At the moment though the almost apocalyptic daily news leaves me with no desire whatsoever to leave the house for anything other than my daily very local exercise walk with the dogs and the occasional provision runs when we run out or forget to order something prior to our weekly food delivery.
The winter thrushes are again very active locally and, having pretty much stripped the hedgerows of berries, have now swapped to feeding on worms in the fields. We had several inches (that’s several x 2.54 centimetres to you youngsters) some two weeks ago which was very slow to melt. Our horses scrapped the snow off and poached the soil into mud in several areas of our paddocks bringing in hundreds of Redwings and one or two Fieldfares for the bountiful worm feast.
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| Sunrise over a snowy Greenhill Barn |
As the snow slowly melted the Redwing flock has spread out and now occupies the whole 4 acres of our paddocks. There is one particularly aggressive bully of a Fieldfare that I have nicknamed Trumpy. There are clearly copious worms for everyone, my observations from my hide say that the worms are being eaten at something like one worm per minute per bird, but Trumpy is not all in the mood to share any of them! He spends the vast majority of his time chasing off the Redwings rather than feeding himself. Given that I have counted in excess of one hundred Redwings spread over our 3 paddocks, this is clearly a very futile exercise! I can understand the real benefits of defending a berry laden tree, I’ve seem Mistle Thrushes doing this many times, but Trumpy’s activity makes no sense at all. I just think he is very grumpy, perhaps he fell out of the nest and bashed his head as a baby!
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| Grumpy Trumpy! |
On the other hand all has been peace and tranquilly amongst the Redwings apart from one occasion when two were having a right old ding dong! This did not seem to relate to defending a particular patch as they chased each other all over the field. I guess all birds have their own personality and these two had very clearly fallen out over something very important, but only know to them, in the past.
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| Redwing Wars! |
Come late February or early March the Redwings will migrate to their northern breeding grounds in Iceland, Scandinavia and north Poland across to most of Russia. Very small numbers also breed in the far north of Scotland.
Avian excitement on my dog walks has focused on a very smart looking Peregrine Falcon that I have now seen several times. Yesterday it was perched in an old oak tree in the fields adjacent to our house. It flushed as we approached and flew over the house before disappearing into the distance. Hopefully we will see it again.
My new fruit and veg patch is starting to take shape. It is fenced in and bounded by a hopefully rabbit proof barrier. I have three 20 year old mulberry bushes which are now in place plunged in large pots full of ericaceous compost. Our Mulberry bush has also been transplanted to its new home. My next task is to plant the 50 strawberries that I propagated from runners and brought with me. A cultivar blackberry and bare rooted raspberry canes are also on order.
During the past two nights the muck heap has been dug by someone searching for worms, I would guess a badger or fox, I need to set up a trail cam!
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