Cumbria Naturally
  • Home
  • Blog
  • My Books
    • Cumbrian Contrasts
    • A Lakeland Experience >
      • Introduction
      • Derwent
      • Langdale
      • Ullswater
      • Kentdale
    • About Scout Scar
    • Atlantic Odyssey
  • Other Writing
    • What Larks!
    • Further - Explore Shetland
    • Autumn Migration
    • Rydal and Nab Scar
    • Perspectives
    • The River Kent
    • Wings
  • Gallery
  • Contact

North Pennines: long-tailed tits and fieldfare

23/4/2021

0 Comments

 
PictureLong-tailed tit on the handle of the kitchen door

Sunrise at Ghyll Burn Cottage 22nd -29th  April  2021
​
Ghyll Burn is a tributary of the River South Tyne and the cottage is a peaceful and secluded spot.  It was an old stone barn, a lofty space with thick walls. deep embrasured windows and wooden beams.  A flight of stone steps leads to the entrance and the kitchen on the first floor. The cottage sits within the shelter of the ghyll, with hawthorn rich in lichens and  taller trees beyond; ash still in winter guise,  sycamore close to leafing,  birch and sitka spruce. 

Jackdaw are vocal,  a nuthatch trills,  blue tits and great tits call.  Sunlight illuminates a goldfinch on a bare ash, song thrush and mistle thrush sing..  A woodpecker drums on the metal plate atop a telegraph pole.  I hear redpoll.   And fieldfare, so late in April. There are ground frosts most mornings and, at sunrise, light pours through a sycamore where a flock of fieldfare chatters one to another.   A lone sentinel sits in the top of a sitka spruce, a vantage point that overlooks the ghyll.  Gunshots ring out, a farmer shooting rabbits. The flock falls silent, then  fieldfare erupt in flight  over the cottage,  returning  to the shelter of the sycamore when all is silent once more.  Each morning, the sunrise sycamore hosts a flock of fieldfare, vocal, glimpsed in silhouette amongst contorted branches in a tree on the cusp of leafing.  Always shy and nervous birds,  I see them each morning, at a distance, visible  when the flock settles in a bare ash.  They have not overwintered here. Waves of fieldfare pass through on their migration north, to Scandinavia.  
I share my fieldfare find with birder Jeff Holmes who writes ‘  I can just picture Fieldfares now back on the breeding grounds in Finland where l saw them nesting in gardens just like Blackbirds here. ‘ 
Long-tailed tits are nesting somewhere amongst a tangle of lichened hawthorn.  The nest is well hidden but the birds are confiding and inquisitive. When we stand by the kitchen window a bird appears on a hawthorn branch,  flies onto the parapet at the top of the flight of steps, then onto the handle of the kitchen door, only a pane of glass between us.  Intimate encounters and daily photo-opportunities with a long-tailed tit, a  creature whose subtle plumage I hope to show, the hints of pink.  Tit-mouse the bird was called, a tiny inquisitee bird.  One morning, the bird alights on the door handle- its beak stuffed with insects plucked from tree branches.  Their young will be fed on insects, invertebrates and the eggs of moths and butterflies.  Very warm days after a ground frost dawn, so butterflies are on the wing and there will be caterpillars for long-tailed tits to feed on. 
0 Comments

Your comment will be posted after it is approved.


Leave a Reply.

    Picture

    Author

    Jan Wiltshire is a nature writer living in Cumbria. She also explores islands and coast and the wildlife experience. (See Home and My Books)

    Archives

    May 2025
    April 2025
    March 2025
    February 2025
    January 2025
    December 2024
    November 2024
    October 2024
    September 2024
    August 2024
    July 2024
    June 2024
    May 2024
    April 2024
    March 2024
    February 2024
    January 2024
    December 2023
    November 2023
    October 2023
    September 2023
    August 2023
    July 2023
    June 2023
    May 2023
    April 2023
    March 2023
    February 2023
    January 2023
    December 2022
    November 2022
    October 2022
    September 2022
    August 2022
    July 2022
    June 2022
    May 2022
    April 2022
    March 2022
    February 2022
    January 2022
    December 2021
    November 2021
    October 2021
    September 2021
    August 2021
    July 2021
    June 2021
    May 2021
    April 2021
    March 2021
    February 2021
    January 2021
    December 2020
    November 2020
    October 2020
    September 2020
    August 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    January 2015
    November 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014
    June 2014
    January 2014
    December 2013
    October 2013
    September 2013
    February 2013
    January 2013
    September 2012
    July 2012
    June 2012
    November 2010
    August 2010
    July 2010
    April 2010
    January 2010
    November 2009
    January 2009
    January 2004

    Categories

    All
    A Local Patch
    Birdlife
    Butterflies And Moths
    Flowers
    Locations
    Views
    Walks
    Weather
    WIldlife

    RSS Feed

Website
Home
Blog
Gallery
Contact



​Cookie Policy
My Books
  • Intro - My books
  • ​Cumbrian Contrasts
  • A Lakeland Experience
  • About Scout Scar
  • Atlantic Odyssey
    ​
Other Writing
  • Intro - Other Writing
  • What Larks!
  • Further - Explore Shetland
  • Autumn Migration
  • Rydal and Nab Scar
  • Perspectives
  • The River Kent
  • Wings
Jan Wiltshire - Cumbria Naturally
© Jan Wiltshire 2022 All rights reserved
Website by Treble3