Big garden Birdwatch at Buchan Country Park

Yesterday, I did the Big Garden Birdwatch at home, (see here), and today I did it at Buchan Country Park. As last time, the RSPB has put it into a bar chart.

Some major differences:

1) There are no Siskins, House sparrows or Starlings on Buchan's bird count
2) I didn't count any Coal tits, Nuthatches, Dunnocks, Marsh tits, black birds or Treecreepers at my house.

What I was most surprised to see was the treecreeper, as it is so well camouflaged and so small. Buchan has a more rural location and that meant they got different birds.

Big garden bird watch: Our results

Today I did the Big Garden Birdwatch with a friend and counted 19 individual birds. Last year, the average bird count was 17 birds per garden. Here are the results, (in a table by the RSPB):

When we submitted our results, we had a 6th of the Siskin population recorded!

Annoyingly, the goldcrest didn't come, and a blackbird came a few seconds after the hour was up, but you can't have everything...

Caterpillar diary entry 4

Last caterpillar entry, (see here), I wrote about the first caterpillar of the year, (see here). I can say that it is not dead, as I had thought it was,  but it is eating like, well, a very hungry caterpillar!

Now it has settled down in the butterfly habitat that I bought, (see here). Today I brought it outside to take the first few photos. Here are the photos:

Where is he? It is a game of hide and seek

The habitat is usually in the house

After school, I go out to the garden to get some winter flowering clematis which  we think is one of its food plants. I then replace one of the older, wilted shoots with a fresh new one.

I hope the caterpillar makes it to be a butterfly!

A Cold Morning at Buchan Country Park

Yesterday, I went to Buchan Country Park, and, unlike last time, it didn't hail. However, it was very, very cold. Most of the small ponds in the wild garden were frozen. Even the Island pond was covered in a thin layer of ice.

However, it was also beautiful too. the sun was low in the sky, (it had just risen), a little bit of mist was floating on the ponds, the frost still lay on the heath and it was just amazing.

It was just amazing.

I also saw a few water birds too. At one point, I counted 6 cormorants. The black headed gulls were, as usual, flying around in their flocks, and the great crested grebe was in the middle of Douster pond, swimming up and down. And of course, there were the mallards and a pair of coot.

Putting A Nest box Up

Today, my Dad and I put a blue tit box up on the side of the house. We have never before had success with nest boxes; however this time we followed some recommendations on good sites from a book. We bought the nest box nearly a month ago and with spring coming closer, Dad decided it was the right time to put it up.

Blue tits lay around 8-10 eggs meaning the parents have to find lots of insects (they mainly eat insects, including caterpillars), to feed their hungry chicks.

I hope we do get blue tits nesting, it would be an interesting natural event to watch.

Caterpillar diary entry 3

The first caterpillar of the year is.... a brimstone! We found it on the rabbit hutch, meaning it probably came from the clematis. I quickly placed it into a small enclosure (tubs are amazing things) with some different food plants for it to try.

However, it is not moving much making us wonder if it is dead or not. If you have more information on what it could possibly eat, then please post a comment below.

A trip to Buchan Country Park (and some news...)

First of all, a little news:

We think that the small white butterfly pupa is dead, it dropped off the top of the tank and disappeared without a trace. I have also bought a butterfly house so that I could potentially raise more than one caterpillar at the same time.

I have also ordered a new trail camera, better than the previous two. However, they have run out of stock in the UK, and it will be arriving in late February, so you will have to wait till then...

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On the  weekend, I went to Buchan Country Park. I stayed around Douster Pond, like last week. I took some photos there, but not much was happening. But nothing warned me of the unusual ending. After 45 minutes of silent waiting, a large cloud loomed over me. With a large clap of thunder, the heavens opened and it started hailing! Just a usual day at Buchan Country Park...

The odd thing was the weather forecast predicted light rain, I can only guess that global warming is responsible...

Cormorant at Buchan Country Park

As I have said in the past few posts, (bird of the month and the robin poem), I haven’t been out that much. Today I went to Buchan Country Park. I was trying to find the pair of Great crested grebe, but I stumbled upon the Cormorant posing beautifully on a branch. So I took some photos, and here are the results:

My attempt with using negative space and silhouettes 

 I hope that I can get out more often in the future.