Tag: fauna
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For a week so Roseberry summit has been home to a handful of Snowflakes or Snow buntings
A dreich day, “Roseberrye Toppinge weares a cappe“, so a photo from yesterday. For a week so Roseberry summit has been home to a handful of Snowflakes or Snow buntings, to use their more common name. Canny little birds which seem to find pleasure in teasing you — flying off a couple of yards or…
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It saw me before I heard it
The curlew, the Eurasian Curlew to be precise, Numenius arquata, the darling of the grouse moor owners. Their relative success in breeding on our moors is the keepers’ justification for the trapping of every predator which has a taste for grouse chicks. It’s their vindication that estates managed for shooting are rich in bio-diversity. An…
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Red deer, Loch Ranza
Went for an evening walk along the shore of Loch Ranza on the Isle of Arran, and, on the way back, in the gathering gloom, this remarkably tame fine beast eyed us up but stood his ground. I wonder if he is a descendant of the twenty red deer that were brought onto the island…
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Great Crested Grebe
A wander around Hardwick Hall Country Park near Sedgefield. This is not my usual habitat so it was quite refreshing to be so close to the birdlife around the lake. By far the most majestic was this Great Crested Grebe (Podiceps cristatus) in its summer plumage. At least I think it is, my bird identification…
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Moorhen and chick
I don’t normally linger at ponds and wetlands. Usually, I’m too anxious to gain height onto the moors and fells. But I did dally a while at the small pond today at the Pinchinthorpe Walkway and was amazed at the amount of life there. This moorhen had two chicks, this one being fed by its…