The Wagtail Roost

I noticed that last evening that the wagtails are indeed back in their roosting trees at work, and that the big lorry yard lights on a rainy night created an incredible light through the trees.

So tonight  on my way home, I cycled over to the trees to see what was around tonight.

The light through the trees did indeed look incredible - it made it look like a galaxy, or even a quasar, surrounded by orbiting star trails and emitting a relativistic jet.

Or for the less imaginative, a wet tree.

I went for a closer look and at first I could see no birds in the tree whatsoever and was rather disappointed. Then I walked further under the tree, and suddenly more that 30 pied wagtails were flushed in a panic.

I thought it odd that they were bothered by me but not the large number of lorries that go rumbling past lights ablaze.

I did manage to get a mobile shot that you can just about make out 3 or 4 birds in. The ones that weren't scared of me.

Si

All text and images copyright CreamCrackeredNature 05.12.18

The Wagtails have Returned

I don't know whether it's because of the time of the year, or whether it is because my work schedules have now synced up so that when I live it is just past sunset, but suddenly, after wondering where they have been this autumn, I've gone through the big glass door that brings me back into the outside world, and there they are.

A flock of well over 100 pied wagtails, skittering about in the air above the car park and the great metal building I live in, their characteristic undulating flight marked with a flutey "phee-weeep" call as they reach the top of the arc unmistakable even without a close view of the birds.

We have a big communal roost in some trees on our campus, and that is where they keep warm and safe in the colder months. I've seen such roosts in some strange places; the line of illuminated trees outside The Bell pub in Nottingham is a great spot to find them, their little bodies lit up by the coloured bulbs.

But our roost is my favourite one.

The flight and sounds are exactly the same as this...

You keep warm too!

Si

All text copyright CreamCrackeredNature 20.10.16

The Kestrel Hunts by Twilight

I'm now in deep darkness as I leave for work each morning, a darkness pierced by the bright dawn call of blackbirds, and now sometimes suffused in thick mist.

By evening when I leave, the day has been and gone all but unseen by myself, and the sun has set leaving an intermediate twilight, with the golden-purple girdle of venus hugging the horizon. The smoke from the sugar factory acts as a wind-gauge, allowing me to realise the wind will be in my face when cycling home, as ever.

Against this backdrop, the wagtails have now indeed arrived in greater numbers  - see my post here - to the point where now well over a hundred are bubbling around their roost trees by 630pm. Their elegantly undulating flight sits black against the sky.

Further round, where the barn owl quarters the waste ground, a kestrel could be seen hovering against a strong blustery wind. Initially around ten metres up, the scythe winged predator is able to control its flight as if it is in a lift, lowering and raising itself with little apparent effort.

At one point it was barely a metre above the ground, before executing a messy drop to ground level, where it apparently missed whatever prey it had seen. No comparison with the 220 mph swoops of a peregrine, but its hover is something else entirely; undisturbed by even a wind as strong as this, it is able to focus on a small area of ground, and detect even the smallest prey species before bringing taloned death from the skies...

...but nit this time. Not this time.

Willie Wagtail Welcomes Winter

The mornings are and evenings are now dark for me; not quite the black of night yet, rather a deep indigo twilight. The dawn chorus is active although the blackbirds are no longer singing their beautiful songs of spring, and in the very dim light of pre-dawn, you can see them hopping all over the South Parade gardens looking for breakfast.

There are still a few hirundines around, indeed I saw a couple of immature looking swallows sat on a post on the road to Barnby a couple of days ago, with others flying south over the school for autistic kids, but their time is sadly done. The nights are already cold, and perhaps with the next chill northern wind, redwing shall be heard tweeting overhead as they fly in from Scandinavia.

It is the time of year of the pied wagtail.

Of course, Willie Wagtail is a common bird at any time of year, a familiar sight in Newark marketplace, or walking (not hopping, like most songbirds) along the walls next to the Trent, bobbing its long slender tail in the fashion that gives the family its name. But is when the sun passes through the autumnal equinox, that the pied wagtail really comes into its own.

In a week or two, when I arrive at work at 630AM or so, the sky will be alive with their odd little double peeping whistle, and I will look up and see literally hundreds of the birds circling in the lights that illuminate the metal building. These are the wagtails forming up in their winter roosts, and a spectacular sight it is too. In the evening when I ride home, the birds will be visible wandering around the car park, avoiding car and cycle tire with ease, before making their way to the stand of three or four trees they roost in.

Quite naturally, when colder nights draw in, the pied wagtails form larger roosts to huddle for warmth in suitable locations. Our car park is relatively free of predators, and the large amount of bright lighting must make it feel warmer still. As I pass about 50 metres distant, the birds can be seen like feathery berries dotting the branches.

However the best wagtail winter roost I have seen can be found outside the famous Bell Pub in Slab Square in Nottingham. For Christmas, the trees outside the pub are decorated with coloured bulbs, and also with illuminated, luridly coloured wagtails, a hundred plus birds to a tree, like the most fabulous baubles you ever saw.

Truly the Willie Wagtail is a bird of winter, and always a charming sight.

Willy Wagtails and UFO Geese

Now that there is a distinct chill in the air, never more noticeable than when I cycle to work at 6am, the Pied Wagtails have descended in large numbers to brighten up a gloomy writer.

My mother calls them Willy Wagtails, no idea why, or if this is a generally accepted common name for these twitching, black and white smart little birds. But it suits them rather admirably I'd say, a polite little bird with dress and manners out of another century.

The best time to see them at the moment is 630pm, when I leave the Warehouse after another eleven and a half hours of daydreaming of not being there. The piping whistle gives them away before you look up and see them massing over the warehouse roof against a darkening indigo sky, long tails like tiny black comets; flight undulating like a sine wave. And then as you cycle away, you see them massing on the ground expertly dodging the cars, sitting on the fences, and swooping in little groups Starling like before pulling away at the last minute from the bushes by the lorry park where they seem to have a mass roost.

There is beauty to be found in every brown field wasteland or macadamised car park. If you are strolling by The Bell pub in Slab Square in Nottingham, take a look at the trees outside, especially when they have the christmas tree lights up. There's hundreds of Wagtails in there!

The other fun thing I've been noticing during my late night astronomy sessions - sadly misted out last night before midnight - are fleets of mysterious grey UFOs coming over, eerily lit in the moonlight. Flying in V shaped echelons, their engines emit a mysterious gentle honking noise- my god, what kind of propulsion systems are they using???!!! - and they have a long cockpit section and a chubby fuselage.

Things look different indeed by night. A woodpigeon went by the other night that looked like a giant Vampire Bat by the full moon.