Bird of the month: December 2015

This month has been strange for December, I have seen a Red Admiral butterfly on one of the shortest days and some of the daffodils have already flowered. It has also brought heavy rain (luckily not near Sussex!). This is almost definitely due to the bizarre weather.

This month, as I haven't been out much, so the bird of the month is the Robin, after my Sonnet poem (see here).

The Robin is iconic around this time of year, as it is seems to be connected with Christmas.

Cool fact: During winter, the robin is the only bird that sings!

A Sonnet Poem

As the winter's weather has changed for the worse since the last post I did, I haven’t been outside taking photos. For an English homework, I wrote a poem about a garden bird in the sonnet form. I would like to share it with you.

The Bloody Bird

A beautifully berry-breasted friend,

This robin was taken at Warnham LNR (for more, see here)

Found at a bitter, winter's dawning day,

The sweet song of winter walks, never end;

The brown bird is perched, and hopes to stay.

Perched on Christmas cards, on the branches,

The gardener's charming chum, loved by all.

A picturesque bird, found on canvases,

The bird we are so fond of, oh so small.

However, this small bird is a bully,

Like cats over meat, they violently fight,

Locked in bloody battles, killed cruelly,

Murdering for freedom, talons griped tight.

Forcing the many other birds out of their place,

The killer of the garden world, unknown,

You think they're sweet, but look past their cute face;

She is not cute, but has a heart of stone.

'Who is the “Bloody bird”', I hear you say,

Only the festive robin, ask her prey.

 -By David King

Unusual visitors

In the back garden, hanging from an apple tree, are 5 bird feeders. We get plenty of birds and along with the common garden birds, there are a few rarer, or less common birds that I don't normally see in the back garden.

This is one of my first pictures of a siskin

One of these is the siskin. I started seeing them in the back garden in early 2014, they then disappeared for the summer. They came back next winter and left again for the summer. However, as I have said in August, (see here), the siskins came early.

We still regularly get siskins. We think the siskins came from a pine forest that got cut down for a housing estate.

Another garden bird that has recently come into the garden is the coal tit. The coal tit looks a lot like the great tit but has a white line on the top of it's head. The coal tit is now the third bird in the tit family and, like the siskin, we now have a pair of coal tits who regularly come into the garden.

Some birds visit the garden for half an hour before leaving. I saw two birds that did this two Sundays ago.

One was a black cap. A male black cap came down and fed on the bird feeders during a week day a fortnight ago and we suspect we have seen the female throughout the last month, but it could be a female greenfinch.

The other was a goldcrest. I have seen a goldcrest once before at RSPB Pulborough Brooks, but never before at home. It was a very short visit.

Some other unusual visits to the garden include a sparrowhawk, (I was too young to understand what it was), a few encounters with a greater spotted woodpecker and a fieldfare. The fieldfare, like the sparrowhawk, came when I wasn't into wildlife photography.

Painting a damselfly

Today feels like the first day of winter; in the morning it snowed, it was colder than normal and it seemed like I wouldn't see an insect, (not including the pupa), until the spring. So when we went out to a garden centre, my Dad bought me a book on how to draw insects, (here is a link to the book). I'm not a great artist, and I normally use my camera rather than pencil and paper, but I gave art a try and here is the result...

Sorry about the colours, I am red-green colour blind.

The image I was copying is one of mine, and I would prefer the photo to be framed than my water colour attempt. Here is the original photo:

The original image was taken at Buchan Country Park and was the winner of the young photographer of the year 2014. Unfortunately, there has been no 2015 competition.

Trail cam footage 18/11/15

Sorry it is a bit late, but here is the latest of my trail cam footage taken on Buchan's heath.

This time, there was a Jay. Jays are probably the most colourful corvids (also commonly known as the crow family) in the UK, closely followed by the magpie, also included this weeks clip.

There was also a grey squirrel, the star of last weeks footage. A wood pigeon also made an appearance.

Trail cam footage 8/11/15

After a trail camera being stolen (see here) and a very cute hedgehog at the New Forest, I have finally put the trail camera back out on Buchan Country Park's heath and here are the results:

What did I get? No deer, no fox, just a grey squirrel. In the New Forest, I went to Brownsea Island and saw red squirrels, the native cousins of the invasive greys.

Hedgehog!

Over my holiday in the New Forest, I put out my only Trail camera in our holiday cottage's back garden, (See here for why only one trail cam), and I found something that I would always love to see in my garden; a hedgehog.

Hedgehogs are sadly in decline because of hedgehog-proof garden fences and tidy spaces. That is bad news for gardeners because hedgehogs eat slugs! I hope that I may one day have one in my garden patch.

Updated to add this link (see here) to log hedgehogs and learn more about them.

Brownsea Island - red squirrels

On Monday we went to Brownsea Island, the place to see red squirrels. I had looked forward to it for a long time (see here) and when I got there, I was amazed how many red squirrels live there.

Red squirrels are smaller than the greys

The red squirrel is a native mammal, unlike the larger alien greys. Sadly the greys have squeezed out most of the red squirrels population and very few places have the reds.

New Forest - Fungi

I arrived at the New Forest yesterday and we have already gone on a walk. I have found some really cool looking fungi and I would like to share them with you. Here are a few...

I hope I see more fungi in the future.

Mouse trapped!

In the garden we have bird feeders. Garden birds do regularly visit and we sometimes get mice. But this recent encounter with a mouse was quite strange.

Somehow a mouse managed to get in the tub where we store the food. It was empty, so my mum went to refill the tub. She was surprised to find a mouse sleeping in the plastic pot that we use to scoop out the bird feed. At first we thought it was dead. But after we opened the lid, the mouse woke up and started to try to get out.

Mouse in a tub

This mouse was quite plump and round, so it wasn't very athletic and once it did manage to escape, it didn't move that fast to safety. I hope it soon runs off the excess fat.

Looking forward to the New Forest

From this Friday, I will be on holiday in the New Forest! I am hoping to find some amazing wildlife and some fantastic places.

I have high hopes of seeing some red squirrels on Brownsea Island. In England, Red squirrels are rarer than America's alien grey squirrels and the greys have wiped out most of the red squirrel population. I have only seen red squirrels at the local wildlife education centre, the British Wildlife Centre.

This was taken at the BWC

I am also looking forward to the wild horses, spoonbills and other wildlife that I may find.

Dining Spider

Last post I did was about a spider, (more on that here), and today, I found the same spider with a large wrapped up insect.

spider with a large wrapped up insect

This spider is a garden orb spider found in the garden patch.

Spiders

When I came back from school I found this garden orb spider in the garden patch:

Garden orb spiders are my favourite spider species. There are lots of them around now. If you look carefully, you can see the silk being spun.

Caterpillar diary entry 2

As you may know from my last caterpillar diary entry, I am looking after a pupa of a butterfly. Last time I wrote that the species was a Small Tortoiseshell, and I did also write that I am not very good at Identifying insect larvae. That couldn’t be more true as today, after buying a new butterfly book, I found out that the caterpillar was not a Small Tortoiseshell but a Large White.

A Large White butterfly on a nasturtium!

This also explains why nasturtiums were the food choice for the caterpillar and it refused the nettles I offered it.

not a Small Tortoiseshell but a Large White

To conclude, it is easy to make mistakes when identifying larvae! Meanwhile, the pupa is still metamorphosing...

Caterpillar diary entry 1

The old fish tank

I have never before kept caterpillars; I don't really think it is fair to just pick one up and place it in a small container with a few leaves.

However, I found a small caterpillar helping itself to the nasturtiums when I got back from school last Thursday. As a budding entomologist, I thought to myself 'what species is that?' (Despite loving butterflies and moths so much, I am not good at identifying their larvae.) I decided to keep him in the old fish tank, with a layer of soil, some twigs and the nasturtium plant it was on.

a small caterpillar that I found helping itself to the nasturtiums

I identified it as a small tortoiseshell. It was a shock when we found out its main food plant is stinging nettles. So after going to fetch some stinging nettles, (as you do), and then showing the caterpillar where the nettles are, the hungry caterpillar decided to barely touch them and eat the nasturtiums instead.

The main reason I didn't blog this was because after a day or two, the caterpillar stopped eating and sat at the top of the tank. We had thought for a long time that he had died and after all, a missing trail camera is way more interesting.

Today, however, when I got home it had pupated. I had been about to give up on the caterpillar so I was very surprised to find the pupa. I would really like it to reach adulthood.

It pupated! (that is a 5p coin)

It has been an interesting story to follow and I have learnt this major fact: Small tortoiseshell caterpillars eat nasturtiums, even though the books say they love stinging nettles.

Trail cam-stolen

One of my trail cameras has disappeared from Buchan Park's Target Hill heathland. So, in memory, I have made a short film of favourite clips from that trail camera.

I have stopped doing the trail camera project until after the half term break, as I am going to the New Forest for a holiday then.

Two trips to Warnham LNR

I have been to Warnham LNR twice recently, once with a friend and once with family, and I have, like always, seen a wealth of wildlife. I saw the kingfisher hunting successfully and the first flock of geese so far this Autumn. A grey heron came up close to the heron hide, hunting in the reeds. A little grebe came close and walking around on the top of the reserve I found a legless lizard, also known as the Slow worm. A common blue let my friend and I get up close to it and take some macro photos. While eating food on a picnic table, a robin came an arm's length away and let us get some shots.

A grey heron hunting

A common blue

A Robin

I hope that I visit again soon.

Reptiles

I used to have a fear of snakes that I have only recently overcome. Thanks to walking around heathland, putting out my trail cameras, I have understood they mean little harm and are very hard to accidentally step on. I go to a young ranger group at Tilgate Park, (run by Gatwick Greenspace), and we normally go adder hunting. Earlier this week, my mum and I had a quick look in that area and we found a female adder basking. This was the first time that my mum had seen an adder in the wild.

The video is in slow motion

Yesterday we went to Ashdown Forest for a walk and I found a slow worm in a patch of heather. I was about to step on it as it was very well camouflaged. Slow worms are not snakes but legless lizards.

Sorry it is a blocky picture

Another reptile that I have recently seen a common lizard, more on that here. It is good to see reptiles and I hope to see more...

Evening rock pooling at Goring

I have been to Goring-by-sea plenty of times (see here). This time we went in the evening to go rock pooling while the tide was out. I found plenty of wildlife, including Turnstones and a few common whelks. Here are some photos:

A Common Whelk shell

We think this a Common Goby

There is no such thing as a seagull, this is a herring gull.

This turnstone was one of several

I also saw a young red fox on the way home, in broad daylight!

Crawley News picture of the week

On Saturday the 15th of August I went to Buchan to collect the trail cams (see here). After collecting the first trail camera I spotted a very small common lizard on a big pile of sticks and twigs. I had taken my camera for moments like this when I found something to photo, (deer, mushrooms, lizards, toads...), and I was lucky that one lizard was basking in the sunshine. I took a few photos before heading to get my next trail cam. When I got home I decided to enter one photo into the local newspaper's weekly photo competition.

After this morning's trip to Warnham LNR (see here) I got today's paper. I suddenly got very happy when I saw that I had won! Here is the winning image:

a common lizard on a big pile of sticks and twigs

I am very pleased that I took my camera along or I may have missed the opportunity.

A visit to Warnham

Today I went to Warnham LNR, (second time this week). I saw a little grebe quite close. After a few minutes, a kingfisher perched on the reeds just beside the little grebe!

A kingfisher perched on the reeds

I also saw six grey herons and the pair of nesting great crested grebes.

A day at Pulborough Brooks

Today I went to RSPB Pulborough Brooks, (see here for other visits), and saw many different species. These include a migrant hawker dragonfly, a yellow digger, (rangers at work), and some speckled woods. Here are some photos:

A Common Blue

A speckled wood

A common darter

A migrant hawker

 

European harvestman in the sand

It was a good day to see insects but not so good for birds.

The Kingfishers at Warnham

Today at Warnham LNR* I saw my favourite bird up close, the kingfisher. The Common kingfisher is currently on the amber list and is a protected species. There are 3,800 to 6,400 pairs in the UK, (RSPB Information 2014), and about 3 individuals at Warnham.

my favourite bird up close, the kingfisher

I think it is a male, females have red colouring under the bill.

*LNR Stands for Local Nature Reserve

Trail cam footage 15/8/15

Due to lots of rain on Thursday, today I collected both of my trail cams from Buchan. As you may know, one of the trail camera was on photo mode, (see here), so the video I have strung together is partly slide show:

The video includes fallow deer, look for the spots, and roe deer, (see here).

I have taken both trail cameras home to be cleaned so I may put the trail cams in the garden.

Trail cam footage 09/08/15

After a fair few technical problems and wildlife not showing up, I have finally managed to capture some more footage of the deer at Buchan Country Park. Unfortunately I put it on photo mode, not on video mode so I just have photos.

This view shows the woodland habitat from below

The deer are in infra-red so the pictures below are in black and white!

Deer on the move

Nosy deer

Unfortunately, I didn't put the mode back to video so next week may be in photos too.

Wildlife count: part two

It is day 18 of my Wildlife count project and already I have reached my goal of 100 species (see here)! I will, however, still be counting. I have seen quite a few rarer species, so I would like to list a few...

Essex skipper, Common toad, Siskin, Kingfisher, Blue tailed damselfly, Silver washed fritillary, Banded demoiselle, Green sandpiper, Whimbrel and Black tailed godwit.

This Essex skipper is on some fleabane

This Siskin is a male

You can see the proboscis on this fritillary

I spotted this Banded demoiselle from a hide!

Devil's Dyke

Devil's Dyke is a natural chalkland habitat where many species of butterfly thrive. It is on the South Downs quite close to Brighton. Today I have seen species of butterflies that I have never seen before, including the Adonis Blue and the Small Heath.

We also saw a Fritillary and we are not sure what it is. I think it is a Dark Green Fritillary. If you think differently, please leave a comment!

My favourite butterfly was the Dark Green Fritillary

Other species included Clouded Yellows, a Seven Spot Ladybird and a kestrel:

This kestrel is hunting

It is amazing to think that the habitat is made of tiny shells from 100 million of years ago!

Deer at Warnham

Due to technical difficulties, (uncharged batteries, faulty SD card...), my two trail cams, (see here and here), haven't filmed any deer since the 21st of July.

However, on the third of August we went to Warnham LNR (Local Nature Reserve) and there, in the forest, I found a couple of roe deer - including a stag - just sitting down, (probably enjoying the rare British sunshine).

Of course I took out my Bridge camera/ DSLR and tried to film them. Here is the footage:

Also today I saw the deer at Buchan quite close up. Such a shame that a dog scared it away.

Siskin

In the apple tree are six bird feeders. we get all sorts of birds on the feeders, blue tits, goldfinches and more. We also sometimes get oddities, coal tits, greater spotted woodpeckers, goldcrests and best of all, a siskin.

best of all, a siskin

Siskins normally visit our feeders in the winter time, this is why it was amazing to see one during the summer holidays.

Wild count update: 29/7/15

It is day 6, I have already seen 60 different species and I am 60% to my goal.
Today we went to Chichester. Why? For my sister to do some photography, and for her to go shopping. But what did I see?

Chichester cathedral is known in the birding world for being home to the fastest known species of our planet, the peregrine falcon! Unfortunately we didn't see them. It turned out, I saw most of my species today whilst travelling on the train! This includes little egrets and a kestrel. Kestrels are also in the falcon family.

Overall I saw and counted 20 species today. It is amazing what you can see from the train.

Wild count update 24/7/15

So far in the wildlife count project I have seen over 30 different species, mostly at the RSPB reserve at Pulborough yesterday (see here). Some species in the list are rabbits, sparrows, buzzards, Essex skippers (see here) and even a green woodpecker.

This male house sparrow was grabbing food off of the table while we ate!

One of the many meadow grasshoppers we found.

ID: Cricket or Grasshopper

This is a cricket, it has long antennae

The easiest way to tell the difference between crickets and grasshoppers is the antennae. Crickets have long antennae in comparison to its body. The antennae is also thin and flimsy.

A grasshopper, however, has short antennae and they are thicker than a cricket's.

This is a grasshopper, it has shorter antennae