It's not always raining

Woodland pictures from early October

The views are changing daily around here, leaves are falling fast and waterfalls and streams are overflowing. Suspect next weeks view of this same walk will be completely different again!

Up close. Summer version

 

Bit of a squeeze...

The swallow babies are almost fully grown. At least I think they must be because these pictures show there is no room at the inn anymore! Looks really full and much jostling goes on to turn around!

Pretty sure there's only three babies, might be four, all squeezed in there! If you look closely you can see a fabulous feather they have used to line the nest. Its black, really long - curls all the way round the nest - with fine strands... heaven knows what its from. Something huge! Do you think we have ostriches nearby?! 

{Please note, no babies were stressed in the taking of these; I had a zoom lens and was out the way. they are at the top eaves of our carport!} 

 

Curlew family pictures...

The curlews in the field are a family of six; two parents, three babies as far as I can work out, and boy are they shouty... I am going to miss them when they leave next month, apparently by the end of July they will have returned to a coastline, to potter about in the mud. I wonder where they are going, ( we aren't particularly near a coast!) and I wish I could go too, or track them somehow.  How on earth they managed to hatch three babies the size of goose eggs, on the floor,  in a field running with foxes, pole cats, hares, buzzards and kites, heaven knows - but they did it. 

Incredibly hard to photograph, considering they are literally above our heads most of the day, they like to dip and dive and go from light to dark backgrounds in nanoseconds, leaving me and my poor camera to do what we can.  Heres four of them, coming in to the field. The other two were there too, just not in my shot. 

Theres three in this picture {above}  One about to land and two already down. The youngsters I think, one of them has not perfected a smooth landing yet.. you can see its tumble of wings up in the grass to help not fall flat on its face.... with beaks ending up about 15cm longs ( thank you google) I can imagine it takes some skill to fly and land with that on your face.  Despite their size and huge wing span they are really gentle types and very nervy - not even slightly threatening, not even with that beak. 

You'll have to humour me going on about them, it feels pretty special,  part of a species that is involved in many campaigns to save it, projects to release it, protected nests and tireless teams of curlew-aholics working to save and look after them, and we just get a family rock up and successfully nest next to us. Awesome. 

New neighbours...

There are Curlews nesting in the long grass meadow next to us. And they are both noisy and super active - you can't fail to see them or hear them 200 times a day. They are adorable. Huge, fast, almost impossible to photograph but really really quirky kind of cute.  You'll have to click the link to see clear photos of them because this is not the 'easy to photograph sit still on the fence' kinda bird. 

This is Wallace. Yes of course I named the wild bird, doesn't everyone? Named because looking for the head peering up in all that grass is a lot like looking in a 'Where's Wally' book,  but its probably a female doing all the hard work so Wally won't work, so Wallace it is then.

I'll be honest, its more than one of them. I actually think its more than two of them, but I don't know;  they are fast when they want to be! I'm just going to call all of them Wallace, to save confusion. Cover all bases. ;)

They are an amber to red classified bird - on the near endangered list. So its lovely they are alive and very well here. And should you ever be as dim as me, and think up until alarmingly recently that birds with long curved wader type beaks only live at the beach... here's proof they like the farmland too. You're welcome. Now you won't look quite as dim as I did. 

 

 

 

Kite. Buzzard. Kite

We are very blessed around here to be home to many Red Kites. {Thats the bird, not the thing on a string...}
Rare, endangered and frankly never seen in 90% of Great Britain they are pretty plentiful here, and I see lots every single day.  Not sure the locals have a clue why I am so excited by them, but I never take them for granted, I always have to exclaim - oooh Kite! - and I confess to several 'close to crashing into the hedge because I look up at them' moments. {on foot, in the car or on the horse..LOL!} They are easily identifiable by their triangular tail. 

Luckily. Because I am not as well up on my breeds of birds as I probably should be living here. It's like an encyclopaedia of British birds outside. Every time I see a big bird if its not a Kite I call it a Buzzard. Could be anything but its either a Kite or Buzzard to me ;)

{Pretty sure this IS a buzzard. If it isn't don't shatter that illusion and tell me otherwise. Kite,  or Buzzard. Life is simpler this way!}