Infrequent visitors
7th February 2010, SundayWe had two infrequent avian visitors to our Northiam garden this week. The first was a reed bunting. Feeding under the seed feeders, flicking its white edged tail, and hopping about nervously. For some reason a female house sparrow took great offence to it and kept trying to drive it off. Graphs on the BTO Garden Birdwatch website show that this time of year is the period when these birds are most likely to turn up in gardens, presumably as food is in short supply in the countryside. The second bird was an early morning arrival, a grey heron. These birds are particularly shy and tend to be seen first thing in the morning.
A second reed bunting appeared one week later in the snow.
Perhaps, like me, it was anticipating the arrival of common frogs in our pond. Herons can be observed hunting frog spawning sites in the spring. If you watch them closely they move through the pond slowly, prospecting with their feet to try to disturb any amphibians hiding in the aquatic vegetation before spearing them with that sharp beak. Well if that was the intention they will have been disappointed. A weather report suggesting a spell of milder weather this weekend failed to produce the goods. I had a single frog in the pond over the weekend, and it really needs to get a good bit warmer before we have any significant spawning behaviour. Newts also remain in low numbers in the pond. My maximum count so far this year is just 7 smooth newts and two palmates (a male displaying to a female), observed at night by torchlight. These presumeably were animals living close to the pond. It will take a spell of milder wet weather to trigger the migration of newts living further away.
Wild Hastings
wildRye
