A Walking Accident

The robins have now started singing at night, more so than you here them during the day. In the day they are just noisy and scolding, watching each other, making sure no other robin violates their territory.

They are busy on the campus at work, and when I have a break I sometimes go out and try to photograph one. It was while following one, that I managed to impale myself on a thorn.

This in turn was not long after a cardboard eco Christmas Tree I'd set up collapsed onto my neighbour's desk, emptying a cup of coffee over a stack of important paperwork in the process. And it was before I clonked my elbow on a door frame.

If I ever visited a military base, I'd fall over and launch a nuclear apocalypse with my behind, I swear.

I'm very clumsy. Or dyspraxic, to give it the posh word. I could break a leg in a room made of cotton wool.

Si

All text and images copyright CreamCrackeredNature 21.12.17

Why Run when you can Fly?

Last night we had a family meal at Zizzi's which I was kind of nervous about. I'm not really one for eating out - I'm far too restless to sit at a table for ages - and our Zizzi's has delivered me burnt pizza or snappy pasta the odd time in the past.

As it happened, the only problem was the wait, but that wasn't all bad, for it was enlivened by the sudden appearance of a fast flying raptor screeching along the Trent past the barge pub in the dusk. It scattered the pigeons on the castle wall, which circled frantically before flying off in all directions, before settling down on the  East bastion to watch proceedings, with no other bird in sight.

Eventually it flew off back down the river, and from the long tail and wing shape, it appeared to be a kestrel. They aren't usually town birds though, and I'd attribute such pigeon chasing behaviours as being far more likely from a sparrowhawk.

Perhaps it was a very aggressive kestrel, all pumped up on voles and steroids.

Today, I've done a lot of walking and photography, including this set of a pair of robins hunting for food next to the Parkrun course at Sconce park. Unlike me, robins aren't stupid enough to do Parkruns at 9am in the morning, and must find the saturday antics of us earthbound humans rather daft.

No wild animal seeks to lose weight, after all.

Si

All text and images copyright CreamCrackeredNature 07.04.16

Sweetly Sings the Robin

Came across this little fellow singing away in a low bush by the Devon Pastures boardwalk in Sconce Park. Every so often he would chirp up, and then wait to hear a responding call from another bird somewhere perhaps 20-30 metres away on the left of these shots.

This bird was quite happy to sit and pose for shots for minutes, unlike the long tailed tits flitting around the willow trees being chased around by dunnocks. Only got the one shot of these tricksy little blighters!

All in all I've had a good day, small tortoiseshell butterflies have been up and about, and I've had a 7km walk, and a 12km run on a day where stinging rainstorms alternated with bright sunshine in twenty minute cycles until late afternoon.

I've been looking for the swallows and sand martins that have been reported as having arrived in the area, but there were no fancy visitors sitting on the telegraph wires I kept scanning. I'm sure they will be around when I head out to North Muskham Lake in the next couple of days, that's where I first saw one about 25th March last year.

Three more days to have springtime adventures in!

Si

All text and images copyright CreamCrackeredNature 29.03.16

The Squabble in the Hedgerow

You may get the impression that my walks through the past few days have blessed me with little wildlife vignettes, some I get to photograph,  while some I don't, like the grebe feeding its young I wrote about yesterday.

This little incident, I'll call a score draw. It was when I was slowly walking the bark path in the old oak wood at Sconce Park, listening for bird calls and enjoying how silent the soft bark was making even my clodhopping footsteps. Hopefully I wouldn't scare anything away.

Looking up the bank, I spotted a robin sat low in the bushes, silhouetted against the bright sun. I managed to get the one picture, and then I circled up the bank to try and get the light in the right place to really do the bird justice.

As I did so, I noticed another bird approach from further along the line of bushes. "Trouble here" I thought aloud, and immediately afterward, the two birds launched at each other.

There was something rather sumo like it. The birds both aimed at a spot of bare earth, and collided with each other on the ground in a chaotic tangle of legs and wings, the birds shapes rendered senseless by the ferocity of their attack; they didn't fly at each other, they just seemed to roll themselves up into a ball and throw themselves.

The second bird came of worse, it seemed, and retreated back to a branch further away. But it didn't give up, and had another two or three goes, launching madly into attacks that the established bird easily repelled, apparently merely by letting the other bird bounce off it, like its little red breast had a big "S" on it somewhere.

I wasn't able to photograph any of the fighting; it was far too fast for my fingers and camera, but I got several snaps of the victorious bird, who is obviously getting ready for the breeding season with a spot of early male bluster.

I wonder how he'll do. Hopefully next time, he'll be gracious enough to look at the camera.

Si

All the action was on my doorstep again

Last night did another mid shift run - 4 miles including a long stretch along the cycle path by a quiet London Road Lake - the Grebes were out but the Greylags had decided they didn't find Newark salubrious enough and have  scarpered.

Swifts were out too, and Swallows and Martins - the riverside was thick with midges and I'm sure I ate as many of the damn things as the birds did. But the real action was in my (laughable) what-I-call-a-garden-but-is-actually-a-drive.

As I arrived home, panting, I heard the familiar sharp 'chucking' of a blackbird being hacked off by a cat. I remember it well from when our demon of a cat a few years ago, so cuddly in other ways, used to skewer thrush and blackbird chicks no matter how many times he was scolded for it.

Luckily my mother's current cat is a boss eyed sort of Maine Coon who lives indoors and can't catch a ping pong ball shoved under its nose. But I digress...

Sure enough there was a cat, a rather dirty white tortie, sitting there being ripped into by mummy and daddy blackbird in a sycamore tree; the sole chick (one from five seems to be about the mean survival rate of these things)  was sat in a higher branch. Figuring for all the din they were making they needed a hand, I joined in (what A HERO!) and Mrs Cat slinked off.

But not before every other bird in the garden joined in for a quick look and a taunt! A Great Tit dropped by, inquisitive. A sort of spotted looking Dunnocky thing which in my usual idiot overestimations I decided at first glance was a spotted flycatcher (LOL) but was more probably a palish Dunnock, and most attractive of all a couple of Robins, one of which was missing a tail - another immature adult?

The Robins are friendly, fun to watch, and infinitely better for you than flogging dead legs around a midge filled dirty grey dusk. And I'm sure they hate the guts of cats too.