“The Bare Bones”

The sparkling icy ditch

The fallow meadows near to my house have such a radically different look this morning, that I am driven out early to walk my dogs with a different lens to usual…Praying that the barn owl won’t be hunting (there was no sign of him this morning- must have been a good night!), I hunt the landscape. (It is a constant joke amongst my children and I about missing the shot due to having the wrong lens attached or being minus the camera when I see a beautiful moment or animal/bird!)

Tree silhouettes and mist

The structural silhouettes of trees, hedges and far off house and farm roofs strike me immediately, shrouded in the morning mist. The weak January sunlight filters through the tree branches and glistens on the icy dewdrops on yellowing grass. Drainage ditches cut through the landscape, no longer slowly running but as still as the ice that has ensnared them. Tips of vegetation peep through the sparkling ice as Rosie and I look closely.

Dropping down low, I try to capture the lengthy shadows and the magic of winter. Tiggy is wandering off sniffing scents that only she knows. A tchak tchak of a disturbed fieldfare rents the silent air. I spy a lone magpie flicking his tail on a far off treetop branch. But these are the only signs of life other than us in this still winter’s scene.

Long shadows creep and the winter’s sun is balanced in the bare branches

But I am not cold as I have walked and thought of many things; the winter sunlight has been enough to warm my bones and despite the bleakness, I am content with this January.

The Battle of the Jay

The Battle of the Jay sounds ominous and full of threat doesn’t it? Some battles are silent and won through persistence, rather than bloodshed, as you will see. The first photo is always one that makes me feel determined to capture a better shot like this backlit but rather branch-crowded photo!

The piercing blue eyes of Mr Jay!

The Eurasian jay is a colourful species that is a regular garden visitor here and a bird that fascinates me. Just today I was stood in my kitchen making a cuppa, when I glanced up-  Mr Jay was on the nut feeder outside the front kitchen window, Mrs Greater Spotted Woodpecker to the right just outside the other window and Naughty Norman, my friend the grey squirrel, was waiting his turn in the tree next to the shed! Now if I had my camera in my hand, they wouldn’t have been seen for dust. So we all kept very still (my dogs too) and watched. It fills my heart with gladness to be so surrounded by wildlife! Added to these gorgeous three, are the constant stream of small bird visitors that frequent the feeders and garden, as well as a few male pheasants (dark and light forms), a moorhen and an escapee bantam hen that is spending a lot of time here, but that’s another story!

So back to that jay…. I set my camera up on the tripod in the room at the back of the house making it as dark as possible inside, and quietly open a small window. Then I wait. Well wrapped up against the January winds, I wager the first battle! He spies me as soon as he alights, having spotted the peanuts put down. However I notice he lands on a post and I decide to focus my lens there. But there are so many distractions- long tailed tits- a whole family- and a narrow escape for one from a sparrowhawk dive bomber! (My heart is racing as the one that was chased remains as still as a statue in the apple tree opposite- goodness knows what miles per hour his little heart was thumping!) Eye back to the eyepiece – after checking the stealth hedge-shark has flown- and down came my warrior!

Time for me to take three photos- two in good focus!

How very agreeable he looks in the photo- but looks are indeed deceiving! For despite being bold, brash and big, not only is he the most shy of birds but he also spends the shortest amount of time feeding! The rate at which he shovels peanuts into his beak is breathtaking and as I watch, I recall learning how clever they are at retrieving thousands of hidden nuts from their stash! This garrulous friend of mine is more clever than me in so many ways but persistence and determination are my allies. Until tomorrow Mr Jay… until tomorrow!

I spy nuts- but then I spy you- back later!

Hare at the Gate

How should I begin?

Beginning in the middle is very often the way to begin writing. However, sometimes you need to go back to the start! So with this first post of 2015, I am returning to one of the first wildlife experiences that started my love for photography. Of course there are many others from my childhood, but this encounter was important as a photographer. Having recently discovered Suffolk and the simple rural delights of the barn owl in St Cross, I was anxious not to lose those special moments recently gained (‘The First Wood Mouse in the Apple Tree’- is a blog still to come!). Imagine my excitement, that on looking out from the cottage windows, on one of the first summer’s evening since moving home, that I glimpsed a hare.

Well at first I watched him washing himself – a rabbit I thought, wet from a shower. But then he stretched…and I saw that it was a brown hare. Hares are elusive as they are notoriously shy (although in March, when you can see them boxing at the start of the breeding season, it helps us to understand the saying “mad as a March’s Hare”). So it was with massive pleasure that I was able to watch him arrive through the gate at around 7pm for the next few days.

All I needed was a White Rabbit and Alice to compliment the wonderful scene- although he must have been late and Alice must have been sleeping, as my hare came alone to munch the clover flowers in the grass and was not in the slightest bit mad! Both Lewis Carroll and Hartley Hare from ‘Pipkins’ on TV as a child in the 70s, as well as owning a postcard print of Albrecht Düras’ watercolour ‘Young Hare’, have all helped to make hares a special part of my life. But it is the story that my mother told me as a youngster, as to why I had a hare-shaped birthmark on my thigh- and that was because she found a young hare when she was very pregnant with me- that puts the hare firmly into my box of ‘treasures’.So these were the first photos from my new garden! You may be able to understand now how this encounter was to further fuel my desire to photograph nature on my doorstep; to add treasures to my special memory box!

Every evening he would leave the way that he had come; his bobbity tail and long, lanky legs leisurely hopping out of sight. ‘My Hartley Hare’ was the start of all that was still to come and all that i could only guess and hope may be. I wonder if you have a magical first wildlife encounter, like me.

A Flying Start!

It’s New year’s Eve. The whole world (well, maybe not the WHOLE world) will be thinking about what has gone before and what lies ahead for 2015. (I do like the sound of that – 2015. Some years are just not so wholesome, like 2013… and I am not superstitious!) But really, it is just another day passing and for the birds and other creatures, it is just about surviving another day- really living for the moment.

Winter is snapping at their heels. Their tail feathers are literally covered in frost. Their toes freezing to the branches on which they roost. I am a great advocate for feeding the garden birds and inadvertently the other creatures, like voles, mice, hedgehogs that clear up the fallen debris- who then become an inevitable part of the food chain for the weasels, the owls, the foxes… We all play our part.I have watched many chicks fledge and take flight this year. Some have fallen, many have not made it to adulthood- such is life.

Blue Tit with it’s ‘prize’

Flying Leap – Great Tit

Mr Chaffinch

A Goldfinch Arrival

Angel Wings

A Great tit Plunge

I have my own small kingdom here in my garden but I am by no means Queen of all I survey- I am a facilitator, a protector and the flying start that I give to the birds and creatures is one which I cherish, selfishly giving me much pleasure. It is with hope that the images that I capture will ensure that others can have a glimpse into this secret world, thus sharing this delight manifold with the wonders of modern media (FB has it’s uses!) but also with the this new outlet here on WordPress. And so with this last post of 2014 I wish you all well for the coming year!

An Ode to the Robin

Robin in December sunshine in the back garden

An old red wheelbarrow is a good lookout post

It is Christmas and as I sit here after an immense and beautiful day, starting with singing in the choir and playing guitar with the children at mass, when gifts have been given and received, where meals have been devoured and enjoyed and chores are complete, my thoughts are with this special bird. How often is he seen on a traditional British Christmas card where snow is usually part of the scene! Much to my daughter’s sadness, snow is seldom seen here at Christmas (we could recall two occasions in the last 12 years ) so we have to make do with what we have.
This feisty friend, who tells me off when he has not had his daily treats, has another robin rival to fight off from his territory. Tearing around the garden, perching and flicking up that quirky tail, looking right and left on the lookout, he never seems to stop for two seconds, except for when he sings. The dear robin redbreast is the very first in the morning light to pour out his ‘heartsong’ and the very last to stop before roosting. So many times has his sweet plaintive song filled my soul on those cold early morning school runs.

Robbie surveys his land

The robin is red in attitude and in soulfulness. They are many a gardener’s best friend. The spade that digs him a few worms, makes an excellent perch. But really he is not fussy…as long as he is in charge! So amidst brambles, perched in the hedge, or on the roof top, that splash of colour fills my heart too, every time I spy him. Each day is Christmas Day for him as it is the same as the last- a bid to survive, to be the most important in his garden, and for me, watching and listening to him every day is the best gift I can have, snow or no snow!

Any worms for me dinner?

Amidst the Brambles

Wonderful Weasel

Weasel Selfie!

Whilst standing watching the birds in the apple tree from an open window in the sitting room, who should appear but this little fella! I have had one close encounter before whilst walking my dogs – alas I had the macro lens on my camera- but this time I was in luck. Walter Weasel, as he shall furthermore be known, appeared from around the base of my apple tree. He looked right at me, I clicked. Walter was not to be deterred!

Weasels are no more than 20cm in length and are the smallest carnivores in England…they have the pointiest of noses, to sniff out their prey- which is exactly what Walter here was up to…

Walter Weasel perched on the apple tree base

When he disappeared momentarily into the strawberry plants, I thought I had seen the last of him… but another exciting glimpse showed me the nose sniffing in the air…

Sniff! Sniff!

I spy a vole!

What had he sensed? I know that weasels have to eat a lot of small mammals to survive- had he smelt out the family that live beneath the apple tree? My terriers are always interestedly sniffing about at the base of this old ivy-clad tree so it didn’t surprise me when minutes later I saw my little friend.Notch, the bank vole is one of many that live in various homes around the garden- around the old shed, around the pond, around the new shed and also around this apple tree.  Notch lived to see another day though, as Walter Weasel left him scampering around, after he had ‘weaseled’ off out of the garden. I had a magical 5 minutes to fill my emptying nature bottle as winter sets in. My old apple tree is one busy place! Here is a close up from another day when I watched the antics of the bank voles that live in my front garden:-

Notch in the garden

Frosty Beginnings

Sometimes it is a challenge to take my dogs out on their regular walk. I can full-heartedly blame inclemency in our British weather! December takes it’s fair share of dull grey skies from November and occasionally greets me with welcome blue frosty beginnings. The wind can be bitter and the layers in which I wrap myself become more cumbersome, along with wellington boots to slosh through mud, bog and water. This particularly morning Jack Frost has been, so I rise gamely to the challenge, taking my camera along with my two border terriers, who needless to say, are always game! Tiggy is always looking out for a rabbit to chase, or a pheasant to put up, whilst Rosie, my dear deaf little terrier, is never far away, especially when I stop to take macro!  She did make me chuckle skidding on the icy puddles after she walked on ‘water’!

Rosie walks on water!

Pheasant in flight

Oh come on- less photos! Let’s Go!

The last Oak leaf – do you see the peeping buds!

Cob husk

Rosie’s paw with muntjac hoof marks!

Frost makes delightful, though ephemeral, still-life

The brief splashes of colour are glimpses of left-over Autumn…an empty hazel cob shell in the hedgerow, or a last dangling oak leaf. The hips and haws are now all eaten sending the birds elsewhere or into my garden, where they are snatching every seed that I send their way with alacrity – the fight for survival has begun. Glimpses of deer hoof prints spatter the ground- mostly muntjac deer and the tell-tale arrows of the common pheasant that have survived the Shoot. The frost that had gathered on the veins of the dying leaves is thawing now as I head home, with happy dogs.

Apple Tree Birds

Just outside my bedroom window there is an old apple tree. Many of the branches are wizened and it has a decidedly unloved look to it. The ivy that has enveloped it’s trunk, is now reaching out into the wintry air. (I am not to blame for this lack of pruning I hasten to add, inheriting the tree two years ago!) This Autumn saw it smothered with apples after achieving only a handful last year. I propped a ladder near to the trunk and gathered a few, but left most for my feathered friends. From there I watched a family of house martins that annually nest in the eaves, their poop landing delicately on my bedroom windowsill.

Billy Blue Tit bounces on a twig!

Robbie Robin on his guard- his rival is just behind!

Jenny Wren glances my way mid-foray

Madame Kestrel patiently awaits her breakfast

When I say unloved – well, looks can be deceiving! The summery months saw it alive with insect life and the birds use it in a number of ways. A blackbird and a wood pigeon nested in the ivy boughs. A wren regularly works her way around looking for spiders and insects. I saw Jenny Wren yesterday after being alerted by her loud alarm calls. There has been so many bird species sighted in the loving arms of this old gnarled apple tree: long tailed tits, blackbirds, chiffchaffs, blue tits, sparrows, chaffinches, goldfinches, a jay, pigeons, great tits, collar doves, greenfinches and coal tits, to name just a few. Their delightful antics amuse me (and the kestrel who watches from the telegraph wire) on a sunny morning, even in a wintry December when the days are short and their activity is more frenetic. The feisty robin rivals whirl around it in a never ending bid for supremacy! (The voles and the stoat are another story!)

Barn Owls in the Saints

Barn Owls in the Saints

The St James Barn Owl is one of the beautiful barn owls that I have the pleasure of seeing regularly as it roosts nearby, in a meadow that is found just over the street near to where I live. When I am walking the dogs I often see him and affectionately (and not so originally) refer to him as Barnie. (In fact I do not know if he is a she but having looked up the differences came to the conclusion that I would need to be taught by an expert!) Imagine my delight after innumerable months of watching and waiting, the right time and the right place fell together to enable me to capture a flight photo. My border terriers, Tiggy & Rosie, were obediently by my feet and we watched together as he swooped over the fields, turned and headed for us, before alighting into a tree about 20 metres away.

The beautiful sweep of those wings as Barnie flies past us.

Barnie looks at us as we watch him fly over the meadows.

Praying for Prey – in the graveyard at St James

I have seen the Barn Owl in All Saints hunting regularly over the large common land that they have there and was delighted this Summer to witness a love tryst between two above the trees as I drove slowly past back home.
Just this morning we saw the St Peter’s Barn Owl on the way to the bus stop in Bungay to catch the 07.43 Norwich bus to school. My daughter spotted him flying alongside the hedgerow towards the Brewery – a delightful sighting on a frosty December morning.

Throughout 2011 we were able to see the Holy Cross Barn Owl down beside the stream that runs past the church and it is this Barn Owl that I have to thank for my love of these delightful screechers!