The Missing Season

It almost seems that we have jumped straight from Autumn into Spring. Apart from a couple of frosty starts and the lightest dusting of snow that soon vanished as temperatures quickly reached around 14ºC, it has predominantly been wet and mild.

Many plants and animals have been fooled into acting like it’s spring in these mild conditions, but there is still time for a proper cold snap to put this right and reset the calendar so to speak.

The fields are again full of ewes heavy in lamb, and we will soon be hearing their plaintive bleats, another event that signifies the onset of spring in my mind. This mild weather has done wonders for the grass, so the lactating ewes with have plenty of nutritional grazing. The other side of that coin is, I’m not sure my old lawnmower will manage the first cut of the year in the back garden. I wonder if I could borrow a sheep?

This weekend finds me full of cold and suffering like only a man can. I came home from work on Friday after valiantly struggling through the day and slumped on the settee feeling pretty sorry for myself. At around 8pm, I still hadn’t moved when I receive a phone call from my daughter to inform me of a road causality Badger she had spotted that looked like it was still moving. She was concerned but unable to stop on the busy road. That was enough to drag me off the settee and I followed her directions to the badger.

The road was unlit, fast, and the badger was on a blind bend. I drove past it and turned the car around. I managed to pull up close to it with my hazards on, but felt very exposed on the blind bend. I’m glad my daughter had more sense than to put herself in the position I was now in! I quickly checked the badger, it had not survived the collision, I then got myself out of the situation. I really didn’t fancy meeting a similar fate.

              Unfortunately, this is the only time most people get to see a Badger.

I had my trail camera and a few peanuts in the boot of the car, the cool evening rain and air had eased my headache and my breathing, so I decided to stay out a little longer. With badgers on my mind, I headed to my favorite little sett. I have mentioned this sett before, it is the one that was badly damaged last year. I didn’t see any badgers for a couple of months, but eventually, there were signs that at least one badger had returned.

It was raining heavily by the time i reached the sett, I placed the camera in a suitable spot, scattered a few peanuts about, then headed for home. I have only seen one badger since the sett was damaged. There were three in this small sett. I’m hoping the trail camera will reveal that there is more than just a solitary badger resident.

I had a terrible night, sleep just eluded me. Unable to breath, sneezing, coughing, I gave it up as a bad job and got up for a coffee about 4.00am. I read for a while and then at around 5.30am, headed off to check the camera out and see what activity there had been. I arrived at around 6.10am, I didn't encounter anything of mention on the walk down in the dark. I quickly flicked on my head torch and was disappointed to see the peanuts were still where I had spread them. I took the memory card out of the camera and again headed for home.

I was suprised to find on the memory card a badger picture!

If you look at the time recorded on the photo, it’s 6.02am. Just one badger and it probably encountered the peanuts on its return journey to the sett after a nights forging. I arrived here about 8 mins after this picture was captured. No doubt it heard me coughing and spluttering across the fields well before I got anywhere near and vacated the area. 

I do hope this badger isn’t the only inhabitant of this sett, I will keep an eye on things over the next few months.

 

Saturday morning and Pete and I visited Middleton RSPB for a wander about; we haven’t been for a while and it made a refreshing change. We had hoped that the Drake Smew reported on Friday was still about, but we didn’t locate it; we did however have our first Redpoll, Oystercatcher and Goldeneye of the year. As always, a great place to visit.

 

The Versatile Bridge Camera

I do like messing about trying to capture record shots of the Birds and Nature I see when out and about on my travels. If the wildlife is cooperative I can use my Phonescoping or Digiscoping set up. However, by cooperative I mean stationary. Unfortunately, a lot of wildlife won’t be this cooperative and some other way of recording the moment is required. 

Obviously there is the dedicated DSLR paired with a suitably large and impressive lens. The drawback here is mainly the astronomical expense of a decent long lens, and the issue of carting it about in conjunction with binoculars, scope and any other birding paraphernalia. I am first and foremost a birder/nature watcher rather than a photographer, so I just want record shots without carrying too much more equipment with me. This is where bridge cameras come into their own. Yes, they are a compromise on image quality compared to a DSLR, but in exchange you get incredible zoom facilities. I hadn’t used my bridge camera for a while, but recently I have taken it out and about and can’t understand why i ever decided to leave it at home when I’m wandering about? It’s an old Canon SX40 that has already been superseded  twice by Canon with the SX50 and SX60 and if rumors are true, another is imminent. I am in the market for an upgrade, but I’m taking my time researching what model of bridge camera my replacement will be.

Getting the record shot

Friday, and the first White Winged Black Tern for 10 years was reported in Staffordshire at Middleton RSPB.  I arrived home from work, changed, and was soon out the door again with the birding gear and on route to Middleton.

On arrival I soon located the Tern on the Jubilee Wetland section of the reserve. It was feeding on the wing and putting on a great display. I really wanted to try and get a record shot, but the speed the bird was moving made Digiscoping impossible. I had brought my old Canon SX40 Bridge Camera along and turned to that to try and capture a record of this bird. 

If you have tried to capture a fast moving bird in flight with a bridge camera, you will know it is far from easy. It is however more likely to succeed than trying to focus and Digiscope a fast moving target. I persevered, putting the camera in various modes to see if any would produce an acceptable result. The outcome was I managed a few record shots of the White Winged Black Tern that are acceptable to me.

This has again driven home just how versatile these superzoom bridge cameras are in terms of record shots for any nature enthusiast that doesn’t want to carry about a big and very expensive DSLR lens and camera.

Further Proof

Then on Saturday Mrs Moocher and I ventured further afield and headed to West Wales in search of UK Dolphins. We arrived at the Cardigan Bay area at about 11am and started our search. The place is gorgeous, and the birding was pretty good too, with flocks of Chough being a particular highlight. Eventually, the search paid of and we found a Pod of Dolphins. They really are amazing creatures. One female had a calf and even though I got good views through the scope and binoculars, I could not digiscope a picture. They didn’t stay on the surface for more than a few seconds and then they were gone again. Not enough time to find them in the scope, focus the camera and take a picture. I again tried with the Canon SX40, the dolphins were distant so I was working at full zoom with 1.5x digital teleconverter. It was enough to get me some record shots. Someone from the Seawatch project arrived and got their DSLR out with 300mm lens. They decided not to bother as the Dolphins were too distant. They were impressed with what I managed with the little SX40 handheld.

So, I have again convinced myself of the value of a decent bridge camera for nature photography and birding. The search begins for a SX40 replacement.

The Infamous Bridge

The bridge has happened! 

I, and no doubt many others have been waiting for what seems an age for the promised bridge spanning the Tame and joining Dosthill and Middleton sides of the RSPB reserve together to be put in place. The RSPB have kept us informed along the way, but at each anticipate date, something transpired to put the project back and postpone it to a later date. However, the wait is now over. The crane arrived on site and the bridge was lowered into place. It's not open to pedestrians just yet, but I understand it will be in the next week or so. 

I just had to pop down on Sunday morning and have a look. It was great to see it in place and I am looking forward to crossing it.

 

The Dosthill side of the reserve had already provided me with my first Oystercatcher of the year on the 18th of January. This frosty Sunday morning, there were 9 Oystercatcher, they did look good flying low over the water calling. 

Apart from a flyover Green Sandpiper, the bridge and the Oystercatcher were the highlights of the morning.