Dorset Adventures

Winter into spring: February on the farm

/ Laura Tuke / Leave a comment

February is often described as the bleakest month, with the land still gripped in winter and the coldest temperatures often being reached. It cannot be ignored though, that February also brings the promise of coming spring, with the feeling in the air beginning to change, as the month progresses.

Some mornings a light frost can be woken up to, but still frosts are less frequent this winter, than they used to be.

Photo taken by Marilyn Tuke
Photo taken by Marilyn Tuke

Plants are beginning to stir in February, with catkins (male flowers) hanging from hazel trees, celandines appearing, pussy willow flowering, primroses flowering, and gorse flowering in the hedgerows.

Photo taken by Marilyn Tuke
Photo taken by Marilyn Tuke
Photo taken by Marilyn Tuke
Photo taken by Marilyn Tuke
Photo taken by Marilyn Tuke
Photo taken by Marilyn Tuke
Photo taken by Marilyn Tuke
Photo taken by Marilyn Tuke

This year on our farm though, blackthorn is flowering early in February, along with horse chestnut trees already coming into bud and the buds beginning to burst.

Photo taken by Marilyn Tuke
Photo taken by Marilyn Tuke
Photo taken by Marilyn Tuke

Animals are beginning to become more active in February, with brown hares becoming easier to see in the fields, rabbits becoming ‘frisky’, female foxes being pregnant, and grey squirrels giving birth in their drays. Also, badgers are beginning to give birth to cubs too, with the most obvious sign of this being remains of grass seen around the entrance tunnels to setts, left from where badgers have dragged grass down into their setts to make nests.

Photo taken by Marilyn Tuke
Photo taken by Marilyn Tuke

As well at this time of year, starling flocks begin to disperse, as individuals head back to their breeding ranges and rooks begin to build their nests in preparation for breeding. The drumming sound of great spotted woodpeckers can now be heard more frequently, as males defend their territories against other males and attempt to attract a female. This is the same with the dawn chorus, as in February it begins to pick up, due to males defending their territories and advertising themselves to available females.

Conditions were mild towards the end of February this year, leading to insects, such as honeybees and butterflies beginning to become active.

In relation to the farm side of life, in February our four sheep were brought inside in preparation for iconic spring lambing at the end of March.

Photo taken by Marilyn Tuke
Photo taken by Marilyn Tuke

My highlight of February, was beginning to hear blackbirds singing at dawn and dusk as the month came to an end, which is a traditional sign that winter is over.

Winter into spring: January on the farm

/ Laura Tuke / Leave a comment

January is often a cold and bare month, no leaves on the trees and an atmosphere of dormancy. But I say, if you just look closely enough, beauty is still there to be found.

January is the month when snowdrops begin to spring from the earth, hinting at the new life that is to come with spring.

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Trees stand bare and leafless, showing off their magnificent skeletal shapes.

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The last of the autumn’s berries still laden the hedgerows throughout January this year, in particular bright red rose hips.

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As well, windfalls still lie beneath the apple trees from last years crop, ready for the taking. Badgers make frequent trips to the orchard to take advantage of the food source, and all that can be seen as evidence of these raids, are the discarded left overs of apples out in the nearby fields.

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Many gulls feed on the farmland fields during the daytime, with the flocks being mainly made up of herring gulls and great-black backed gulls. Usually also during the winter, flocks of starlings feed around the farm, but they only appeared for the first time this winter, near the beginning of January. Currently they can be seen flocking on the fields to feed or chattering away in the trees around our farm buildings. As well, iconic of this time of year, fieldfares and redwings can be seen feeding in the fields.

During the daytime, lots and lots of birds visit the bird feeders in the garden, to feed on peanuts and mixed seed. These bird species include, blue tits, chaffinches, great tits, goldfinches, house sparrows, dunnocks and great spotted woodpeckers.

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During the night at this time of year, tawny owls can be heard calling, as they attempt to rekindle pair bonds before the breeding season begins from February onwards. Also, female foxes can be heard calling to males, as they become receptive for mating.

Some mornings are woken up to a frost covered landscape. It makes things look particularly magical with the ground sparkling in the morning sunshine. With changes in winter weather though, these mornings have become rare in Dorset during this winter.

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This January, change is in the air. Not the change of tradition, but change that feels wrong. Daffodils began to shoot from the beginning of January and primroses appeared in the hedgerows.

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My highlight of January 2016 has to be, seeing a lone kestrel hunting close to our house everyday. A magnificent sight to see a bird hovering, still in mid air, before swooping down to catch a vole.

An unexpected and unusual food source

/ Laura Tuke / Leave a comment

Throughout July, we noticed an increasing number of birds spending time in the vicinity of our farm’s slurry store (large open-topped tank above the ground). Consequently I decided to investigate the reason for this.

The birds numerously seen were flocks of starlings, flocks of house sparrows and a couple of our local black-headed gulls (one in particular was seen everyday, which we named Nigel). From the outside of the slurry store, you could see the birds perching on the edge of the tank and at times flying down inside, often to not be seen for a few minutes.

To take a closer look, I climbed up the ladder on the side of the tank to get to the platform which would allow me to look down into the store.

On this platform, you could look all the way to the bottom of the tank, which during July had only a couple of feet of slurry left within it. From the platform I was able to watch the behaviour of the birds without disturbing the birds . Consequently my suspicions about what the birds were doing were soon confirmed.

All the birds spotted, were exploiting the slurry store as a location to find food, such as feeding on fly larvae hatching in the surface of the slurry. All these different bird species had different strategies to feed in this environment. House sparrows would fly down to the bottom of the tank, to pick larvae from the surface of the slurry whilst on the wing. Starlings would perch on the nuts on the inside of the tank’s walls, before flying down to pick off larvae or hunt on the surface of the slurry. Black-headed gulls would use similar tactics, but would often sit on the surface of the slurry where it was most watery and feed at their leisure.

It was very interesting to watch these birds feed, but now into August these birds have moved off to exploit other further food sources.

 

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Black-Headed Gull on edge of slurry store (Nigel)

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Starling on edge of slurry store
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Starlings on inside surface of slurry store

 

Gorgeous great spotted woodpeckers

/ Laura Tuke / Leave a comment

Every year, during the breeding season, I am lucky to have great spotted woodpeckers returning to my family’s garden to feed on peanuts from our bird feeders.

In my opinion, great spotted woodpeckers are beautiful birds with colourful markings and a distinct call.

In particular, I love to watch the birds fly to our garden in pairs from our nearby wood, and as the season progresses, seeing one of the pair come less and less, leading to eventually seeing them both return together with their chicks to feed them from the feeders.

This year I saw a couple of different pairs using our feeders, and a number of chicks being bred as well. I loved being able to watch the birds from my window, seeing a parent collecting peanuts from the feeder and flying to the chick hiding at the edge of the garden, before being fed.

Nearer the end of the season, with chicks dispersing, the parents began coming less and less, until the same older chick was seen coming to feed in our garden daily.

Last week i took some photos of the youngster on two consecutive days and the second day was the last time i saw a great spotted woodpecker feeding in our garden.

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Photographing Bees

/ Laura Tuke / Leave a comment

On Wednesday 10th June, I was sat in my garden and noticed the sheer number of bees being attracted to one particular plant. This plant was poached egg (Limnanthes douglasii) and in my garden there is a 3m x 1m bed of it growing. This plant with white flowers with a yellow centre, grow for a period between May and September, and have a sweet heady smell.

Bees and hoverflies in particular love this plant, and on this day, i thought i had a great opportunity to try and get some good photos of bees visiting the plant.

Out of the insects that visited the plant, the most common were buff-tailed bumblebees and honey bees, which i predominately photographed. Here’s some of my photos I took with an old Olympus digital camera I had handy:

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