Showing posts with label grey partridge. Show all posts
Showing posts with label grey partridge. Show all posts

Friday, April 10, 2020

Local patch lockdown 2: more birds

The end of another week of coronavirus lockdown early morning exercise walks, and still seeing new birds very close to home.












The best sighting was this pair of partridges - red-listed birds. They look like they are nesting in the hedge on the edge of a pasture (that was part of an opencast coal mine 25 years ago)

















This pair of magpies are always in a pasture on part of a small holding




















Surprised to see this reed bunting in a roadside hedge. It was about a mile from a large pond and reed bed, created as mitigation for the coal mining, where it might be nesting.















There are small rookeries nearby, so they are always searching for small soil animals in the pastures






















Carrion crow repairing an old nest in an ash tree




















Greeted every morning by the song of chaffinches




















Coal tits are always in the trees close to small larch and pine plantations, which were established after opencast coal mining ended here. 

















Curlew in a sheep pasture. Listening to their call is a lovely way to begin the day.















Lapwing aerial courtship displays are over now. Most will have nests with eggs.
















Soon after sunrise on sunny mornings the air is always full of the song of skylarks, but they also sing on the ground.
















Pied wagtail on a farmyard muck heap - a profitable feeding site for a bird that hunts flies

























The glorious sound of a song thrush





















And the song of a wren - a lot of noise for such a small bird 

Friday, February 6, 2015

Footprints in the snow

The snow has almost gone, hereabouts.

One of the delights of a fresh snowfall is the sudden appearance of animal tracks, that reveal just how much activity is going on in a seemingly empty winter landscape. Here are a few from earlier this week.


A field mouse, hopping from top to bottom of the picture - you can see the line where it dragged its long tail in the snow.



A grey squirrel, with those prominent claws used for climbing


A moorhen, with that little sideways-facing spur at the back of its foot


A grey partridge. The line between the footprints is where the claw on the long central toe has dragged through the deep snow



A pheasant - similar to a partridge but larger, with a longer stride


A domestic goose - big webbed feet


Mallard duck, webbed-feet turned inwards as it waddled






































The ubiquitous rabbit. Fore-feet are placed one in front of the other when they lands, then longer, larger back feet overtake them before they land.