Woodpeckers in Winter

Spent a good few hours in the hide last Saturday being entertained by the steady stream of woodpeckers and nuthatches visiting the feeders - these photos are both male as they have the red patch on the back of their heads - females do not have this, and juveniles have red on the tops of their heads which is later replaced by the black - but of course we won't be seeing any of those for a few months yet.
A pair of jays came down a couple of times too, the first time I let them come in and feed without firing off any shots, but the second time I thought I would give it a go. However, I made a stupid mistake which screwed up the shot; I was still set-up to shoot tiny birds (with my aperture wide open) and so when the very much larger Jay landed right in front of the hide, my depth of field simply was not deep enough and most of him was out of focus - idiot - and of course he didn't stay long enough for me to get a second shot in. Oh well - there's always next time. I do love the Jays - they seem to glide so silently around and yet their call is so loud and brash.

Last Sunday we returned to make a start on the Rhodie regrowth. I cleared the wayleave area north of the dam and used the brash to build a barrier along fox ridge, whilst the boys hacked out the roots in the tent area. Flee and Tracey arrived to drop off the industrial shredder and got stuck in as well. We have decided that shredding the Rhodies rather than burning them, and putting the chippings along the paths would at least make the effort worthwhile as it's pretty slippery underfoot at the moment.
Need to be careful to check for disease first though to ensure nothing diseased gets into the shredder as I really don't want to be spreading anything around the wood that might do some damage to the native species.
http://treesforlife.org.uk/work/forest-restoration-techniques/rhododendron-control/

We braved the damp misty weather again this afternoon for a few hours of fresh air and exercise in the hope it would combat the slight hangover and lack of sleep we were both suffering. Certainly seemed to do the trick for a couple of hours at least as Ant dug out another load of mammoth Rhodie roots and Tracey and I cleared the new growth (again) down by the stream. Very disheartening to keep covering the same ground, but little by little we will get it under control and get Rais back to a healthy native woodland again.
Flee spent the afternoon re-felting the roof of Immac so that we could remove the temporary tarp and I took a good walk around snapping views with the camera on my mobile phone. I followed deer paths and inspected bog plants, nosed at the huge range of orange winter fungi everywhere and noticed the gorse bushes are in full bloom. I also found a single flowering primrose. Spring is not going to be too far away - marked on Tuesday by Imbolc - an old Celtic festival to celebrate the passing of Winter and the awakening of Spring - the first green shoots can already be seen pushing up through the leaf litter from ancient Bluebell bulbs underneath the soil - can't wait to see what effect our Rhodie clearance has had on the bluebell display this year. It's also quite exciting heading into our first Spring in the new house.... already the garden has delivered some surprises; pale purple hellebores, crocuses, pansies, as well as clumps of white snowdrops nodding away in the wind.

First snowfall of the year

The strikingly beautiful Jay, captured by the trailcam at 8:20am this morning. Thankfully I wasn't so far behind that I missed it all - opening the curtains about 9am to an almost white view out over the playing fields and, despite still suffering the remains of a chesty cold, we managed to get up, fed, organised and on our way to Rais by 11am: just as the snow was starting to melt - it was only a dusting really, but enough for me to find a few tracks to start a "snowprint" collection.

Pheasant prints in the snow

The first, and most obvious, was the pheasant. The clear prints of the rune Tyr - "The rune of sacrifice of the self for the well-being of the whole" - or in other words.... tasty Sunday lunch, how very apt. Judging by the placement of prints, one directly behind the other, and the distance apart - it looks to be ambling past the campfire in no great hurry. I retraced them back over toad bridge and lost them up in the muddy reaches of the stream on the Eastern side of the wood.
The second set of prints were in the Yardarm, and given the size of them, I'm guessing they were left by a squirrel, but for a beginner like me it's a little difficult to tell - they didn't appear to come from anywhere or go to anywhere - so that would fit with a squirrel accessing the deck from the upright supports of the Yardarm itself. (Unless of course there's a very large bird about with mammalian feet!?)

The third set I'm pretty certain were made by the deer, although not sure which species. They look a little large to be Muntjac, and possibly not pointy enough for Roe, so I would go with Fallow. It surprises me however to see that they appear to be using the steps up the bank now rather than the bank itself. I wonder if they snuggle down together in the Yardarm at night for a good ol' moonlit chinwag - I know the pheasants certainly do - messy buggers - kicking dust and dirt all over the place. But I guess it is a dry and cosy place to stay in these cold nights.  With any luck more snow will fall (and I will get much better at getting up early enough to see them before they start melting).

Ant took his new pick axe and dug out 20 or so Rhodie roots with relative ease whilst I rehashed the feeding station and organised Immac's insides into a more usable space. More peanuts are on order and the trailcam is reset to see what else might be visiting the Yardarm after hours - a brief visit, but well worth it.... bring on the snowfall I say.

New year, new hide, and sadly new dam needed

After persevering with a makeshift tarp-hide for over a year, it has now been replaced with a more permanent structure in the form of an almost-new shed which was destined for the skip. It's warm, dry and already working well. I arrived in the dry this morning, and after filling the feeders with peanuts and smearing lard in the bark crevices in the desired spots, I set-up the netting, tripod and bench seating before disappearing off to have a look at the dam - giving the birds a chance to realise I had arrived with food.

Sadly the heavy rain, coupled with the existing leak, has turned the dam into a bridge with very fast flowing water beneath it. Flee removed the upstand last weekend to reduce the water level and enable us to get in and start work on repairing it, but there is not much left to repair in reality, We will build again over the coming months, taking more time to let each layer bed in this time. With any luck we will have something even more impressive to marvel at this summer.
As the clouds formed and the rain began again, I returned to "Immac" and settled in with a brew and some bikkies to see what was about. The trusty tits were first in to scoff; Blue, followed by Great, followed by the Coal tit - the cheeky chappy nabbing the stray peanuts that failed to make it into the feeders. Then came the Robin, who lingers longer than most, and finally a pair of Nuthatches. No sign (or sound) of the woodpeckers, but I'm sure it won't be long. The sun made an appearance for a short spell before the heavens opened in apocalyptic fashion and I decided it would be safer to head home. No bird would be out in that anyway. I got home to a garden covered in tiny hail stones, seriously charcoal skies and overflowing drains. Don't you just love January.