A brief glimpse .... and then it was gone

 It's often the case that the briefest of glimpses of an animal are the wildlife encounters that stick in the memory. Here are three recent chance encounters, that lasted only for a few seconds

I saw something moving in the grass under some young oaks, but couldn't quite make out what it was ..... and then this magnificent jay, with its exquisite blue wing feathers, flew up into the branches. It paused for a couple of seconds and then was gone

I'd been watching this kestrel hovering and stooping along the sea cliffs near Hawthorn Dene on the Durham coast. I lost sight of it then, as I drew near, it flew up from the grass with a small mammal in its talons and disappeared over the edge of the cliff

I was walking through Auckland park in Bishop Auckland, along the edge of what must once have been a broad ditch, when this hare that had been lying low leapt up from almost under my feet and dashed away into a hawthorn thicket.

Kestrels in the snow

We have had deep snow on the ground now for over a week, which makes it difficult for kestrels to locate their field mouse and vole prey. They are there, moving around in grassy tunnels under the snow, but relatively safe.

Hungry times for kestrels

 

Buzzards and Kestrels

 When I first came to Durham 45 years ago, it would have been a rare pleasure to watch a buzzard soaring overhead. I could only be sure of seeing them if I crossed the Pennines into Cumbria or travelled into Wales. Now, I see them here almost every day. No less that eight circling overhead at once when I was walking near Wolsingham in Weardale last week. Maybe easy access to road kill, and the plentiful rabbit supply locally, are factors that have led to an increase in numbers?

While buzzards bred successfully and became established here, kestrels seemed to go into decline over the last couple of decades, although they seem to have done much better lately. 

I photographed this young bird hunting along the sea cliffs at Dawdon near Seaham, on the Durham coast. It must have hovered a dozen times without stooping on prey and it didn't make a successful kill while I watched. Perhaps still perfecting its hunting kills. They seem to expend a lot of energy for small, infrequent rewards.

Fog on the Tyne

Thursday's Guardian Country Diary is about a sudden change in the weather in Tynemouth.

We were visiting for a walk along the north bank of the river Tyne to North Shields, destination the Waterfront for their outstanding fish and chips, with the added incentive of a bit of botanising on the way. The headland at Tynemouth is a popular place for birders - and it also has some interesting plants, including this....

........... black horehound Ballota nigra

....... some very attractive field bindweed Convolvulus arvensis

...... and restharrow Ononis repens

This kestrel, looking a little worse-for-wear with missing wing and tail feathers, was hovering above us on the slopes of the headland below Tynemouth Priory. As we watched it there was an incredibly sudden change in the weather, as the wind direction shifted and a sea fret blew inshore, blanketing the mouth of the Tyne, the headland and the kestrel in fog that reduced visibility to just a few metres, where just a minute or two before we had been in bright sunshine. Even kestrels can't hunt in such conditions.

I grew up on the coast and spent much of my youth messing about in boats, so I was well aware of how fast conditions can change on the coast but this sudden fog was astonishing.

We'd watched the Tyne Pilot head out of the river in bright sunshine to meet an incoming vessel, the ferry City of Barcelona, but she had disappeared into the fog. We could hear her engines and foghorn as she ghosted past us and then, about fifteen minutes after the fog closed in ....

...... the wind direction changed and visibility improved, so the  ferry loomed up out of the fog just as she approached North Shields fish quay. Within another five minutes the sea fret had blown away, dazzling sunshine returned and the kestrel was hunting again.

Learning to Fly...

Today's Guardian Country Diary describes an encounter with this young kestrel, which was still struggling to master some of the finer points of flight.

First it raced over our heads at great speed .....

... then executed a not-very-elegant landing in the top of this holly tree, whose whippy branches launched it back into the air, until ....

.... it came to rest on a rather more substantial fencepost on the far side of the hedge and glared at us.

Then it tried a few wing exercises ....

... and was almost knocked off balance by a gust of wind under its wings.....

...... before having a  good look around to see ........

.... who else might be witnessing its efforts to fly like a kestrel.


Eventually it tried out a few practice hunting manoeuvres on the ringlet butterflies in the surrounding grassland. Hopefully, it will have got the hang of hovering and learned how to catch more substantial prey before winter comes.

Bolt from the blue..........

A poor quality image but an interesting angle. This kestrel was one of a pair in a tree near the cliffs south of Seaham in Co. Durham ....... and when I got too close it headed straight for me before racing off over the trees.

Bird's Eye View

Over the years I've spent a lot of time staring up into the sky to watch kestrels, but a walk along the cliffs south of Dawdon on the Durham coast at the weekend provided a wonderful opportunity to look down on one for a change.

We were standing almost directly behind it, on the edge of the cliff, and it was so intent at hunting something in the grass on a ledge on the cliff face that it ignored us, so we could watch every minute adjustment of its feathers as to effortlessly held position in a stiff north-easterly breeze.

Eventually it lowered its talons and stooped on its prey, carrying it off to its nest site further along the coast.

Life on the Edge

The Durham coast used to be famed for industrial dereliction and coal waste dumping, but thanks to a wonderfully successful clean-up campaign it's now a great place for coastal walking, where you can get eye-to-eye with a kestrel as it glides on the updraft from the beach.

The cliffs south of Seaham are becoming popular with birders  - it's a great place to watch the fulmars that nest on the cliffs as they glide by .... 

... and yesterday the scrub on the cliff top was alive with singing whitethroats

...

... along with this smartly turned-out cock chaffinch..

The calcareous grassland along the Durham Coastal path is now part of the Durham Heritage Coast and just now the cowslips are coming into full bloom ...

.... along with the early purple orchids - a narrow strip of floral diversity, perched on top of the crumbling cliff edge

Turning the Tide

If Michael Caine returned to the Durham coast today, south of Seaham, he probably wouldn’t recognise it. The final scenes of his cult movie Get Carter were filmed along this coastline in 1971, and in those days it was an industrial hell-hole. Coal waste from the local mines was dumped on the beaches, which resembled a moonscape: parts of the movie Alien lll were shot here, because it was the bleakest landscape that the movie-makers could find. Today, thanks to the inspired Turning the Tide campaign (http://www.turning-the-tide.org.uk/), the damage is being undone and the path through the cliff-top grasslands is already a delight, flanked by wildlife at every turn. This morning the air was full of the coconut scent of gorse, masses of blackthorn blossom attracted peacock butterflies, skylarks sang and kestrels hunted for voles. The magnesian limestone grassland along this coastline, south of Seaham, puts on a magnificent display of wild flowers from April onwards and I’ll be posting more photographs later in the season, when I make return visits. In the photographs above you can see the little alula feathers, on the leading edge of the kestrel's wing, that prevented it from stalling while it hung in the air, on the updraft from the cliffs.