Birds

Winter into spring: March on the farm

/ Laura Tuke / Leave a comment

With the month of March comes the arrival of spring, symbolising the start of another year’s new growth and a transition following the bleaker winter months. March has often been associated with the saying ‘comes in like a lion, goes out like a lion’, referring to the weather. This was true about this March, with wild weather and strong winds featuring at the beginning of March, before the weather becoming more calm as the month progressed.

As traditional, during March, wildfowl made a sudden departure, fox cubs were born, buzzards established breeding orders, hawthorn and elder broke into leaf, small tortoiseshells emerged, nest building began, small warblers such as chiffchaffs returned from Africa, crocuses flowered, summer visitors began to return, and winter migrants began to migrate to their summer territories.

Though primroses, daffodils, celandines and blackthorn first flowered during February, it was nice to see all these flowers still blooming throughout March. Song birds during March could be heard singing, and the first woodland flowers began to come out at the end of March. The traditional ‘Mad’ March hares also made an appearance, with females resisting the advances of amorous males.

The beginning of Spring is symbolised by lengthening days and increasing temperatures. At the end of March, with the clocks going forward an hour, lengthening days were fulfilled, but this year the increasing temperatures did not make an appearance during March. After the stormier weather at the beginning of March, a cold spell set in, halting the advancement of Spring. This was symbolised with sycamore and silver birch being late coming into leaf, wood anemones and ferns being late to come out in the woods, and Blackbirds nesting late.

On the farm, new lives began during March. Aberdeen Angus suckler cows gave birth to their calves and three of our four mules gave birth to lambs, highlighting one of my favourite parts of the farming calendar.

Taken by Marilyn Tuke (18/03/16)
Taken by Marilyn Tuke (18/03/16)
26/03/16
26/03/16

My highlight of March was beginning to use my new Bushnell camera trap to photograph and video the wildlife on the farm, including the local badgers.

25th-26th March
26th-27th March
27th March
28th-29th March
29th March
29th-30th March
29th-30th March

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.

13/01/16
13/01/16

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

13/01/16
13/01/16
13/01/16
13/01/16

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

13/01/16
13/01/16
13/01/16

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.

16/01/16
16/01/16
16/01/16

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.

13/01/16
13/01/16
13/01/16

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)

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

 

Nesting barn owls

/ Laura Tuke / Leave a comment

In reference to my earlier blog post ‘Breeding barn owls’, I have continued to monitor my barn owl nest box in which we believe a pair of barn owls to be using.

Now i can update you all on what has happened to our pair.

The weekend after i did a barn owl box stake out (see ‘Breeding barn owls’), we had really bad rainy weather, and we did not see the pair hunting during this time. As a result we came to the conclusion that they were not able to find an adequate amount of food for themselves during this time. This gave us the inkling that the pair may have abandoned their breeding attempt for this year.

For a time we continued to see the pair hunting over the fields during evenings, until a couple of weeks later we stopped seeing them. I then found a suspicious amount of barred white feathers in a wood within the vicinity the barn owls hunt in. I believe them to be from one of our barn owls, and the amount of feathers found make me think that one of the pair may have been attacked.

Our thoughts about our nest box were confirmed when we decided to check it, and found two abandoned barn owl eggs.

We have not seen two birds again, but at the end of last week, we saw one barn owl hunting on our farm once again.