroundings and I wondered how long it could survive. It was killed the next day by a sparrowhawk.
I was denied even these mixed emotions with the shrike. Before I reached my destination I became aware of a small group of birders trudging wearily through the mud towards the road. It seemed the sparrowhawk had been one step ahead of me this time and all that remained were a few feathers.

The failed pipit trip was far from unproductive though. I managed some great views on the way home of a group, or ‘trip’, of seven Dotterel feeding in a field of newly-germinated peas and I was informed by one of the birders that the White-tailed Eagle was still around the ponds near Ruckland, less than twenty miles away. The Dotterel is a wader with beautifully subtle colours, with the male’s more muted plumage giving a clue to his role in caring for the eggs and chicks – a stay-at-home dad long before it became fashionable.My early morning trip to Ruckland rounded off an eventful April. Half an hour after arriving at what turned out to be one of the most picturesque areas of the Lincolnshire Wolds I witnessed a magnificent sight. A huge bird with a wingspan of between six and eight feet, the largest eagle in Europe, appeared over the horizon with an escort of common buzzards, clearly uneasy about its presence so close to their nests. I had always thought of buzzards as large birds in the Lincolnshire context but I had to revise my judgement – their wingspan was approximately half that of the eagle.
I watched in the company of four or five birders from various parts of the country for an hour or so before the eagle made its way effortlessly over the hill and out of sight. I set off for home still feeling the exhilaration of that first view. Spending time with fellow birders had not been too bad. Maybe I would give up solitary wildlife watching and become a proper birder – then again, maybe not.

15.Empty nest syndrome

I have now experienced ‘empty nest syndrome’ three times. The first time was a double helping when our 19 year-old twins left for university. I coped pretty well despite yet another milestone in the aging process and I was confident that we had given them ‘roots to grow and wings to fly’ – which brings me to my second dose.
Thanks to an inspired Christmas present, 2011 had been the best year so far for owl watching. By the time I got around to fitting my new nest box camera some of our nest boxes were already occupied so, rather than disturb any early home-makers, I decided to fit the camera in the roof space of the garage. There it could cover the hole in the wall, the entrance to the owl box and a number of the roof beams and would feed its signal to a redundant analogue television in the stable next to the garage. At this stage I didn’t know if our resident barn owls had even survived what had been one of the worst winters for decades.
That they had survived became clear during one of my frequent visits to the stable in early March when I witnessed something I had only ever read about. There they were, both adults sitting on a beam in front of the camera engaged in what the Barn Owl Trust describes as ‘mutual preening and cheek rubbing’ - classic barn owl courtship.
Throughout the warm, dry April there were no more sightings, but we kept our fingers crossed that they had mated successfully. By the end of April it was apparent that there were young owls in the box as both parents made frequent hunting trips into the surrounding fields. I even managed a superbly composed photograph of one of them flying over my head with a vole in its talons – superbly composed but hopelessly out of focus!
Unable to see what was going on inside the nest box I began to wish I had put the camera there. Young barn owls, unlike most other nestlings, run, jump, pounce and ‘play’ like kittens from about three weeks old and I was missing all of this, but it wasn’t long before I was rewarded with some fantastic TV footage of their next stage of development. Towards the end of June two heart shaped faces started to peer out of the box and on the 1st July one of them took a metaphorical first step. After nearly an hour of false starts, like a child on the high diving board, it hopped from the nest box entrance to the nearest beam, about two feet away. The second one was not so lucky. More hesitant even than the first and much more ungainly it capped its equally lengthy period of preparation by falling like a stone whilst attempting the same manoeuvre.
There followed an hour or so of worry as I tried to decide what I should do. I was aware that adults will not feed young owls if they fall from the nest so should I contact the barn owl trust or a local wildlife rescue centre, or should I climb up and try to return it to the nest box?. This would not be easy as it had not fallen not to the ground but to the layer of carpet underlay covering the beams at ceiling level across the whole of the garage. I was dreading trying to capture an active young owl hopping around a surface that would not hold my weight.
As the clumsy creature was now out of range of the camera I decided to find out exactly where it was before deciding what to do. I put the ladder through the opening, climbed up and looked all around. For the first time in years I was delighted not to see an owl. While I had been vacillating the subject of my concern must have somehow managed to find its way back to safety.
During some evenings the quality of the television pictures was so poor at low light levels that it was difficult to distinguish between the parents and the youngsters. The parents were in and out of the roof space and their offspring were in and out of the nest box, hopping from beam to beam and in and out of the view of the camera. Eventually, when we briefly saw five owls, we realised that there were three youngsters, not two.

They soon made their first foray into the outside world and throughout July we were privileged to be able to watch three owlets develop into fully fledged confident fliers. We watched their practice flights from tree to tree, from our granddaughter’s swing to the picnic bench and from the garage roof to the wall. As the light was fading one evening I was mesmerised as one of them pounced over and over again on something on the ground. I thought at first its leg was tangled in string and it couldn’t take off properly, but my worries were short-lived once my eyes became accustomed to the light. It was pouncing on a short poplar twig with a couple of leaves attached, using play as preparation for independence - it would soon have to hunt its own food.We returned from a week’s holiday in early August and the young owls had gone. We had no more views of them and their parents had returned to hunting in the dark, so we didn’t see them either. We were left with a feeling of emptiness, literally an ‘empty nest’ syndrome. And what about my third dose? That was when our granddaughter moved away, but that’s another story.

16.Expert fisherman

There is an angler who often sits for hours on the bank opposite our house. He is a friendly and knowledgeable chap and we often have long conversations about the wildlife in and around the river. We also talk about the bites he has had, the catches he has made and how different the fishing in the canal is compared with the river. I think he is a bit of an expert, but this morning his expertise was placed very firmly in the shade as I witnessed a real master at work.
Gazing out of the bedroom window in my usual way I caught sight of a cormorant coming in to make its customary clumsy landing on the water just upstream of the bridge to the left of the window. I waited a minute or so for it to be carried by the current under the bridge and into view. For the next 90 seconds I was mesmerized. It dived under the water, a manoeuvre I had witnessed many times before, and resurfaced less than 10 seconds later with a fish, about six inches long and probably a dace, held firmly at right angles to its bill. A quick adjustment and the fish was swallowed head first.
This successful dive was followed by no less than six more as it drifted out of sight behind the cover of a large hawthorn on the bank, each dive producing exactly the same result. A 100% success rate is something rare in the world of predators and can only mean that all the conditions had conspired to create the perfect hunt. It also goes a long way to explain why cormorants have been used for centuries by fishermen across the world, from Peru to Japan and from China to Macedonia. They are trained to dive for fish with a ligature tied around the base of their throat. This allows them to swallow small fish but those that are too large are brought back to the fisherman. It also explains why some anglers in the U.K. are keen to see a drastic cull. In a recent T.V. interview one likened a cormorant fishing to a tiger killing sheep in a barn.

Having one grandfather who skippered a North Sea trawler and one who hand made sea boots does not qualify me to pass judgement on the relative skills of different fish catchers, but I admit I felt a little uncomfortable when I described the cormorant’s exploits to my angler friend. He took it well though and even proceeded to describe similar success by local dabchicks. In my experience they don’t quite match up to the cormorant though. I watched a dabchick this morning and though it could catch fish very effectively it repeatedly struggled to master the coup de grâce. It frequently spent several minutes trying to subdue even the tiniest prey and on more than one occasion had to dive again having allowed it to escape.Despite my fishing heritage I have only twice sampled this most primitive of activities. The first time was when I was about seven and my granddad, the by then retired trawler skipper, agreed to take my brother Bob and me to a local pond. Bob had a small fishing rod but I don’t think I’m being disrespectful when I say we were both clueless. Much to my granddad’s chagrin the next few hours saw Bob and I land a succession of respectable sized roach, perch and fish I never did learn the names of, while he spectacularly failed to have any impact at all on the pond’s fish population. The final humiliation came when I accidentally kicked over his bait tin and all his maggots fell in the water. He was not impressed by my efforts to scoop them all back into the tin.
Needless to say we were never taken fishing again. I did try once more though, about 25 years later. This time I got a little closer to my heritage and cast my line off the sea wall but the experience of chasing an eel around the kitchen put me off for life – and my wife for even longer!

17.Nesting

The nesting season is well under way. A pair of kestrels has shown an interest in the second owl box and I’m looking forward to seeing how well they get on with their barn owl neighbours. There’s no evidence of any barn owl young yet, but we have our fingers crossed. This picture gives me optimism that owls and kestrels can get on well.
Tree sparrows are busy occupying as many of the nest boxes as they can and the great tits are showing their usual preference for gaps in the brickwork, despite the numerous nest boxes available – one pair has even pecked a hole in the expanded foam the builder used to stop the starlings getting under the porch tiles.

I commented just this morning what a great habitat our old sycamore tree was, with ivy covering it to almost two thirds of its height. I watched a wren, a green finch and a pair of wood pigeons carrying material in to different levels in just five minutes and I’m sure there is a goldfinch nest in there too. But I had forgotten the disadvantage of ivy. Great as it is for providing cover it also makes climbing very easy and several years ago we removed most of it from the house when we discovered how easy it was for rats to gain access to the loft. This morning, as I was obsessively pulling grass out of the gravel, I saw a weasel scurry across the drive, jump onto the wall and disappear up the tree – just like Jack up the beanstalk. It was about twenty minutes before it came down and though it was not carrying anything I swear it was licking its lips.Birds nesting in the garden can provide hours of enjoyment, but they also command great deal of respect. We could all learn a lot from the perseverance of a pair of collared doves who, like Sisyphus and his boulder, add twigs to a nest just about as quickly as they fall out of the bottom. Or the male wren who lovingly builds several beautiful nests and then allows his mate to make her choice leaving the others unused.
I learnt long ago not to interfere with this wonder of nature. Having fixed my first ever home-made nest box in our first ever garden I was impatient for it to have tenants. I decided to make my nest box particularly desirable by carefully lining it with dry moss and in less than an hour my glances out of the window were rewarded. A blue tit had landed close by the box and was calling to its mate. With growing excitement I squatted by the window to await developments. After briefly inspecting the inside of the dwelling both blue tits were soon flying in and out, clearly preparing a home. Or were they?
When I decided to take a closer look through my binoculars I received quite a surprise. It soon became clear that both birds were flying into the box with empty bills and flying out holding large clumps of dry moss! At least I had helped them to make their nest a little bit cosier – it was just a pity it wasn’t in my nest box.

18.Death

The ancient Egyptians are not alone in their fascination with death. I too have what could be seen as a morbid curiosity about dead animals, though I hasten to add that this is the curiosity of an observer and not a participant. Living in the country provides many opportunities to experience death, often as a result of the ever-present struggle between predators and prey, but just finding a dead animal can raise all kinds of questions. What is it? How did it die? How long has it been there? It brings out the Crime Scene Investigator in me every time
I recently found the body of an animal close to the River Bain in Lincolnshire. It was one that I had never seen before yet was able to identify almost immediately. On my twelfth birthday I was given a copy of the Observer’s Book of Wild Animals of the British Isles and I still had this animal’s picture imprinted on my memory. At about the same time I completed collecting a set of British Wild Life cards from packets of Brook Bond tea. This animal’s card described it as a “beautiful little animal, clad in black velvet with a white underneath, that lives at the waterside” – a perfect description of the water shrew. What neither source had communicated memorably enough though were the distinctive white ear tufts and these came as quite a pleasant revelation.

When a young adult badger was killed by a car just a few yards from our gate I knew I could not leave it there by the side of the road. I decided to treat it with some dignity after such an undignified death and dug a hole about half a metre deep between our fence and the wheat field behind our garden - not easy in heavy clay soil that had not seen rain for several weeks. I placed it in the hole, covered it with soil and forgot about it. It was a beautiful hot spell, rare near the east coast in August and about two weeks later I had an unpleasant reminder of my good deed.I was in the garden enjoying the warmth of the sun when I became all too aware of an extremely unpleasant smell. At first I thought it might be a stinkhorn fungus and started to rummage under the shrubs along the fence searching for the offending item. I was obviously getting warm, in more ways than one, because the smell near the fence was now stronger than ever. Maybe deep down I had some primitive recollection of the smell of death, or maybe the sound of hundreds of blowflies provided the clue, but a glance over the fence confirmed what I had now begun to suspect. It was the dead badger.
Instead of being buried beneath the long grass at the edge of the field it was now lying a few feet away amongst the ripening wheat and was hardly recognizable. It was covered in maggots, its fur was discoloured and the flies were still looking areas of spare flesh on which to lay more eggs. I didn’t examine it too closely but my guess was that I hadn’t buried it deep enough and a fox had disinterred it. I dug the hole a little deeper, put on my gardening gloves and, with my head turned away and trying not to breathe through my nose, I dragged the body to the hole and re-buried it. I then placed an old piece of steel plate over the grave and weighted it down with a couple of bricks. But I had failed to notice that something had been missing.

Several weeks later I made a bizarre discovery - lying in the drive at the side of the house was part of the leg of an animal. My C.S.I. training (‘A’ level biology) enabled me to identify it immediately as a foreleg, the radius and ulna clearly visible. The fact that all five claws faced forward, unlike dogs, cats and foxes which have four claws and a dew claw, told me that the leg belonged to a badger, probably a young one judging by the overall size. Was it from the badger I had buried? Had the fox ripped it off without me noticing a leg was missing? The only way to answer these questions would have been to exhume the creature for a second time, but my curiosity did not extend that far.

19.High hopes

I have had several reminders this week of the 1959 song ‘High hopes’, performed by Frank Sinatra in the film ‘A hole in the head’. Sammy Cahn’s lyrics tell the story of animals taking on unlikely challenges and they extol the virtues of perseverance and aspiration, but it wasn’t ants or rams that brought on this wave of nostalgia, it was a heron, a tree sparrow and a swallow.
As I drove over the bridge to the house late in the afternoon I made my customary pause to glance left and right along the river. The heron was about 20m away at the edge of the water, clearly about to strike. Within just a few seconds it launched itself forwards and down into the water, immersing not just its head but the whole of the upper half of its body, including both outspread wings. It must have already been aware of the car’s arrival but too committed to its attack to pull out, as it took off immediately afterwards and flew a further 20m along the bank, settling at the top by the edge of the field.
I have seen herons before with a variety of prey, including a dabchick and on one occasion a huge eel that took all of thirty minutes to swallow and continued to writhe energetically even after disappearing down the heron’s throat. But this catch was to present an altogether different challenge – it was a flat fish, probably a flounder, and it was anything but the right shape to make for easy swallowing. I had to imagine the struggle that ensued as it flew off after a few minutes to continue its battle in private, but the heron in the picture took 45 minutes to overcome its challenge.
Later the same day I noticed a worrying sign outside one of the nest boxes occupied by a pair of tree sparrows. There were several inches of what I thought was fishing line protruding from the entrance hole. Fearing this could harm the growing family I decided to remove the offending item, and after a minute or so it came free of the nest. I felt rather stupid when I discovered that far from being fishing line it was actually horse hair. There were two pieces, one black and just under a metre in length and one white and slightly shorter.
Since finding this I have seen many examples on the internet of birds’ nests incorporating horse hair, but I cannot get out of my head the image of a tree sparrow picking up a hair a metre long and flying for what must have been more than a quarter of a mile – and repeating the feat numerous times. High hopes indeed! On the subject of nests, another mystery has just been solved. More for the sake of cleanliness than security we have never left the doors to the out-buildings open for the birds to come in and nest, even though there is evidence that swallows had been allowed to build their mud structures in the stable before we arrived. The mystery we were faced with several weeks ago was why we kept finding swallows flying around inside the stable when we opened the door.
The door was never left open and, apart from a four centimeter gap at the top corner of the door, there were no more access points. Then I saw it. One of the spectacular and noisy aerial displays above the garden culminated with a swallow swooping down to the door and disappearing through what I had so far not even considered a possible way in. Admittedly it did not fly straight through the two inch gap, but it clung to the top of the door for less than a second before passing through. There are now tiny broken speckled egg shells on the floor and two adults passing through the gap dozens of times a day. I suppose we shouldn’t have been surprised – after all, swallows were nesting in caves long before people were building houses and access to a nest through a tiny crack would have provided a much higher chance of survival. What I do now is leave the door slightly ajar from time to time, an experiment to see how wide it needs to be before they will fly straight through without touching the sides. The record at the moment is just fifteen centimeters!

20.Soap opera or Greek tragedy

Soap opera or Greek tragedy, the barn owl story continued this summer.A lack of visible activity up to June led me to wonder if any eggs had been laid at all this year - last year by that time the chicks had been about 6 weeks old with both parents working tirelessly to keep them fed. A quick look in the nest box confirmed that there had indeed been no breeding success and the speculation about possible reasons began.
The disappointment soon faded once the frantic nesting activity of the swallows began. Within days of discovering they had found their way into the stable it was obvious there were young in the hurriedly constructed nest. Over the next couple of weeks the changes were rapid.

26th June

29th June

6th July - getting a little overcrowded

12th July - ready to go

The speed of development of the youngsters was impressive but not nearly as impressive as their flying ability. I have always marvelled at the aerobatic displays of adult swallows but standing in a stable no more than 4 metres square watching four or five of them circling me at breath-taking speed gave me a whole new level of appreciation. I only realised I had been holding my breath once the last of them had hurtled out of the door.

The parents returned shortly afterwards and raised a second brood, inexplicably in the 12 year old nest nearby rather than the new one. All swallows had gone by the middle of September but the month ended with a cruel twist.
I was resigned to a long slow descent into the short days of winter with only the occasional boost of a winter visitor or the sight of an owl hunting over frosty fields to raise my spirits. Thoughts of nesting birds had all but gone - until I wandered down to the garage.
It was the morning of the last Saturday of the month. On the ground, directly beneath the owl box, was a dead owl chick.It had most of its adult plumage but still carried a considerable amount of down and was clearly a good two weeks or more from being fully fledged. I put it to one side to show the family later and continued with my weekend jobs. Further evidence later that day confirmed that I had been mistaken to assume that an empty nest in June meant there would be no owl family this year. Hopping across the garden was another owlet, also out of the nest too early but very much alive. It wasn't difficult to corner and capture and once it was safely in the cat's carrying case I had to make a decision. Usually young barn owls should be returned to the nest as soon as possible but as this one was almost as thin and under-nourished as the dead one it seemed that the parents had abandoned them or were unable to feed them for some reason. The only solution would be to find someone who could hand rear it.

A rescue centre was located in Lincoln and my Saturday evening was taken up with driving a fragile animal nearly 40 miles expecting all the way that it would not survive the journey. It did but later that evening there was yet more drama. Another owlet was cowering in the corner of the garage when I arrived home and it too was placed in the cat box, though it looked more dead than alive. Just as I was deciding what to do with it my wife spotted yet another one up on the roof beams and suddenly one of the parents swooped in clutching a vole. If the parents were still bringing food then the best place for the youngsters was near the nest box so I carefully returned the one in the cat box to the garage roof and went to bed, wondering if I had made the correct decision to take one to the animal hospital. I had. The next morning there were two dead owlets on the ground under the owl box. So far three out of the unlikely brood of four had died.

The three dead owlets - note the different levels of development

A few days later yet another owlet was seen refining its flying skills alongside one of its parents and within a week these had disappeared - I will never know if this fifth one made it. A phone call from the animal hospital in Lincoln provided one crumb of comfort as the rescued owl was thriving and ready for a carefully managed release into the wild. Sadly, recent inspections of the owl box have led me to the conclusion that our owl box is no longer needed but, much as we will miss our neighbours, we should at least be spared another traumatic autumn.

 

21.An interesting December

Osprey or Rough-legged Buzzard?

It has been a good week for birds of prey, even if all has not gone smoothly. I'd never posted a rarity sighting on the Lincolnshire Bird Club website before but the sight of an Osprey's low and languid flight across the field towards my car was just too special - how was I to know it would start an argument? I was able to pull over, grab my camera from the back of the car and take a few quick shots, but it was disappearing rapidly and they were not great pictures.

Enhanced picture

Within a few minutes several members had replied and the consensus was that it was unlikely to be an Osprey as it was too late in the year. That was disappointing, and a little embarrassing, but I soon cheered up when it was pointed out that it was more likely to be a Rough-legged Buzzard. This is an infrequent visitor to Lincolnshire, with only a small number over-wintering in the U.K., and if that is what it was it was the first one I had ever seen. However, when I posted the photographs the disagreements started. There were members who supported me in my initial identification and urged me to stick to my guns and there were those who pointed out several features that ruled out Osprey. I must admit, I was sure it was an Osprey initially which was why I posted it, but having never before seen a R.L.B. I had no idea that there was another large raptor with so much white - and trying to identify a bird and avoid crashing the car is quite a challenge.

Grey seal pup

Two days later I was at Donna Nook to see the record number of  Grey Seal pups that have been born this year (1500+). After taking a few photographs I made my way through the sand dunes and the sea-buckthorn in search of unusual birds, but apart from a large common toad crossing my path there was nothing of interest. As I was returning to the car park small birds scattered in all directions in front of me. Instinct made me glance upwards and I saw the cause of the disturbance - a Merlin flying low over the shrubs. I then watched for what must have been at least two minutes as it terrorised the bird population across a huge area of sand dunes, fields and hedgerows. It was never close enough to photograph properly but its dashing flight was unmistakable. Apparently most of the breeding population of Iceland comes to Britain for the winter but this one could have been from anywhere in northern Europe.

Merlin - library picture

The day before yesterday (the 18th December) the month's birding ended with one of those moments that makes the life of a solitary bird watcher worthwhile. The winter of 2012 was already becoming recognised as a 'Waxwing winter', one of those seasons when large numbers of these exotic birds from northern Scandinavia arrive in the U.K., but so far none had been reported near enough for me to make a special trip - not something I am particularly keen on, especially if it means joining large numbers of fellow birders, often in urban car parks.

I had intended to cycle about five miles to a stretch of the Lincolnshire foreshore where there was a good chance of seeing a flock of Snow Buntings, another winter visitor that I had seen a couple of times in the past, but I was only about half a mile from home when I found my very own flock of about 30 Waxwings. They were still in the area yesterday, gorging on hawthorn berries, and when it stops raining I shall see how much longer they are going to hang around. As far as I am aware they have not been viewed by hordes of twitchers, but as my sister has just told me that she saw about 30 Waxwings in Cleethorpes last week and forgot to tell me it seems that it really is a 'Waxwing winter' and there are more than enough to go round. 

One of 'my' waxwings

22.Taking the Mick

I am sure there are times when birds conspire to play tricks on us birdwatchers. I am not talking about the occasions when they cleverly disguise their identity, embarrassing as this can be (as I found with the Rough-legged Buzzard/Osprey last month). No, I am referring to their tendency to behave in the most unexpected ways. It started when I was driving just a few miles from home. As I crossed the Louth Navigation Canal at Thoresby Bridge a quick glance alerted me to something quite unusual on the pond. I pulled over a few hundred yards further on, reversed into a track and drove back to the bridge.

There was still about 10 cm of snow on the canal bank but I climbed the style with my camera over my shoulder and approached the pond using the bank as cover. My stealth was rewarded with the sight of a barn owl flying along the bank towards me, unaware of my presence and with a vole clutched firmly in its talons. I managed a quick shot in the fading light before it saw me and veered to its left over the canal. A few yards further on, where I estimated I was level with the end of the pond, I carefully crept up the bank and peered over, trying desperately to avoid alarming my quarry.

It was exactly what I had expected! Not a rarity, but a bird of some significance that I had only ever seen it in its breeding habitat on the rivers of the Yorkshire Dales and the Lake District. It was a male Goosander in its finest breeding plumage together with two females with their distinctive brown heads and white 'chins'. I managed a couple of shots before they took off, then I went home to thaw out my feet.

Two days later and after a week of overcast skies the sun was shining and the snow sparkling - ideal conditions for walking with camera in hand. Leaving the car behind I walked along the river and headed across the field to the canal. Snipe rose from every ditch and flew chaotically into the distance, warning others of my presence as they went. Just before I reached the canal I spent several minutes trying to get a decent shot of the Goldfinches as they danced on the frozen teasels - and cursed the power of my lens.

What I saw when I looked along the water soon made me forget the inadequacies of my equipment. Swimming towards me was a group of Goosander - not three this time but seven, four males and three females. They took off and flew in a circle over the fields before making a pass almost directly over my head.

It looked like being a good day so, after photographing a Redwing and a Fieldfare and failing miserably with a Snipe, I went home for lunch then drove to the nearby Blow Wells. Several Gadwall and Teal and lots more Snipe almost completed the day's bird watch - but not quite. I drove home, turned into the drive and took my customary glance left and right to scan the river for wildlife. I couldn't believe my eyes. Had they followed me home or were they 'taking the Mick'? Seven Goosander, four males and three females. I could have stayed at home and seen them from the bedroom window - but it wouldn't have been as enjoyable.

23.Spring - at last!

After what feels like one of the longest and most depressing winters on record, spring has arrived at last - maybe it was austerity combined with the weather but everything seems to have happened later than usual this year. I seemed to be waiting weeks for the sound of a chiffchaff, usually one of the first sounds of spring, and the 'Tetney Lock cuckoo' didn't announce its return until the 2nd of May. The return of our resident pair of Blackcaps has been a huge source of pleasure amidst the gloom and, though it can be difficult to locate, the male's uplifting song, belted out from a variety of favourite trees and bushes, makes the effort worthwhile.

The less said about the swallows the better; they weren't particularly late but the repairs to the stable door during the winter had closed the gap above the door and I was dreading their disappointment when they did arrive. Sure enough, as soon as they were here they made several passes close to the door before giving up and setting off to find an alternative nest site. I hope they were successful.

 At least the Bumble Bees could still find their way in. I have watched in awe their energetic comings and goings and tried to imagine the scene below ground. To my untrained eye they are Buff-tailed bumblebees and they seem to have moved into the home of a family of short-tailed voles, though why it was abandoned I will never know. As busy as they appear going in and out of the nest the distance they can fly in search of food is staggering. I was surprised to learn that they have been known to fly up to13km from their nest to forage and for a creature so lacking in basic aerodynamic features that is some feat.

24.A disabled shrew

I wrote in an earlier post about a dead water shrew (Neomys fodiens) I had found close to a large fishing pond in the Lincolnshire Wolds. It was the first one I had ever seen so I was not expecting to see another one, certainly not a live one just outside the back door! Yet there it was, apparently foraging in a flower bed and making short exploratory excursions on to the lawn. We live close to a slow-flowing river, Waithe Beck, and there are a couple of small ponds in the garden, but this creature was far from the nearest water and seemed completely lost.

It then started on the most amazing journey as it circumnavigated the house, taking about twenty minutes and never venturing more than a few feet from the wall - behaviour known as 'edge seeking' and common to many small mammals. It would scurry along for a few seconds, stop for a breather, then resume its tour. I followed it, determined to discover its destination and in the meantime to take some photographs. It eventually arrived back where it started and I decided to examine the pictures I had taken. It was only then that I discovered a possible reason for its bizarre behaviour - it had a severe disability.

It had moved with such speed that I had failed to notice that it had been dragging its hind legs behind it.
As this rather blurred picture shows, they were completely useless. As if the poor creature didn't have enough to contend with, I discovered that the water shrew has such poor eyesight that it was once known by the inhabitants of the Lincolnshire Fens as the 'blind mouse'. I was unable to find it again and am not optimistic about its chances of survival.

 

25.Winter 2014

It is difficult maintaining two 'blogs simultaneously and this one has suffered as I have concentrated my efforts on the story of my dad's Lancaster bomber crew (http://robertalfredjay.blogspot.co.uk/). All that changed at the weekend though when a shopping trip triggered renewed interest in recounting wildlife stories.

Pied wagtails roosting

The A15 dual carriageway is one of the busiest roads in Lincoln, running through the city between the new Premier Inn and the main shopping centre, and at 4.30 on Saturday afternoon we were waiting at the pedestrian crossing when a twittering noise seemed to drown out the sound of the traffic. The sound was coming from a sycamore tree on the pavement on the other side of the road, midway between the road and the windows of a three storey office block. I was able to walk up to the tree and get a great view of well over 200 pied wagtails jostling for position - the warmth and protection from predators that this location provided clearly outweighed any threat the wagtails may have perceived in me.

The local kestrels also seem to have adopted a handy way of conserving energy. I don't remember the last time I saw one of them in characteristic hover mode as they seem to prefer the easier option of perching on a wire while scanning the grass beneath for small mammals.

Kestrel in 'lazy hunting' mode

The one I passed yesterday barely acknowledged my presence, so engrossed was it with the task in hand, and a few seconds later it dropped to the ground. Obviously aware of my interest and keen to make its escape it took off almost immediately carrying not only a short tailed vole but also a piece of grass that must have been half a metre long.

The final 'sight of the week' that revitalised my interest in wildlife was the flock of linnets that has been bouncing around the edge of the local sewage works for the past week.
These nervous little characters moved backwards and forwards between the trees and the strip of dry oil seed rape that the farmer has left along the edge of the field, attempting to find enough food and at the same time avoid marauding Sparrow hawks and Merlin. The only time they remained still long enough for me to get a good look was when they obligingly lined up on three parallel power lines -  not a great picture but at least it made it easy to count them. There were 150 but I can't guarantee they were all linnets.

 

26.A final post

It is fitting, in the week that we leave our home in the country, that I should end this blog with a wildlife mystery to rival any that has unfolded so far. One of the final tasks as we prepared to leave our home of thirteen years was to dismantle the playhouse erected three years earlier for our granddaughter. Beneath the wooden structure there was a small store of wheat ears, probably belonging to one of our many mouse neighbours, and the heavy clay soil was dry and solid. To improve its appearance for the new owners, I spent half an hour breaking it up.

The following morning it was clear that something, probably a badger, maybe a fox, had been digging at the heavy soil - there was a large hole in the middle of the plot. What added to the mystery was the fur and straw scattered around the hole.

The mystery hole

It was only after a few minutes of wondering what it all meant that I noticed there was something even more mysterious just to the left of the hole - just visible in the picture above. A closer look at this area revealed a couple of tiny legs sticking out of the soil:

Unfortunately, the owner of the legs, a leveret, was dead but if it hadn't been so cold and unresponsive I would have sworn it was sleeping. The most likely time for hares to mate is in the Spring and after a gestation period of about six weeks two to four leverets will be born in a 'form', a depression in the ground lined with grass and the mother's own fur. Each one will then be placed in a form of its own and the mother will visit them once every night to suckle them.

Unlike rabbits, which are born naked and blind, leverets are born fully furred and with their eyes open. Although this one looked well developed it was almost certainly less than 24 hours old.

There are several questions that I will never know the answers to. Had this area of rough soil been the form in which the mum gave birth? Was she disturbed before she had chance to find this leveret a form of its own, or did she just forget him? If she was disturbed, and the digging and spreading of the fur and straw is highly suspicious, what did the disturbing and why wasn't the leveret eaten? Although he looked as though he were attempting to escape he hadn't got very far! Whatever the answers this was a sad end to Lincolnshire wildlife watching at Willow Farm House. I wonder what North Yorkshire has in store.