Winter Thrushes on the Bicycle

I'm writing this while listening to "Starless"  by King Crimson which is an awesome piece of music...

So after an exhausted day of nothing yesterday - My Black Friday duties totally wiped me out - I decided I needed to make a good go at today, cold or not.

So in the morning I made my way to  the park for a cup of tea on my trusty Rockrider, and then in the afternoon managed to get out for a sunset 25km ride, with a gentle breeze it seemed like a bloody nice thing  to  do.

And I worry I'll get very fat indeed if I don't do it.

So out I went along the cycle path with the low sun lighting up the turbines of the wind farm and reflecting off the solar panel plant. It even made the rubbish tip glow in gold. Rather oddly I thought, the gulls and crows feasting  off the rubbish were flushed by my presence from about 100 metres away, silly feathery things!

It was on this cycle path that I saw my first winter thrushes of the year, flushed from the berry laden hawthorns alongside. Trouble is, with the sun behind them they just looked like black shapes, until they flew past me and I caught a glimpse of pale bellies and grey rumps; fieldfares.

Odd that I should see fieldfare before redwing. Normally the latter are easier to come across just outside of  town in early winter.

So I kept on riding as the sun set, and re-murmarised a flock of about 50 starling who thought they were going to have a peaceful roost in a tree next to the road to Thorpe village.

It was a good ride, and I took a bit of pride in myself for  doing it.

Si

All text and images copyright CreamCrackeredNature 24.11.18

The Feisty Thrushes of Kings Mill Hospital

It is strange where animals set up home.

Hospitals are not places anyone would ever want to be, despite the efforts of the staff, and my mum has been suffering a while there now, watching the other patients come and go. We have tried to keep her spirits up, but it's hard.

Luckily, we found distractions today, in the shape of a pair of birds who have found a hospital a grand place to live.

I had already had an enlivening afternoon, because the hirundids have arrived in earnest on the water at Sutton in Ashfield reservoir. At the hospital end, the black silhouette of swallows are carving up the air into strips of molecule thickness, their powerful flight easy to admire.

But at the sailing club, it is the antics of the small, more fluttery, sand martins that really thrill. Standing on the slipway, they flash by in chains of two or three at water level no more than two metres away, before they execute a dazzling spiral turn, and come back the other way an arm's length above your head, little forked tails twisting in the air, wings beating.

But the real stars live in the hospital grounds, and have been entertaining the staff for years.

In this atrium at Kings Mill hospital, live a pair of thrushes. A solitary pair, in an area half the size of a football pitch.

Kings Mill. One of the thrushes is just visible on the "ladder" formation at left, near the bottom

 

 At times both will sit on the ladder formations on the side of the hospital wings, eyeing their empire. At others, one will perch on a gantry lower down, while the other feeds amongst the mosses on the lower roof you can see below. Their regular nesting site is at ground level.

They spend most of the time on lookout. And then when required they protect this space like flying tigers.

An inquisitive carrion crow swept into the space, perhaps looking out for food, perhaps just seeking the warmth the hospital must radiate out in abundance. Within seconds one, then the other, of the thrushes were on it, mobbing it clear out of the sky, back out over the building, into the wild unprotected space outside.

Mallards too, are no match for these ferocious passerines. Any passing green headed drakes are soon seen off with some fearsome flapping and calls.

And they are right to protect their space. It is warm, it has food in abundance, and no ground predators can get in, and any aerial invaders are seen easily, and early. These birds have earned the admiration of the hospital staff, and they certainly earned mine. 

And cheered up my mother, just enough.

Copyright Cream Crackered Nature

The Fieldfares up the Hill

My first day off shift, and I slept in far too late to do Parkrun.

This is not a good thing. It means I have to do a longer run to make up for it, and so after enjoying the sight of chaffinches and blue tits in the trees outside my front door, I set off to run to Coddington and back.

It was a bright as anything day, the blue sky seeming to reach to the edge of the universe, and seagulls making the most of a reasonable breeze. Along Barnby Lane, blackbirds were munching berries in the hedges, but I haven't seen the kestrel on the flyover for a while. It used to be perched in the trees, presumably in between spells of hunting for food along the A1 verges.

After a hard run up  the back of Beacon Hill, I approached the field next to the converted windmill on the left and saw it was absolutely full of birds. A flock of at least 50, and perhaps over 100 fieldfares (with possibly the odd redwing thrown in) strutting brashly about the ground, and not at all fazed by my presence, unlike the ones on Clay Lane in the trees.

It's the biggest flock of these sturdy, attractive thrushes I've seen since they savaged the ornamental berry trees on Beacon Hill estate, in the harsh snows of two years ago. It takes bad weather to shift the winter thrushes into town, and so far this winter, it hasn't been cold enough.

On one hand this is a pity, because they are really striking birds to introduce to the general population out there. But on the other, if they are in town, it means my cycle rides to work are going to be a frozen, slippery nightmare!