The Naturalists' Notebook

Ken Lewis has sent me some pictures of Mountain Hares he took in the Peak District in February.

Ken runs a photography business at KELimages from where he sells photo prints for framing, calendars, greeting cards, mugs and fridge magnets, and he also offers  photography tours and lectures.

An early start on this cold, bright and sunny morning with Mike Barrow at the wheel, Chris Derri, the two Daves and I headed up the M6 to Cumbria and our first destination Sizergh Castle. Our target bird was Hawfinch which favour the car park area and feed on the Hornbeam tree casts and sprinkled bird seed. They are best seen in winter when the leaves are not fully out on the trees but they can be unpredictable. Today was one of those days. Along with a small contingent of other birders we scanned the trees – plenty of Chaffinches, a pair of Bullfinches, Goldfinch, Greenfinch, Blue and Great Tits, Nuthatch, Robin, Wren, Dunnock and Tree Sparrow all put in an appearance but no Hawfinches.

We walked up the track towards Holeslack Farm passing through a field of pregnant ewes looking round bellied enough to drop their lambs at any minute then alongside a barn of young calves munching their way through mountains of hay. The track passed a sunny wooded slope where we noticed our first Snowdrops Galanthus nivalis, Dog’s Mercury Mecurialis perennis, Lesser Celandine Ranunculus ficaria, Wild Daffodil Narcissus pseudonarcissus and leaves of Ramsons Allium ursinum. To the rear of Holeslack Cottage we watched a Marsh Tit which gave its sneezy ‘pitchoo’ call. Climbing up the farm track a Curlew uttered its plaintive ‘cur-lee’ call and Mistle Thrush, Song Thrush and Fieldfares were seen feeding in a field close to the Parish Church of Saint John Helsington.

Snowdrops This grade II listed building afforded views of Whitbarrow Scar across the valley and Morecambe Bay to the south. We turned right beside the church and walked through the odd patch of fresh snow, one of which had deer tracks. Our ‘Corpse Of The Day’ was a pair of Corvid wings minus the body.

We dropped down the hill with fantastic views of the snow-covered Howgill Fells and Kendal. After dicing with death crossing the A591 dual carriageway we reached the River Kent which is a designated Special Area of Conservation, primarily as an important habitat for the endangered White-clawed Crayfish Austropotamobius pallipes. We peered over a bridge, icicles hanging down from the rocks on the river edge to watch a distant Dipper standing on a rock and a Grey Wagtail flitting around. The path continued beside the River and here we had top views of a pair of Dippers in typical pose bobbing about on rocks in the fast-flowing areas of the river before one would launch itself on whirring wings and drop down headfirst into the gentler flowing water. We could see its progress from ripples on the water’s surface as it picked underneath stones hunting for small invertebrates. The river flowed through Low Wood where a Jay uttered a scalding call at our presence. A few Mallards were floating around and a male Goosander flew upstream. We crossed the River on an old wooden bridge and sighted a pair of Goosander amongst rocks the male with iridescent bottle green head and salmon-pink tinge to the white front feathers, the female with a chestnut-brown head and greyish back. Back along Nannypie Lane we soon returned to Sizergh Castle car-park.

From Sizergh we headed to Hay Bridge Reserve, sitting on the terrace of the stone barn study centre for a late lunch and ‘armchair’ birding. The wardens scope was fixed on a tagged Red Kite sat in a tree left wing orange, right wing white and another tagged Kite wheeled over our heads with left wing orange and right wing red. The Forestry Commission have released 90 red kites as part of a three-year reintroduction programme. The birds carry numbered tags – orange tag on their left wings to show they are from Grizedale, and one on the right to indicate the year of release – blue for 2010, white for 2011 and red for 2012. Three Buzzards were chasing each other around ‘mewing’. A Redpoll, Siskins, Coal Tit, Blue Tit were feeding from the peanut feeders, a Pheasant called and a Great Spotted Woodpecker flew over.

Otter Paw

Owl Pellets

We had a wander along the boardwalk onto the Rusland Mosses fungi including Hoof Fungus Fomes fomentarius, Birch Polypore Piptoporus betulinus, Turkeytail Trametes versicolor and Lumpy Bracket Trametes gibbosa with some fine Dog Lichen Peltigera sp. growing on a couple of tree trunks – pale grey when fresh darkening on desiccation.

Hoof Fungus

Peltigera sp.

A few Long-tailed Tits flitted around, I heard a rather early rising Tawny Owl and the yelps of a Red Fox. All too soon it was time to leave for the return journey to Liverpool.  

It was a dismal misty, drizzly and cold day for the joint MNA / Liverpool RSPB visit to Lake Vyrnwy.  A good turnout nonetheless with twenty people arriving in shared cars and a minibus driven by Chris Tynan. Our destination was a valley where today’s leader Terry Williams often visits at this time of year to watch displaying Goshawks, with Buzzards, Ravens, Red Kite and Hen Harrier often putting in an appearance as well. 

We walked along a forest track which climbed steadily upwards via a couple of switchbacks to a spot overlooking the valley. The abundance of lichens growing on the tree branches showed the clear air quality found here. There must have been recent storms with trees blown over and lichen-laden branches scattered around. This allowed identification of a few of the lichen species with Usnea florida – the apothecium show branched eyelash cilia, Usnea fragilescens – a fruticose, pendulous lichen resembling fine hair, Evernia prunastri – a foliose strap lichen with veining present on the top surface of the lobes, Hypogymnia physodes -with foliose thallus, smooth grey lobes above black beneath.

Evernia prunastri and an Usnea sp.

Usnea florida 

The walk up the forest trail was eerily quiet, the usual bird song and defining of breeding territories that is heard at this time of year was extremely noticeable by its absence. A Mistle Thrush, Wren and Robin gave occasional song with calling Goldcrest, Blue Tit and Coal Tit heard by some. On the top we peered through the mist for any sign of life. Two Ravens flew over one bird being chased from the other bird’s territory. Another pair of Ravens then from the neighbouring territory flew up from the forest across the valley just to make sure that the intruder was completely evicted from their patch.I had a mooch around photographing a few of the rust coloured rock encrusting lichen Rhizocarpon oderi, the lichen Cladonia bellidiflora with tall unbranched non-fruiting podetia whose surface is clothed in densely layered squamules, various mosses including Star Moss Polytrichum commune and Common Tamarisk Moss Thuidium tamariscinum and Bracken spores.

Rhizocarpon oderi

Star Moss and Common Tamarisk Moss

Bracken Spores

Three clumps of Common Frog Rana temporaria spawn in a large but shallow puddle – doomed to desiccate and a dead Pygmy Shrew Sorex minutus.

Frogspawn

Dead Pygmy Shrew 🙁

Earlier I had become separated from Mike Barrow, Chris Derri and the two Daves they eventually found the group having seen a Goshawk from near a farmhouse on another forest track. Richard Surman also had Goshawk views from here. While the others remained at the look-out point for a while, the five of us decided to walk back down the track and along to the main RSPB reserve. We walked along a forest track beside the lake for a while noting Common Jellyspot Dacrymyces stillatus the leaves of Wood-sorrel Oxalis acetosella and Oak Artichoke Galls caused by the Gall Wasp Andricus fecundator before continuing along the road, the only birdlife seen on the lake being Mallard and a lone Cormorant. The minibus shot by us as we approached the Victorian pumphouse with its green copper roof the only colour in the misty monochrome landscape.

After crossing the dam noting the green coloured Map Lichen Rhizocarpon geographicum on the dam wall we met up again with the others in the hide overlooking the feeders. Three Crossbills had been seen by some as they descended the forest track. Plenty of activity on the feeders with twenty odd Chaffinches some suffering from clubfoot, a couple of Bramblings skulking underneath some branches occasionally popping out to allow comparison to the Chaffs, a Blue Tit, a few Coal Tits, a lone Marsh Tit, half a dozen Siskin and Pheasants on the ground below hovering up any spilt seed.

Photos taken by Chris Derri on the MNA Sefton Meadows walk

Little Owl

Buzzard

Curlew

It was a beautifully clear and sunny day, not too cold, with some early signs of spring. For those who met a Waterloo, the day got off to a very good start, with Fieldfares spotted from the 133 bus on the north side of Long Lane in Thornton. We met the others at Lunt Village, and two more people joined us later in the day, making a total of 17 members.

As we walked through the plantation of young Willow and Alder there were Siskins and Goldfinch twittering, and feeding on the small seeds of the Alders.

It was a day full of interesting sounds.  We heard a Water Rail, but nobody saw it. There was a bird scarer banging somewhere, and possibly some pigeon shooting going on. Further off we could occasionally hear the sounds from the firing range at Altcar. Skylarks were singing all along the River Alt embankments and Curlews were calling. A pair of Buzzards soared together in clear blue sky, and we flushed two partridges, probably Grey Partridges, although they whirred away before anyone had a chance to see them properly.  Chris Derri picked out two different kinds of leaf miner burrows in Bramble leaves. The two curly tracks, getting bigger as they wander through the leaf, were made by the larva of the moth Stigmella aurella.

Chris thinks the concentric circular track in the other leaf was also made by a moth, but he’ll have to look that one up. [Added later – Chris thinks it’s either a fungal rust called Violet bramble rust Phragmidium violaceum or possibly Phragmidium bulboum.]

He also found another leaf mine caused by a fly on holly Phytomyza illicis.

Part of the area around Lunt is being remodelled as a flood storage area and will become a new nature reserve, managed by the Lancashire Wildlife Trust. Some of the pools are already in use by Shelduck, Mallards and Gulls.

During lunch by the pumping station we spotted a big bird in the distance, initially guessed as a Heron, but it was a Bittern, flying towards us then turning north and going down somewhere near Ince Woods. Further on, a flock of Lapwings and Golden Plovers went up. We couldn’t see any reason for the disturbance, other than a microlight going over, but David Bryant, who had joined us from further north, said he had seen a Hen Harrier in that area. Later part of the group found a Little Owl by the old farm buildings.

There were no keen botanists with us today, but we did note the pussy willow catkins, the Celandines by St Helen’s Holy Well and the spiky seeds of Burdock.

Bird list (31): Wood Pigeon, Magpie, Fieldfare, Carrion Crow, Pied Wagtail, Blue Tit, Great Tit, Linnet, Reed Bunting, Chaffinch, Buzzard, Siskin, Goldfinch, Water Rail (heard only), Kestrel, Long-tailed Tit, Black-headed Gull, Skylark, Shelduck, Mallard, Common Gull, (Grey?) Partridge, Lapwing, Golden Plover, Curlew, Canada Geese, Teal, Bittern, Stock Dove, Hen Harrier (seen by DB only from another path), Little Owl.