Curlews

Another curlew breeding season is over, here in the Durham North Pennine foothills.

Their calls, as they fly over my house towards Weardale, are one the the early signs of spring that I always look forward to. This is one of the first birds to arrive, back in late March, in meadows about a mile from my home,

Their long gliding courtship flights, trailing their bubbling calls in their wake, are amongst the most evocative sights and sounds in nature.

Part of a flock of about a dozen birds, with Weardale in the distance, at the end of the breeding season

I saw these youngsters, still with some downy feathers on their heads, in a meadow about a week ago. Their parents put up a spirited defence against a buzzard that showed too much interest in them, harassing it until it left the scene.

Since then I haven't heard any curlew calls locally, so they must now be on their way to the coast.

Gleaners

A scene I passed on my walk a few days ago reminded me of this famous painting called The Gleaners, by Jean-Francois Millet.

Gleaning was the tradition where the poor were allowed onto fields after a harvest to collect anything edible that had been left behind. It survived in one form until my childhood in the 1950s, when my grandmother worked on a farm in a rural part of the country that was in some ways still quite feudal. After the wheat harvest all the farmhands and their families waited around the field while the harvester paused before 'the last cut', which left just a rectangle of corn in the middle of the field, full of rabbits. Then the harvester would start again and the rabbits would be shot as they raced away, and given to families. My grandmother was highly skilled at skinning rabbits with a wicked little knife that she sharpened on the doorstep, giving me their tails afterwards.

By Jean-François Millet. Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=20111149

The gleaners I've been watching are birds. Until a few days ago these fields were lush green meadows of cultivated forage grasses, tall enough to hide a hare. Then, in the space of a couple of days of fine, sunny weather the grass was cut, turned and dried and carried away to make silage, leaving the fields shorn and yellow. 

So now the fields are full of birds, come to glean the insects and soil animals that are suddenly so accessible. Easy pickings, to feed their fledglings.

There are jackdaws  ..... and ...

Scores of rooks from the local rookeries, and some crows 

And flocks of starlings that keep themselves apart from the other gleaners.

And even a few curlews, flying in from rough pastures that are not cut for silage....

Coronavirus lockdown: still more birds

In a normal year, spring would be the time that I would have visited many of the best wildlife locations here in northern England - the Lake District, Teesdale, Weardale, the Tyne valley, the Yorkshire Dales and the Northumberland and Yorkshire coasts. Instead, the coronavirus lockdown has confined me close to home, but it has been a real eye-opener. By following the same route around my local patch every morning, I've been able to watch spring unfold leaf by leaf, and have come to appreciate a the wealth of wildlife within one mile of home, here in the North Pennine foothills.

So, here are some birds seen within the last couple of weeks.

Blue tit, just at the moment when oak buds begin to burst

Singing male chaffinch. With so little traffic on the roads, hearing bird song so clearly every morning has been pure delight.

The calls of curlews in the pastures have been a constant accompaniment to early morning walks

I see magpies feeding on the ground in one of the smallholdings along my route

Cock pheasant

Perhaps the greatest, most uplifting joy has been the song of skylarks. Fine weather on most days has meant that they have been singing, high in a clear blue sky, I must pass at least a dozen pairs every morning.

Song thrush

I always knew there were yellowhammers here, but never realised there were so many.

There is a large pond hidden amongst the trees, which is where this pair of Canada geese will be nesting. Sometimes they graze in the pastures.

Partridges, like yellowhammers, are a red list species but they seem to be doing fairly well here. As the grass in the pastures grows taller they are becoming more difficult to spot. They spend quite a lot of time in an oilseed rape crop, where you can sometimes see them along the tractor wheelings.

A large muck heap, on the edge of one of the pastures, is a favourite place for pied wagtails to hunt flies.

I saw the first swallow in the third week of April but, nearly three weeks later they haven't arrived in large numbers yet.

A tree full of wood pigeons

I hear this blackbird singing every morning, but he rarely shows himself this clearly

Golden plovers in a sheep pasture. Surprise visitors, staying just one day on their way to breeding sites on the fells of Weardale.

Lapwings in the pastures now have eggs, so they become vociferous if anyone comes too close.

Whitethroat, nesting in brambles on the edge of an oilseed rape field.

One morning, I watched jackdaws plucking hairs from the winter coast of a horse, for use as nest lining

I'm seeing goldfinches more frequently, now that colt'sfoot and dandelion seeds are ripening -  favourite food items

One morning, I saw these linnets on the road ahead of me, collecting scraps of sheep wool for nest lining.

By early May many birds had nestlings to feed. This starling was collecting earthworms in a smallholding sheep pasture.


Some that got away:
Great spotted woodpecker - just a flypast, too quick for me
Goldcrest - early morning on a dull day, so no light and constantly moving
Oystercatcher - away in the distance in a field, probably on their way to breeding sites in Weardale
Sparrowhawk - too high, too fast