PWC in 2020

This year of course the patchwork challenge was pretty much all we could do a for a large part of the year. The official website put the challenge on hold when we went into lockdown in March as not everyone's patches are local. Mine of course is local so I was able to keep up with it somewhat though I couldn't visit the Woods for some time during lockdown. 

I managed to get 48 birds though, which is down on last year but not bad considering I did a lot of birding from the garden! 

When I did start back at work in June, the deserted streets meant I picked up the sound of Skylarks singing in the farm fields for the first time as I walked to work, i'm not sure if they've always been there and i've just not heard them because of all the traffic before?! It took almost 9 months to see a Nuthatch on the patch, they disappeared from the woods early in the year and I finally saw one in September, but have discovered they are also in Dartmouth Park, i've seen them there a few times now. I've also realised i've not seen a Jay since 2018, usually there was a couple in the woods and the odd one around work but nothing. 

After spotting a Chiffchaff nest near the woods in June I then saw young flying around the woods not long after presumably from the same nest but there may have been another of course, they are usually pretty well hidden. The birds in general seem to have done well during the breeding season, I think the lack of people made a difference and I saw plenty of young birds from our regular species. 

Away from the birds we had the busiest year yet with up to 6 Hedgehogs in the garden, with our first youngsters - 2 of them, I spent a lot of evenings watching them. The bats seemed to disappear for most of the summer, though we did see them over the yard opposite a few times and a couple of late appearances on warm days in November. A Frog was a new garden record i'm hoping that's a sign of more to come? 

There was the first snow of winter on Tuesday morning and I went out for a walk and to see if I could maybe add a Fieldfare to the list before the end of the year - I didn't but did see plenty of Redwing, which until the past week or so had been few and far between. One did briefly land in our Laburnum on Christmas Eve.

Redwing 

Starlings

Blackbird

Black-headed Gulls

Redwing

Feral Pigeons

We'll see what happens in the coming weeks as to how things will pan out for birding for 2021! In the meantime a Happy New Year to all. 

20 in 2020

You might remember I posted about 20 things in 2020 back in April. Well things of course didn't quite go as planned this year and i'm afraid due to not really going anywhere other than local places the Wildflowers went by the wayside but is something i'll keep up with next year. 

On to the books and again this didn't go as well as I hoped, mostly because I packed nearly all my books into boxes whilst we were redorating so didn't have access to them for most of the summer. Still I did manage to add 9 non-fiction books to my list bringing the total up to 13 for the year (I also added many much needed escapes into fiction too!).

5) The Secret Life of the Owl by John Lewis-Stempel. A friend bought me this for Christmas a couple of years ago and it was my next pick off the shelf. It's a fascinating book, full of information about owls including how they feature in folklore

6) A Birders Journey to the Big 300+ by Terry Wells. These are one of my favourite types of bird books, I love reading about peoples birding adventures - The Biggest Twitch, The Big Twitch, Lost Amongst Birds, Birding without Borders etc. This one didn't disappoint and I couldn't put it down.

7) The Natural History of Selborne by Gilbert White. This one I picked up in a charity shop last year and really one I feel I should have read already. I must admit it took some getting in to with the language but I perservered and i'm glad I did. It's fascinating to read of the same things he was seeing that I (we) see now over 200 years later and of course the things we don't. The notings and observations are incredibly detailed.

8) Birds Britannia by Stephen Moss. An interesting book about how the British have grown to love birds.

9) Diary of a Young Naturalist by Dara McAnulty. I've followed Dara on twitter for a while, I love to see younger generations with a passionate interest in wildlife. I bought the book when it came out earlier this year and was so impressed with the writing and the content, I feel Dara is going to go far and make a difference, look out for him! I definitely recommend the book to everyone.

10) Bird Watching Watching by Alex Horne. Another book I picked up in a charity shop though I realised once I started reading that I had read this one when it first came out. It tells of Alex taking on his Dad's hobby of birdwatching for a year to see who could see the most birds, it's a good book, quite funny and one I was pleased to be reading again.

11) To See Every Bird on Earth by Dan Koeppel. I bought this one after seeing it mentioned in Alex's book (above), I can't resist a birders story! This one though tells of his father Richards birding obsession and it's another I barely put down until i'd done. 

12) The Magic of Dolpins by Horace Dobbs. My husband met the author of this book last year through work and he very kindly gave him this copy of one of his books and signed it too after they chatted about local wildlife. He is an expert on dolphins and set up the International Dolphin Watch amongst other things. The book is full of information and his personal experiences, i've been able to look further into some of the things he's mentioned in the book. I have sadly found out he recently passed away but i'm glad I got the chance to find out about his work.

13) Rodley Nature Reserve: The First Twenty Years by Peter Murphy. I saw on Facebook that one of my favourite Nature Reserves had a book available and I got my copy straight away! It details the history of how the reserve came to be and the history year by year since it opened. I was surprised to see how many different bodies have helped in the Reserve over the years alongside the brilliant volunteers. I can't wait to visit again, hopefully soon. 

So not as many books as I hoped but the ones I have managed to read have been well worth it though I feel when I come across some of the big birding names mentioned in these books I realise I still have so much to learn about birding history - not just the actual birds. 

A Misty Morning

With lockdown restrictions still in place over the past few weeks we haven't been going far at all. The weather hasn't been great on my days off but after days of fog we needed to get out regardless and headed out early one Sunday morning around the local parks. 

I still managed to see a fair few birds including a Nuthatch in Dartmouth Park, the first time i've seen one there in all these years! 

The fog did not make for good photos - not of birds anyway - it did make everywhere look a little eerie. 

Anyone else think this tree stump looks like a dog?!

Black-headed Gull

Mistle Thrush

Robin

Wren

It was good to get out even if it was local but I am desperately missing going further afield, i've been able to keep myself busy with all the decorating and such over the past few months but now it's all done and I have time on my hands............ 

Post Hill

I've finally been plagued by the new blogger glitches so this post has taken a little longer than planned as I ended up having to start is from scratch! Hopefully by the time I next post blogger will have sorted itself out!

A couple of weekends ago we went for a walk around Post Hill woods, it's actually not too far from home but we have always driven past on our way elsewhere before so had never been. It's actually not too far from the Farnley Balancing Reservoir and although has a fairly new housing estate along side part of it, it's isolated enough you could imagine you're out in the middle of nowhere. 

My husband visited about 35 years ago when they were still doing motorcycle climb events at is has one of the steepest hill climbs in the world (not sure if that's still a valid claim these days!). It had changed a huge amount since then, he couldn't figure out where the steep hill was and ended up asking a dog walker. She was quite helpful and pointed us in the right direction and also said about how the area had changed in the 30 years she had been walking there, the main part of the woods we were in barely existed back then and she told us how most of the trees has self seeded over the years. A really good example of how nature works if left alone. 

It was very autumnal, lots of acorns everywhere and lot's of yellows in the trees. 

There's always someone who has to make a mess!

The view from the top of the hill climb, we did not climb up or down it but took the longer less steep ways round! 

My husband had this Buzzard fly up in front of him, I was on a lower path so only caught a glimpse as I caught up with him. It flew off and a noisy Jay flew in. As was the norm today the birds I saw refused to pose for photos, very inconsiderate! We did see all the usual woodland birds - Tits, Nuthatch, Goldcrest, Woodpigeons, we heard a Great Spotted Woodpecker drumming. 

Pudsey beck runs along the bottom of the woods I saw a Gray Wagtail - possibly two in the water, with Wren feeding along the edge too. 

Spot the Wagtail!

We were there a couple of hours but we didn't explore the whole area so we'll be back!