Goosanders

 We encountered this female goosander and her nine ducklings, not long out of the nest, when we were crossing the footbridge over the river Wear at St. John's Chapel in Weardale recently. We caught her  by surprise, tapped between a low waterfall that her ducklings couldn't navigate and us on the bridge. 

Outside of the breeding season she would have taken flight in an instant, but she had no option but to stick with her flightless ducklings, swimming in agitated circles, with her ducklings clambering on her back. We moved on quickly, leaving her and her family to white-water raft down river and away to safety. 

This was a single-parent family: drake goosanders undertake a moult-migration to Norway while the duck is still incubating her eggs; he won't be back until late autumn.

I wrote about this encounter in the Guardian Country Diary this week.

Goosander chasing fish under water

We encountered this goosander family when we were out walking in the Derwent Valley Country Park near Gateshead this afternoon. They were swimming under the Butterfly bridge on the river Derwent at Winlaton Mill just as were were walking over it.

This provided an unusual opportunity to watch them diving and chasing fish under water. By flicking that broad, fan-shaped tail downwards and kicking with those big feet they can dive in an instant and have an impressive turn of speed under water, chasing fish relentlessly.

There are three underwater in the picture above, and several more emerging under the other side of the bridge in the picture below.

In winter goosander are wary birds, difficult to approach, but in summer family parties like this are much more accommodating and rarely fly unless severely threatened.

Easter Sunday walk along the river Wear

Probably the best weather that I can ever remember for an Easter Sunday. We took a walk along the south side of the river Wear, between Wolsingham and Black Banks plantation at Harperley.

Reassuring to find that the weird flower spikes of toothwort Lathraea squamaria were coming up again under the old coppiced hazels, where we've known them for nearly 40 years.

There's something vaguely reptilian about these parasitic flowering plants that siphon off all their nutrients from the roots of hazel.

You can read more about the strange physiology and folklore of toothwort by clicking here.

This is the plasmodial stage of the slime mould Reticularia lycoperdon [recently renamed Enteridium lycoperdon], probably only about a day away from turning into the sporulating stage. In the plasmodial stage it creeps over the alder tree trunk surface, digesting bacteria, then it forms a parchment-like skin (for pictures click here) enclosing countless dark brown spores. When the skin ruptures they are dispersed on the wind, then germinate into minute amoeba-like organisms that eventually aggregate back into this creeping plasmodial stage, which is most often seen in spring.

I found my first wild primrose of the season growing at the base of an ash tree, and ....

... hundreds of butterbur flower spikes had appeared along the riverbank in the last week.

Elm flowers. A mature elm tree in full bloom was a wonderful sight, with its crown a haze of purple, but it's one we are unlikely to see again, thanks to Dutch elm disease. Young elm trees that have regenerated from the roots of dead stumps are common enough though.

The beautiful juvenile female cones of larch, waiting to be pollinated.

Artefacts of autumn: a hazel nut neatly split in two by a grey squirrel and the stone of a fruit (wild arum?) nibbled by a field mouse.

A rather tatty peacock that had safely made it through the winter and was sunbathing on an old plastic bag.

A pair of goosander on the river. Their behaviour changes in spring. A few weeks ago they would have flown before I could get close but once they are paired up and have identified a hollow tree to nest in they are reluctant to leave their territory.

A fantastic carpet of wild garlic leaves beside the footpath, that will become a sea of white in a few days' time when the flowers open.

Those trees at the top of the bank host a rookery, so we were accompanied by their cawing along this stretch of the walk.

Sawbills on a Sunny Afternoon

This family of goosanders were enjoying the sunshine upstream from the bridge across the river Tyne at Corbridge (bottom photo) this afternoon . In the thirty five years that we’ve lived in the North East goosanders have become an increasingly frequent sight on the rivers here – something to gladden the heart of ornithologists but not quite such a welcome development for anglers, who resent the goosander’s formidable fishing skill. The serrated edge to the bird's beak is beautifully adapted for gripping a wriggling fish. This is a small family group – we once saw a duck with twelve ducklings on the Swale in Yorkshire but as many as 16 eggs have been recorded in a nest, which goes quite a long way towards explaining why this species has colonised new rivers so successfully. That mottled pattern of downy feathers on the ducklings breaks up their outline very effectively, against the rippled shadows and highlights of the river. Double-click on the images for a larger picture.

Goosander and dippers

Downstream from the picturesque medieval village of Blanchland - see http://www.blanchland.org/ - Northumberland's River Derwent races over three kilometres of stony riverbed before it empties into the managed confines of the Derwent Reservoir. It’s perfect dipper habitat and today we mapped the territories of two pairs along this wild stretch of river. Mapping dipper territory is relatively easy – just follow them along the river until they do a U-turn and race back past you; they won’t cross into another’s stretch of river once ownership has been established. We never got close enough for a really good photograph, but close enough to record one of this bird’s remarkable features: white eyelids. When a dipper blinks its eyes go bright white. We also encountered a pair of goosander that are probably nesting along this stretch of the Derwent and just managed a shot of the handsomely-plumaged drake as it streaked past.