Female great spotted woodpecker Season of tree flowers: catkins of birch, willow and bog myrtle. A budding canopy full of birdsong, birds handsome in best breeding plumage, in display and song-flight. A banquet invites them to the table. Long feeders where siskin, redpoll, tree sparrow, goldfinch and reed bunting feed in a sunny glade where a green hairstreak alights on the grass. Redpoll call in the trees about the glade, in dipping –restless flight. sunlight fires the red poll, makes beaks translucent. A kestrel flies over tree-tops and hovers, hunting. A sparrowhawk darts through the clearing and small birds scatter and fall silent, until the banquet tempts them to return. A great spotted woodpecker balances on the feeder, bold of feature in her black and white mask.
I know bog myrtle catkins will be flowering beside the board walk and the massed shrubs are resplendent. I love the detail and structure of the catkins and the deep rich colours and fullness of the taller shrubs against a foil of grass tussocks in mousy shades of winter. I look for the female catkins of bog myrtle, but cannot find them. Amongst shrubs of heather and cross-leaved heath the early flowers of bog rosemary appear- the plant has a long flowering season. I have found it in late July and Jacqui, a botanist friend, has found it in December. Bog rosemary, Andromeda polifolia.
Ospreys are returned, last year’s breeding pair. They have been seen mating in the tree-top and bringing in fish from the Leven Estuary.
The peatlands of Cumbria. Today, Foulshaw Moss- a lowland raised mire of Cumbria’s coast. Like Roudsea and the Duddon Mosses.
The osprey hide looks out across the peat bog restored and maintained by careful control of the water table and scrub clearance, where a few skeletons of plantation trees have been left for the osprey. The history and natural history of Foulshaw Moss is presented through information boards, how our ancestors crossed a peat bog safely, the digging of peat for fuel and the draining of the mosses, the afforestation. And the restoration to lowland raised mire in a fifteen year Cumbria Wildlife Project.
Good to see siskin and redpoll thriving on Foulshaw Moss. In May 2016 I photographed redpoll and linnet on Scout Scar, heard them often. This spring, I neither hear nor see them.
The peatlands of Cumbria. Today, Foulshaw Moss- a lowland raised mire of Cumbria’s coast. Like Roudsea and the Duddon Mosses.
The osprey hide looks out across the peat bog restored and maintained by careful control of the water table and scrub clearance, where a few skeletons of plantation trees have been left for the osprey. The history and natural history of Foulshaw Moss is presented through information boards, how our ancestors crossed a peat bog safely, the digging of peat for fuel and the draining of the mosses, the afforestation. And the restoration to lowland raised mire in a fifteen year Cumbria Wildlife Project.
Good to see siskin and redpoll thriving on Foulshaw Moss. In May 2016 I photographed redpoll and linnet on Scout Scar, heard them often. This spring, I neither hear nor see them.
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