On a course last week so a lot of catching up to do.
Friday before last - 27 Feb. Beautiful afternoon so I scooted out of work as early as I could and down to Greywell, where I baited my Bank Vole spot and went for a wander to give the animals time to find the new batch of food. Distant views of Brown Hare later, I returned, to immediately see a small very dark shape dart out, snatch a seed and zip back into cover. No way was that a Bank Vole - that was a shrew!
Close attention revealed on a second visit that a Common Shrew (year tick) was taking seeds from the pile and whizzing back into cover to eat them. From the patter of very tiny feet it might be going all the way back to its hole to do so, so there was a gap of a couple of minutes between sorties. I had not really expected a shrew to take vegetarian food but I suppose at this end of the winter any high-energy source is fair game.
I settled down in the chalky mud for a long session and two hours later as dusk deepened to the point where I couldn't actually see the shrew arriving, I creaked upright with about thirty or forty frames. Half showed nothing, several more a departing rump and tail, but about five had a full-frame Common Shrew and one was a cut above the rest and I was ecstatic. Far far better Common Shrew shots than I had ever taken before: well worth leaving the office early!
Saturday we hunted and found a car for Marion, put down a deposit and then had a passage Marsh Harrier from the M25 on the way home.
Sunday, having missed the Saturday last post and needing to get a cheque to the car dealer, I drove round again, dropped it in and headed for Beckley where a whole afternoon and evening flogging round got me a few grunts and heavy footsteps but no sightings of the increasingly difficult boars. I did get a nice view of a Tawny Owl in flight and perched up, but too far off for pictures.
Being on a course through the week my opportunities were a bit limited but I did knock off a local Muntjac in the grounds of the venue as well as Ring-necked Parakeet for the year.
Thursday night a pair of Red Foxes out the back of our house kept me awake for an hour.
Hopefully they will breed there and I will get daylight cub photos later in the year.
Friday night I went to the canal Badger sett where the Badgers failed to put in an appearance probably due to the excessively loud, rather "county" riding instructor in the floodlit stables behind me. The evening was improved by my first Daubenton's Bat of the year skimming the canal surface.
Saturday I was down to Greywell in the morning where I saw no small mammals (but topped up the bait to keep them interested) but Roe Deer and Brown Hare were nice. Saturday afternoon we picked up Maz's new car - freedom for her now her back is much better - excellent!
In the evening Clare and I bowled down to the Badger sett where not only did a Badger give us a fine demonstration of gathering bedding (I got a shot but not a really good one - must do better) but Toads were on the move from the woods to the canal. We counted eleven, didn't step on any and got good pictures. We also saw a lot more Daubenton's Bats, multiple sightings with pairs chasing each other as well as singles hunting. 8-9 was a very conservative estimate.
Keen to keep scoring Clare and I were out again Sunday morning, and a Weasel surprised us on the road before we even reached the far hedge. By the time we got parked and found our cameras of course it had disappeared. Brown Hares were again in the fields and we had the bonus of five Grey Partridges, three distantly across the valley but two near the road along our ridge giving great views!
On the way down the hedge, we found a Blackbird sitting on a bare branch outside the heavy ivy swathing on a tree in the owl hedge, yelling its head off. It seemed obvious to me that there was an owl roosting inside the ivy, but try as we might we couldn't spot it.
It was apparent that something small had been at the bait overnight, with slipped dry soil pushed over the seeds nearer the top of the clear slope where I put it. While we staked it out we saw nothing, but it was very windy which often puts small mammals off.
The local Red Kite drifted past hotly pursued by Carrion Crows and we had a fistful of displaying Buzzards.
Bored and cold we tried Bramshill for Adders but clanged out. Clare had a Common Lizard which I missed altogether, and then she more or less trod on a Woodcock that gave her a heart attack. I just saw it after her shout before it vanished into the woods.
From there we though we would go for pix of Muntjac in Reading, but just as we arrived the heavens opened from a sky that had been steadily darkening. Twenty minutes of sitting in the car later, we gave up. We had reached Bracknell on the way home when we began to see the blue line that marked the passing of the front. Oh well.....
It was too bright an evening to waste so we reconvened and hit the far hedge again, to find the Common Shrew once again snatching seeds but only visiting infrequently and not conducive to getting pix. On the way there Clare had spotted six Fallow Deer in a field just East of Junction 5 of the M3, (South side). The final highlight of the weekend was the Tawny Owl in the owl hedge, sitting on the branch that the Blackbird had been mobbing it from in the morning.
John
