Yellow: Rape, Butter, Hammer and Moon

Blue, yellow and white flowers, with purple buds... the lovely Forget-me-not!

From the classic signs of spring, to the turn of summer. My previous two blogs were heavily focused around  the violet-blue bluebells and the dunnock in the garden. The dunnocks have fully fledged and the few chicks that survived are now off on their own adventure, with the ultimate goal of surviving until next spring and having chicks of their own. Because there was so much blue going on in my previous blog, I decided to theme this one around the colour yellow. A very summery colour indeed, often associated with optimism and bright, fun-filled days. But first, a bluebell with a difference...

From blue (and white) bells...

.... to the yellow of rapeseed

The weather had finally taken a turn for the better, at least for a few days, and you will have noticed the fields are filled with the overwhelmingly sweet smelling rapeseed plant. Its scent so thick in the air you can almost feel it. I quite like the smell, and I especially enjoy the fields laden with splashes of gold amongst the intense green of the now chlorophyll packed leaves on our trees.

Fields of rape

Fallen shed

In just the last forty years, rapeseed production has increased in the UK from a few thousand to a couple of million of tonnes, and is becoming a far more common sight as we drive, train, cycle and walk through our countryside. Since it has become a far more palatable crop and the toxins have been removed from its oils, it is quite a healthy alternative to other cooking oils on the market. 

In the rape

Aesthetically, the flowering plant looks wonderful on bright sunny days, and provides a beautiful contrast to the bright blue skies on a clear day. Fortunately for me, the plant is insect-pollinated, and although some people have reported to suffer allergic reactions from it, my horrendous hay-fever appears to be none the worse...

Amongst the rape

Rachael and I took a trip up to Therfield, a site recently designated as a coronation meadow in honour of the 60th anniversary of the Queens coronation. Buttercups laden the fields as cows lounged in the heat, lifting their head out of curiosity as two people made their way through their field.

Cow in a field of buttercups

Yellowhammers called from perches in the hedgerows surrounding the arable farmland. Breeding populations of this bird have declined by over 50% across the UK in the last 25 years. But, like the skylark in this area, the yellowhammer is seemingly doing well in this part of the countryside. What a beautiful little bird it is too!

Male Yellowhammer

Some insects, like this field digger wasp, use the brightness of yellow, mixed with black, as a warning to other animals. Kindly, this provides others with the knowledge that trying to predate them could be a bad idea...

Field-digger wasp

This lunar months full moon shone a brilliantly bold orange and yellow against the black of the clear night sky, dulling the surrounding stars from the top of the Downs in Whipsnade.

Full moon!

Driving into Stotfold, the moon sat directly above the road leading into the town. Pulling over, I stood in the middle of the road, and enjoyed the incredible sight.

Showing me the way home

How amazing is the natural world around us? I really believe more people need to take more time to just stop and admire the sight, sound, smell, taste and feel of the world around us. Take a break from the long drive home and see your breathe as you watch the rise of the moon. Listen to the dawn chorus before getting into your car to work and putting the horrendously irritating idiot on Radio 1's breakfast show on, as they churn out a loud of crap music that sounds like the last load of crap music that came out two years ago. Watch flying mammals catch flying insects on the wing at night, bees collecting nectar and immersing themselves in pollen. Think about how plants have evolved to rely on insects to enable them to reproduce and how insects rely on plants for food. You do not have to go far - your back garden is a great place to start, just open your senses to the world around, learn and be inspired.

Bumblebee

Tree sparrows and a Sparrowhawk in the garden this week have bumped this years garden bird list up to 23 species... Next blog will include a little trip around Ashridge (again!) and Ivinghoe. Hope ya'll enjoyed!

Bluebells, Butterfly on a Bluebell-end, and a Newt...

While the bluebells are in full bloom, after much delay, I thought I would post a few bluebell photos. Some are from a recent trip to Ashridge with Ian the Whipsnade warden. The wood here is renowned for their bluebells. And quite right too!

Ashridge Woods

Bluebells!

And what is a visit to woodland without an attempt at some blurry shots... 

Capturing the mood of the place and all that photographer's spiel... Who really cares!? It is either a good photo, or a load of crap. Whether it took a minutes work, or hours or days...

Semi-blurry, semi-moody, semi.

And the following is what happens when Rachael gets involved with the editing! Despite looking completely unnatural, I actually quite like it...

Before...

After! The artist within.

 A small white butterfly, clumsily lounged around in the back garden one early morning. Shame the end of the bluebell it is perched belongs to the non-native species.

Small white on a Bluebell-end

Close-up: Small white

Sky and Haz joined me for a stroll around the bluebell woods in Chrishall...

Sky charging through the bluebells

Bells of blue

After helping out on great-crested newt surveys in Marston, and surveying new ponds in the area for the GCN project, and having no luck with any amphibians what-so-ever, it was a bit of a surprise to find this little critter at the top of our pond-less garden.

Juvenile smooth newt

I love newts! Cracking little animals, with a wonderfully interesting life-cycle. Hatching from eggs with gills to absorb oxygen, metamorphosing into air-breathing miniature versions of their adult form, and then growing into handsome adulthood. This guy looked like a juvenile smooth newt. Wonderful.

Dunnock, Thetford, and a taster of recent photo projects...

5:30am. My window lay wide open. The warm air barely cooled my room over the still night. The first full dawn chorus of the year commenced. An orchestra of bird song powerfully drifts through the air; rising and falling, twisting and turning its way into spring. Thrush, robin, tits and even the garden dunnock pooled in together. A blackbird, perched on top of the telegraph pole, in prime position, fills his lungs with air. Upon exhaling, the air crosses over their double voice box. Using muscles to control each of the two passages of exhaled air, the bird can produce two, differentiating sounds simultaneously. Perfect for creating the ultimate song to attract a mate and reaffirm their territory. Beautiful start to a beautiful few days of weather ahead.

Where the dunnock deposit the crap collected from the nest

On my days off, I sat, watched and listened to the dunnock constantly foraging and feeding its young in the bush at the top of the garden. Clearly joining into the dawn chorus worked for him! In half an hour, the chicks were visited seven times. Dunnock are renowned for their complicated relationships, but luckily it appeared that this nest had both parents dedicated to raising their young. Frequently males will mate with lots of females, and females with lots of males. Sometimes leaving the chicks to be reared by more than one father, more than one 'mother' or lots of both males and females.

The dunnock's favourite perch

A magpie made a racket, screaming with excitement as it plunged down into the bushes at the back of the garden, wings spread wide, its iridescent tail feathers flashing green. I was certain the dunnock chicks would be ready to fledge anytime soon, and it turned out they had. But before long, there appeared to be just the one left upon investigation...

Chick!

A trip to Thetford with Rachael, in the faint hope of catching the otter that had almost become tame, was unsurprisingly unsuccessful on the otter front. But we did manage to see willow tit, which are basically marsh tits but with slightly different calls. A greylag goose with goslings, which does not seem that unusual, until you see that the other parent is a canadian goose. Apparently, they can hybridise...

Crazy Geese

A muntjac pauses before making a dash across the path and into the woodland opposite.

Muntjac

A pheasant popped his gloriously blue and red head up above the tall grass. Taking a break from feeding, he clucked and leaped into the air, then scratched and beat his wings against the ground. Establishing his territory.

Pheasant

Canadian goslings swam across the Nunnery Lakes reserve, this time escorted by a pair of canadian geese...

Goslings

A wren sang from the hedges, while sedge, reed and marsh warblers inconspicuously made their way through the depths of the foliage. 

Wren

And after a meal and a climb up to the top of the medieval castle, or the mound of, the sun set sending streaks of pink, purple and orange across a dark blue skyline.

From the top of the mound

A great example of how important it is to simply just get out and enjoy nature. We did not see the otter, which is a shame, but we did see and hear new and exciting animals that we would not have, had we stayed home and watched Britain's Got Talent. Call it an excuse to get away to somewhere a little different. And never lose sight of what really matters.

Thetford Sunset

Spending time in one of my favourite places; wading through the gentle flow of the River Ivel. Shafts of light flicker across the gravelly river bed as I plunge my camera into the water. Experimenting with some underwater river shots, I wade up stream through the small woodland. The top of the banks lined with the last remaining daffodils.

Above/below in the River Ivel

Sky joining me in the River!

And this blog shall end with a photo of a fetus, of what I believe to be a fox. Poor little blighter...

One of four fetuses found on Dunstable Downs

Also, if you do one thing over the coming week, make sure it involves walking/running/cycling/crawling through a woodland carpeted with bluebells.... Stunning, particularly first thing in the morning!

Ashridge

Hope you enjoyed... Expect some more bluebell photos in the next blog very soon...

Toads, Red Kite & a Badger Sett in a Car...

Finally. The weather is ideal; comfortably warm enough to sit outside in the morning with a cup of tea, squinting slightly in the bright, low sunlight. Blackbirds and song thrush fill the air with their wonderfully refreshing song, whilst tits call with cheerfully repetitive phrases. My room is now warm enough in the evenings to leave the window slightly ajar, allowing me to hear the faint high-pitched squeak of echo-locating pipistrelle bats, as they hunt for insects that have taken flight in the night. The sudden change from the freezing conditions that gripped the country, to the warmer days of spring has unleashed all plants and animals that have laid dormant over winter. 

Common Frog

Walking through Whipsnade was impossible to do so without coming across toads every yard or so. On a short walk through the zoo at night, we counted well over 80 toads. A mixture of males and females, chirping  furiously in an attempt to locate a mate and produce young.

The horny toad

Males, wisely, often ride on the back of females and get carried to their ancestral breeding grounds. Males will mate aggressively with females, latching on until she releases eggs for fertilisation, sometimes drowning them. In their somewhat blind desperation to reproduce, they will also attempt to mate with deceased females, or, if you are Rachael, a human hand moving them to safety from a busy road. Chirp!

Toad face

To Dunstable Downs. My new favourite place to visit. Already violets scatter the steep chalk hillside here. Never have I enjoyed being and feeling so intimately close to wild birds of prey. Not for the first time, I pulled up in the National Trust car park, and being a big fan of the odd nap, I wound the seat back, and nodded off for half hour or so (Not bad for a 24 year old!). When I woke, as I opened my eyes, a red kite with its wings arched into a 'W' formation, forked tail balancing it in the strong winds, bombed directly across the front of my car. What a sight. 

Red kite above

Rich red and brown in colour, grey heads and with white undersides to their primaries.That classic and diagnostic forked tail makes them easily distinguished from other large birds of prey. 

Another red kite rose on the wind forced up against the side of the downs. Holding its wings stiff, the kite reached down to its talons mid-flight and tore scraps from the prey it most likely scavenged. 

Feeding mid-flight

The red kites are a conservation success story, being brought back from near to extinction in the UK. And it is not just the red kites that love patrolling these hills. Kestrels hover, head motionless in the wind. Whilst buzzards soar in a circling fashion, with their wings stretched wide. 

Buzzard

Olivia joined me after work for a walk on the downs, where we investigated some of the woodland in the area. Immediately, we stumbled across some entrances to what turned out to be a huge badger sett. The entrances appeared to have been used recently, nesting material strewn messily around the site, latrines full of their messy tar-like faeces, scratches set into the bark of nearby trees, and even badger hair caught onto branches by some of the entrance holes. 

Curiously, the remains of an old, rusted car sat amongst the woodland. Slowly it has been reclaimed by the land, filled with dirt and tangled by new growth. What was strange, was to find an entrance to the badger sett  underneath where the drivers seat would have been. 

Rusty old car in the woods

Hair was caught on the shard of metal that hung from just above the sett entrance. There is something fascinating about the idea of human waste being claimed and used to the advantage of wild plants and animals. Something that would have been an appalling act of littering and dumping, has conversely become what appears to be a useful shelter and protected entrance to the badgers sett.

Sett in the car

Even stranger, was the discovery of three skulls, amongst a heap of bones from a range of animals. Rabbit, as you would expect from an area prowled by aerial and terrestrial predators. Then what looked like the jaw of a cow, possible due to the grazing that has occurred on sites nearby. Two badger skulls, fairly close to the sett. And a third, very similar in size and shape as the two badger skulls; it had the same dentition, but lacked the sagittal crest that runs along the centre of the two badger skulls, instead fused by two separate fibrous joints. Confusing indeed.

The three skulls

Whilst eating sandwiches, a spotted wolf spider came crawling out of the undergrowth.

Spotted wolf spider on the chalky downs

Close-up!

Back in Langford, and a red lily beetle perched on a blade of grass in the garden. Luckily flying off before I cut the grass. Apparently they devastate lilies and are a burden to gardeners.

Red lily beetle, poised on the end of a blade of grass

Little beauty!

Quite frankly, I am a red lily beetle fan. A very good-looking insect, that can ruin any of my lilies any day.

Back at Whipsnade, and a metallic trill echoes through the woodland. Faster paced than the cackling of the green woodpecker, and a lot tinnier. A bird lands on the trunk opposite. The wonderfully slate grey back, separated from its chestnut orange underside by a black eye band running back from its bill. Reaching its head out, it eyes up its nest hole. Then dashes into the nest hole where a branch used to be. Packed with dirt, the hole is now only big enough to fit the nuthatch through.

Reaching out

Eyeing up its nesthole before entering

Nuthatch are hot on the heels of the treecreeper for their amazing ability to effortlessly scurry both up and down tree trunks and branches.

Calling from the top of a tree

Collecting dirt

And just below this wonderful bird, the newborn wild boar piglets charge around and snuffle through the mud, imitating their boisterous mother. Cute or what!? 

Boar-lets

And I shall end with this photo of Ellie, enjoying the cool River Ivel on one of our sunnier days....

Expect some butterflies and some bloody faetus' in the next blog.... Bet you can not wait!