Showing posts with label Hampshire. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Hampshire. Show all posts

Tuesday 18 June 2013

A bit of 'Feelgood' music, abroad in the New Forest & Cranborne Chase and a possible Adonis Blue!

Been so busy recently ... I never expected semi retirement to be so time consuming! In between some big recruiting events with Yorkshire Wildlife Trust and beginning to get another band together, I've done 2 trips in the camper ... I popped down to the New Forest and South Downs a couple of weeks ago and then up into the Dales for a night last week, all great fun but it don't get the grass mown!

A few selected pics from those trips later but I'm feeling in a musical mood today and casting about for material to work with. You know how it is ... a u tube trawl, spotify playlists, and in my case also scraps of lyrics and chord progressions jotted down and filed away. Too much sometimes, but hey let me worry about that, in the meantime here's a couple of gems, both oldies, both goldies that have jumped out at me and reflected strumming today!



I can feel another timbobaggins song broadcast coming on ... maybe later and don't groan too loudly folks, I don't do it often and you don't have to listen to the end!

The New Forest, South Downs, Salisbury Plain

The New Forest is one of our biggest and best wildlife reserves and I'm sure there are still places where you can loose yourself, but my oh my it has changed since last I was down there some 15 years ago .... so many people, too many of them walking dogs and so many more intensively farmed tracts of land around the edges. I found it really difficult to get away from the beaten track and sense some degree of the magic I remember.

That said, I did hear Nightjars churring (and lots of them) on my first night there and one has to remember that mid June is always a time when birds n beasts alike go quiet and are naturally elusive whilst getting on with the business of breeding, so it was always going to be hard work, and add to that a hastily purchased guide to wildlife sites down there that turned out to be hopelessly inadequate, and already I'm feeling redeemed for not capturing a full on Honey Buzzard or a beautifully posed Dartford Warbler!

Not a glimpse of either sadly and bird pic opportunities were scarce but there were some awesome floral displays, one or two nice butterflies and best of all the sun shone throughout!

Birds first (hehe .... that'll be on my gravestone!), here's a smashing male Stonechat, a bird that seems to be doing much better down here than it is up North.


Hobbies are the falcon of choice in the New Forest and although I stalked this one hoping to get a full on 'in flight' close up, it never quite happened and this was taken almost at dusk and hence a bit grainy but its caught something in its talons and is munching away in mid flight!











...... on a similar theme this Common Buzzard seems to be transporting what I think is a Slow Worm to its nest, its not a snake but far too big and thick to be an earthworm ... what do you reckon?


 
Out of the skies and back down to earth, I couldn't resist taking a couple of pictures of the famous New Forest ponies, not least because one of them seemed to charging headlong towards me and the camera just came up in time!
 


More serene and typical shots of the ponies here ... they really are iconic creatures of the forest and always lovely to see.



Skulking through another, much smaller forest at Pamber, again trying to get off the beaten track and maybe spot something unusual, I just came across the usual .... common warblers diving for cover, a few Great Spotted Woodpecker nests and this nice Roe Deer that was looking at me as if to say 'what the feck are you doing in here!'



After a day and a half of trying to dodge the dog walkers and early morning joggers in the New Forest I decided to head into Dorset and Cranborne Chase .... it was like stepping back in time travelling through some of the leafy villages in this most idyllic of English counties. I saw an old style wooden bus shelter in one such village and in the next I swear I saw Miss Marples!


Adonis Blue?
Cranborne Chase is just lovely, typical south downland with chalky hills and steep grassy valleys. I was after some good butterflies ... anything blue basically and I think I got lucky with this one. Could it be an Adonis Blue?




















Somewhat less colourful but no less beautiful, there were several Dingy Skippers knocking about and this one turned out nicely in the frame ..... a bit brown and easily overlooked but hardly 'Dingy'!
Dingy Skipper


Large Tortoiseshell
This is what I'm pretty sure a Large Tortoiseshell I snapped whilst I was having a sandwich and a cup of coffee at the top of Cranborne Chase, and whilst I was up there I took a landscape looking over Downs and towards Salisbury Plain.


Got my best bird of the trip here too but sadly no photograph .... a fleeting but definitive glimpse of a male Cirl Bunting, heard it calling too!



Salisbury Plain
Salisbury Plain itself was pretty disappointing to be honest .... hardly saw a thing apart from a couple of nice passing Ravens and a few singing Skylarks, but it was midday and my recently sprained ankle was hurting after I'd walked too far in the sun, so I didn't pursue to any great extent, preferring a nap in the camper instead -  to recharge the batteries before driving back up to Yorkshire . Nice to be there again though after many years ... so quiet!

Common Raven
Lets end with a bit of colour and a few selected wild flowers, only a few because I haven't identified them all yet and some of these Orchids are devils to get right!

This one for instance could be a Man Orchid but its more likely to be some sort of Helliborine, I've tried to look it up but its a tricky business with it not being in full bloom.



This one could very well be a Long Spurred Orchid, and if it is then its a good find on Cranborne Chase
?Long Spurred Orchid

These are Marsh Orchids for sure!

















Yellow Flag Iris
Yellow Flag Iris is everywhere in suitable habitat at the moment and you don't need to go far to see some... lots of it at my local reserve at Askham Bog for instance, along with various Orchids and of course Water Violets
















Bugle

 
 
 
Stroll through any decent sized deciduous wood at the moment and you should see clumps of ground hugging Bugle, one of flowers that's easily overlooked but reveals such beautiful detail when you get down and have a good look.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
This last one has me stumped though ... there were maybe 3 or 4 clumps just like these in damp boggy ground and amongst Marsh Orchids and Yellow Iris. Another one to post on to the flower experts out there in cyberland!






















 



















Monday 4 March 2013

Road trip to Hampshire ...Brents & Sanderlings a plenty plus a couple of goons!

Another whistle stop road trip down to Hampshire to visit friends and squeeze in a bit of birding last week. We shouldn't be surprised I suppose but once again the weather was against us for all but a brief window of sunshine on Wednesday afternoon / eve, otherwise it was cold and decidedly gloomy! Great views of Red Kites coming into roost in the mist on the way down nr Newbury and we must have topped 20 in total whilst journeying ... they really have spread far and wide in the UK and always a treat to see.

Farlington Marshes is always a handy reserve to visit down there and although the morning was grey there were plenty of waders, ducks and geese about plus a couple of Song Thrushes and a Sparrowhawk.
Fly by Redshank
The geese were almost all Brents with maybe something like 300 on the water and many hundreds flying overhead ...... now I have to say that the light they were flying in was as gloomy as a graveyard on a wet Sunday afternoon, so most post production needed and not quite sure what I did with this but they look better than they ever did in the viewfinder!

This was a loner..... there's always one looking for a passport pic!




Talking of passport pics don't use these boys, you might get arrested for more than being in possession of  living head fur and a cockney rebelesque 70's pose!!





  The birds they must have pulled in their prime!
 
Ok, I'll get some stick for that but back to some birds with feathers as well as a pulse here's a few cracking Sanderling pics on Eastney Beach ..... and for a few hours the sun did shine!

Sanderlings are one of my favourite waders, nearly always doing something .... this little tussle over a juicy mollusc went on for several minutes

 
Until the victor flew away with the spoils!
 
Closely followed by a hungry gang .........
 
 
And then time for a rest .... didn't notice at the time but one of the Sanderlings has colour coded tags on its legs. I found a site on the net where you can report such tags and obtain a history of the birds movements (http://www.waderstudygroup.org/res/project/sand-colrings-en.php) so hopefully I'll get something back soon.
 
We had a single Mediterranean Gull fly past but sadly too quick for me to get the camera on it ..... Here's a few 'too far away but reasonable images' 
 
Oystercatcher feeding on a jetty at Eastney beach
Hardly in the 'reasonable' category but this was the only Sparrowhawk and only posting because Mark missed it ... here you go mate!



Mr & Mrs Common Teal out for a stroll
 
Later in the day we went back to Farlington Marshes and were rewarded by an impressive gull roost of 2000 plus Black Headed Gulls and many more waders including both Golden and Grey Plover, Dunlin, Knot and Black Tailed Godwit.
 
Then the sun went down and it was time to think about heading back to Yorkshire!