Showing posts with label skylark. Show all posts
Showing posts with label skylark. 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 

Sunday, June 23, 2013

A Summer Saturday on the Durham Coast at Dawdon...






One of the finest specimens of a marsh orchid that I've seen in a long time.




Spotted orchids in great profusion.





Bird's foot trefoil, with plenty of common blue butterflies.























Bloody crane'sbill growing on the magnesian limestone cliffs






Ox-eye daisies swaying in the breeze.






Harebells just coming into flower.


Cliff-top shrubs full of whitethroats, and finally ..............



.......... a lark ascending - for a soundtrack, click here....