Winter approaches and birds are busily feeding

This week after a wet,windy spell of weather, the temperatures dropped sharply on Thursday evening, resulting in the first frost of the season.
Walking around the lanes I spotted flocks of small birds such as Blue, Great and Long tailed Tits which were busy foraging for food in the hedgerows as if they knew the colder weather was on its way. One nice sighting were a small flock of Goldcrests moving through the trees alongside the R. Isle near Pudleigh. In winter, the Goldcrest must find an insect or spider every 2.5 seconds to maintain its bodyweight so they are constantly flitting as they search for food. 

More birds have been coming to the bird table this week too, including Goldfinches and Great Spotted Woodpeckers so it is important to keep the feeders stocked up now.

Swallows depart

Getting back home from California on the 24th September it was great to see so much greenery still about. On holiday in the States it was obvious that the weather there had been much drier and everything seemed very brown.

We were delighted to see that there were still swallows about too . A dozen young birds were seen preening on the telegraph wires over the stables alongside Combe Wood Lane on the morning before a full moon on the 30th September but were gone the next day. There were however a couple still about a few days later and and they lingered on well into October.

Reports of single birds are still being recorded along the coast as they fly off to warmer climes in South Africa but sadly, "our" birds have all gone for another year now. The other sad thing is, that for the first time in some years there were no active nests in the church South porch this year. Let's hope they take up residence again in the future.

 

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Califonia Dreaming!

It has been a while since I last uploaded a post to this blog, partly due to having been away in California on holiday so I will add some separate posts shortly to try and catch up!

Whilst California is not eactly local, it was a wildlife trip and some of the sights are worth sharing.
For example, whilst we did not see any foxes like the one from an earlier post seen on the Blackdowns, we  did see a number of Coyotes. This one wandered into the road as we drove along and stood staring at us defiantly as we approached ever closer.

Coyote

We think it was a young one and perhaps not very road aware, we just hope she did not end up getting run over.

We were lucky enough to travel to Yosemite and see the huge Sequoia trees, many of which are over a thousand years old. Some are so huge you could drive a car through them but this is one where our group could easily fit under the trunk!

Sequoia in Yosemite

However, perhaps the most memorable sight and a very unexpected one, was that of the last flight of the space shuttle as it flew over the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco on its way to its last resting place, a museum in Los Angeles.


"A Very Big Bird!"

More Butterflies and Moths

With some warmer weather towards the end of July the Gatekeeper butterflies started to appear in SSW, along with Green veined whites.

Then, on warmer days in August, day flying moths, like the Magpie moth below, started to appear.

 

Another curious moth, which I have yet to identify, flew into our porch and settled on the floor tile. 

 

Swifts departing?

At around 6pm this evening I noticed lots of Swifts flying over the village. I had thought they had already left on migration south as the last couple I saw was over a week ago. I counted 30+ all flying really high and circling. I tried to photograph them but they were flying very fast and the grey sky gave little contrast to focus on.

After about ten minutes it started to rain and as quickly as they had appeared they had all gone. Be interesting to see if they appear again tomorrow or that was their last appearance until next "summer"!

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Fox on the Blackdowns

On a recent walk from Neroche, up on the Blackdowns, I spotted a movement on the edge of a field of newly cut grass  and was able to watch a young fox in broad daylight as it idly sniffed the ground and listened for possible prey that might have escaped the tractor blades.

It was completely oblivious of us, even though we had a dog with us, and it caught no scent of us as the wind was blowing towards us.
Its attention was distracted by a gull  and it watched it as it flew close to the ground before disappearing.

Finally it must have heard us as it gave us a meaningful stare before it loped across the field back in the direction from which it first came and disappeared through the hedge line.

Slow worms on the move

Twice in the last week I have seen Slow worms on the move.
The first was seen on the road in Wadeford and at first I thought it was dead as it was completely still.
It was missing the end of its tail and only when we tried to move it onto the verge did it move its head and then twirled about as we lifted it up with a stick.

Now I am very fond of most types of wildlife but I do have a phobia about snakes or snake like creatures. I know it is irrational, especially with Slow Worms as they are really legless lizards, but I think  it is the way they move that causes me to shudder. I thought I was very brave getting the close up shot!

The second encounter was even more scary (well for me at least!) I was doing some weeding of the raised bed in my front garden and felt something drop on my foot. I was wearing sandals and looking down saw a slow worm had crawled across my foot! I moved rather fast to the safety of the doorstep and watched it slither in a side way movement across the tarmac of the drive coming to rest under the car. This time my husband managed to pick it up and put it back on the grass but needless to say, that was the end of the weeding that evening!