Redpoll on Foulshaw Moss feeder April 2019 and trees sheltering the feeders were alive with birdsong. You may hear redpoll in woodland fringes but they're restless, so hard to see. In a glade at Foulshaw Moss Cumbria Wildlife invites you to a close encounter - look and listen. Birds gather in the trees and come down to the feeders: reed bunting, tree sparrows, goldfinch- and the sudden flash of a sparrowhawk. All that feed is expensive so posters ask for our support. I delighted in the Foulshaw readpoll last spring and one of my images features..
click on images to show fully, to read captions
At Leighton Moss, The RSPB also work hard to create habitat to support birds, and to arrange feeders close to the cafe where you may shelter beneath a domed viewing point to watch birds. Hearing fieldfare in the high trees, we followed their calls to an old orchard where fieldfare and redwing were attracted to apple trees. If I showed the apple tree image you wouldn't see fieldfare, hidden by an intricate weave of twigs.
This month, the RSPB sent out an email about birds in winter. Species that seek the protection of a flock at this season. Changes of diet to accord with change of food available. In winter, feeding is the imperative. Daylight hours are short and how may birds survive long nights and harsh winter weather?
Tuesday 10 December was a day to hibernate- to hunker down against the winter. To think hot chocolate and comfort food. A birch tree thrashed about in blustery wind. The flexuousness of trees! Bird feeders swung to and fro, dark in the shelter of laurels that the wind drove through. Thank Heaven for hedges packed with berries, dense hedges where birds may roost and try to keep their plumage dry. Ivy-clad trees where creatures may find shelter. But how can birds feed on a day when the rain never let up? Next morning, still raining. 8.30 am and dawn comes, reluctantly, a fain glow of rose and pearly light through a squall of hail.
December 10th, in darkness and in storm. Could be a political comment with a general election on 12th!! Thought-provoking Making History today: journalists coverage of politics will become the historical record of the future? The immediacy of journalism Versus a more contextualised history.
Tuesday 10 December was a day to hibernate- to hunker down against the winter. To think hot chocolate and comfort food. A birch tree thrashed about in blustery wind. The flexuousness of trees! Bird feeders swung to and fro, dark in the shelter of laurels that the wind drove through. Thank Heaven for hedges packed with berries, dense hedges where birds may roost and try to keep their plumage dry. Ivy-clad trees where creatures may find shelter. But how can birds feed on a day when the rain never let up? Next morning, still raining. 8.30 am and dawn comes, reluctantly, a fain glow of rose and pearly light through a squall of hail.
December 10th, in darkness and in storm. Could be a political comment with a general election on 12th!! Thought-provoking Making History today: journalists coverage of politics will become the historical record of the future? The immediacy of journalism Versus a more contextualised history.
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