Unentailed

A blowsy, blustery day with the sort of brisk northwest wind that billows round you and leaps out at you from gaps in the gorse to leave you breathlessly exhilarated. We walked along Maughold Head to have a look for Puffins, but no sign of any today - just Fulmars whirling along the cliff edge in effortless loops, Tysties trilling on the water below and a big bull Grey Seal porpoising through the chop towards Ramsey.

We followed the coast path to the Cormorant colony, where paired and single birds sat darkly ungainly on the bright green turf. They look rather uninterestingly black from a distance in the cloud-shadow, though white patches at thigh and chin catch the eye, but creep closer to them and as soon as the sun strikes through you are faced with a surprisingly attractive bird.

Despite their antics, with the sun in, Cormorants are - well, frankly, a little dull-looking...

The black feathers prove glossy with hints of purple and green as the light catches them from different angles, white feathers grizzle the black on the back of their heads and their wings are a coppery bronze, each feather edged neatly with black. Closer still you can appreciate the ice-cold jade eyes, which regard you with wariness, a mild concern at your approach.

...but with the sun on them it's a different story.

Lie down in the bracken debris and watch, and their stretched necks relax back into a curve, the tufty crest on their nape settles down a little and they return to the important business of preening, pair-bonding and rearranging any nest material which has been brought in. No eggs yet this year - late, but not surprising in view of the cold late spring - but birds were flying in now and then, trailing vegetation in their bills, so the breeding season's getting well under way at last.

We strolled back to the car with the wind at our backs, pushing past the clumps of coconut-scented gorse, with Choughs bouncing through the air above us, filling the sky with wheezy 'ciao's. It's nice to be back on the Isle of Man!

Moss rolls down ivy stems and across the drystone walls on Maughold Head.

North Barrule from Maughold Head

Looking south along the east coast of the Isle of Man.

East Anglia again

Here we are in EA once again, doing the visiting-and-sightseeing thing. Not the most auspicious start to the trip, as we'd got no more than 10 minutes down the road when S was copiously sick in the back seat: a cascade of porridge and raspberries descending across the car-seat, her (of course) fresh clean clothes and everything in between. Poor girl looked pretty shell-shocked after that, unsurprisingly, but soon fell asleep for the next stage of the journey, whilst we negotiated the rain, spray and wind past Bristol and along the M4. By the time we'd passed Swindon the weather was sufficiently dry and bright for the odd Red Kite to be out and about, easing their way through the gusts and the swirling mix of Rooks which rose to mob them with an elegant aplomb.

Our first port of call was Saffron Waldon, where we dropped in on friends who have recently had a baby and are coming to terms with the sleepless phase. Few opportunities for any serious out-and-abouting, added to which the weather was foul - blasting easterly wind and temperature around zero, even before wind-chill is taken into account. In fact, all we really noted was that the Rooks were undaunted by the weather and have begun sitting on their nests. And that Saffron Waldon is actually quite a pretty town...

We moved on to Norwich, where we descended on another couple of friends. No improvement in the weather, but nothing ventured & so on, so we headed out to Holkham to see what we could see on Sunday. The wind was so cold and so strong that S kept her head down the entire time we were out, sleep or wake, snuggled as far inside my coats as possible. Puddles and damp hollows in the pastures were rimed with ice created by the wind-chill. Birds were scattered sparsely around the site - a pair of Wigeon here and there on the pastures, a scatter of Lapwings disconsolate amongst the tussocks. In the occasional shelter of the pines, the sun was warm and spring-like, but move back into the wind and all such thoughts were put aside. We rounded the eastern end of the pines near Wells and turned west along the beach. The sand moved past us at a rate of knots, making a dun knee-high mist which obscured the ankles and shins of walkers and indeed almost totally obscured some of their dogs. The few birds on the beach were hunkered down tight against the surface, all to the seaward side of the blasting sand - a handful of Herring and Great Black-backed Gulls, a few Sanderling, a couple of Dunlin, Knot, Bar-tailed Godwit and a solitary Redshank. By the time we returned to the car we were breathless with the cold, ears ringing to the sound of pounding surf, howling wind and whispering sand. The only one who seemed entirely at ease was S, who'd woken not long before...

Holkham beach. We just don't have that extent of sand in Devon.

It was windy. Very windy. Jake (the dog) must have been grateful to have a tail to keep the wind out.

It was windy. Very windy... All day.

The afternoon's visit to Titchwell, just a little further west along the coast, was - if anything - even more windy. So much so that we took a quick walk along to the sea and back without stopping for much at all - a hunting Barn Owl in the lee of the woods, a pair of Pintail dabbling languidly in the shelter of a saltmarsh island, a female Red-crested Pochard (where did she come from, I wonder?)... and a vast flock of gulls (mainly Common) sheltering on the pools away from the sea. We soon headed back to the car and hit the road for Norwich.

On, then, early in the morning, to the wild and woolly hinterlands of Suffolk for a few days with Na's aunt and uncle. The weather finally began to perk up, S began to perk up as well, and Na came down with her tummy upset: timing! We managed to relax a little though, spending some time stacking wood and digging over the veg beds for the spring, unearthing vast quantities of bindweed root and taking the opportunity to wander round Minsmere and Walberswick. The wind abated a smidgen, but only a smidgen, and we were rewarded with a fine Short-eared Owl hunting the coastal marshes at Walberswick and another Barn Owl on the heaths, and a handful of Smew, an adult Little Gull and a trio of Whooper Swans at Minsmere. Hardly the stuff of epic, but nice enough for a  southwest birding family.

A Lapwing eyes us suspiciously from the rabbit-nibbled grassland at Minsmere. Or maybe it's watching the rabbit in the background.

And now here we are with some warmer weather - Swallows, Sand Martins and House Martins are trickling in through the local ponds and it seems as if spring might finally have sprung upon us. Here's to it!

Hazel catkins - and a couple of flowers to go with them.

Male Chaffinch. Not in song in East Anglia when we were there, but now they're hitting their stride here.

Grey skies

Somewhat like the plants in our garden, words burst into tentative life on the blog - apologies for the protracted silence! Just a short selection of things going on and observations to start with...

It seems as if we've had a permanent veil over the sky since October. We haven't, because our solar panels have been registering a regular spike in output every week or so (!), but it does feel like an eternally grey winter. Nevertheless, there are some signs that spring's on the way. The plants in both woods and garden have pushed out some perhaps optimistic shoots: Elder, Pignut and Perennial Dog's-mercury in the woods, Snowdrop, crocus, daffodils and Rhubarb in the garden. The latter  in particular seems to have been stalled by the past week's dip in temperature, so the ruby-red stalks and crinkly green leaves are still only half-way extended. We'll have a while to wait until we can have rhubarb crumble again!

The birds are hinting - and more than hinting - at a change in season too. Blackbirds have been tuning up for a few days now, with Robins, Dunnocks and both Song and Mistle Thrush going at it hammer and tongs in the morning. Cycling to Yarner recently added Chaffinch, Nuthatch and Green Woodpecker to the years' new songsters as well, so perhaps there will be blue skies again sometime soon. A pair of Blue Tits have been busily investigating the nestboxes we've provided on the extension (meant for sparrows, but we don't mind who uses them really), so hopefully we'll have a successful nest this year.

We were privileged last weekend to have a small flock of Waxwings at the end of the garden. A fabulous bird to have on the garden list when you live this far southwest. They spent a lot of their time sat in the oaks just across from our kitchen, making sallies into someone's back garden where they'd found a supply of red berries of some description; they would drop down, spend a few minutes stocking up and then sail back to the top of an oak, often with berry in bill, to sit and digest for a few minutes. They also spent some time picking at the buds at the top of the trees, though it was impossible to see what was of interest - any fragments were too small to be identified even through the telescope, so whether insects (most likely) or sap, or leafbud, will remain a mystery.

I'm also slightly intrigued that they seem to show so little interest in mistletoe when they're here in Britain. In Austria, where there is admittedly a far higher density of mistletoe than around here, I've seen flocks of Waxwings up to several hundred strong busily engaged in stripping mistletoe (causing apoplectic fury in the Mistle Thrushes), yet they seem wedded to red berries here - or apples.

Roll on summertime...!

Bohemian Waxwings. Slightly fuzzy due to being photographed through the 'scope at 1/30th of a second and on high ISO. Told you it was dark & grey...

Octoberlings

I'm taking time out to be a full-time father (as if there was any other way to be a father anyway!) - my wife has returned to work, so we've taken advantage of the opportunity for me to take the last three months of her maternity leave - in effect unpaid leave to look after our daughter. It's fun! Rhythms are pretty baby-tuned now, so there are brief bursts of activity whilst she sleeps, punctuated by bursts of feeding and playing - but best of all we've been able to take the opportunity to go out and walk together most days.

Today was a kind of soft-focus day. We visited Yarner Woods NNR for a midday walk. It's mild muggy weather at the moment (a Saharan air-stream appears to be to blame) and the cloud base was around 180m, so we spent the entire walk in or just below the cloud, but at this time of year there's something very right about it: the leaves are turning, the spider-webs and grasses are pearled with water and everything seems rather hushed. As we walked round the woods, the only loud noises were a handful of Jays rasping their disgust at our intrusion; otherwise there was little to be heard apart from the random drip of water falling from saturated leaves and branches above us, and the sibilant calls of Goldcrests searching for insects.

As we walked down one track, there was a flurry of excitement: Blackbirds and Robins hopping off the track, then a burr of wings in a dozen different directions as a small flock of Redwings emerged from beneath the Bilberries where they had been fossicking in the fallen oak leaves. Semi-whispered 'tseet' calls between them - and then they were gone, deep into the tangle of branches and leaves in the valley below us. A Brambling flew over, only its wheezy call betraying its presence, and then we were down at the hides, where a constant stream of Coal Tits arrived and departed, rooting for overlooked seeds below the feeders, occasioning great interest from Sabina, who seemed fascinated by the abrupt appearance and equally rapid disappearance of each bird from our limited field of vision. Nothing remarkable, nothing surprising, but comfortingly appropriate for the time of year.

Dune Gentians

Back at the beginning of the month I went out to measure the water tables at Braunton Burrows - something I usually do monthly to help maintain a long-running measure of the site's hydrological status. And out on one of the dune slacks, there was a plant in flower which I've been hoping to see there for quite some time: Dune Gentian - Gentianella uliginosa. OK, it's not exactly the most conspicuous of plants: these were only about 10cm tall at best, and it's not the most thrillingly obvious of plants: in fact it looks rather similar to its close cousin the Autumn Gentian (or Felwort) Gentinella amarella, but this is the only site in England where they grow. There are a couple of dune systems in Wales where the species is more abundant, and this may be the source of this population - much like the late lamented population of Fen Orchid Liparis loeselli - but there seems to be nowhere else in England (and perhaps the UK) where you can see this plant.

This is Autumn Gentian - a relatively large and robust species with numerous flowers and unmerous pairs of leaves above the basal rosette. The calyx is also clearly pressed tight up to the corolla, with just the tips of the teeth diverging.

This is the one. Smaller than amarella, with fewer flowers, fewer pairs of leaves and with calyx teeth unequal and coming away from the corolla.

Many grateful thanks to Dr Tim Rich at the Museum of Wales for confirming my identification too.

Simple things...

It's been pretty poor for most things in Britain this year, with perhaps the honourable exceptions of molluscs and bryophytes. Not a lot of consolation though. We went out for a walk today; a round route at Mansands, near Brixham. We left home in steady rain, sufficient to ensure that today's batch of nappies would 'dry' in two batches - one lot indoors and one lot under the scaffolding - and with a cloud-base low enough to obscure the tops of the hills surrounding Bovey. By the time we got to Mansands the rain had reduced to drizzle, and the cloud-base was down on our heads - the only brightness coming from the lemon and gold spires of Toadflax in the hedges. Encouragingly, shafts of sunlight soon gleamed through the fog on our way down the track, which is treacherously slippery in the wet. We started to see some immediate responses from the wildlife: hoverflies appeared at the powder-puff heads of Hemp-agrimony in the hedge, clouds of tiny midges emerged to jostle for position over our heads and a couple of bedraggled-looking Gatekeeper butterflies burst from the sodden vegetation like tiny erratic gingersnaps batting through the air.

Hoverfly on Hemp-agrimony.

By the time we got down to the hide overlooking the wetland, the fog was beginning to burn off, in fact sufficient to see a handful of Mallards upending, a couple of young Coot and Moorhens doing their best to con their parents into feeding them - and several sleek blue-and-green Emperor dragonflies patrolling the water. The wetland is a Hendrix-like haze of Purple Loosestrife at this time of year, though it's not particularly photogenic in the swirling fog! We carried on to the coast-path, turning south towards Scabbacombe, trudging up a steep incline in what was raidly turning into tropical conditions: humidity rapidly closing in on 100%, temperature somewhere in the mid-20s and whether carrying baby or rucksack, the body's response was an immediate muck-sweat...

We soon gained the plateau and paused for breath amidst swirls of cloud and flashes of sunshine, the excited peeps and trills of a pair of Oystercatchers echoing up the cliffs from the rocky beach below. More butterflies joined us: Meadow Browns, subtle brown-and-orange, Green-veined Whites like scraps of paper fluttering across the grassland and a single Common Blue, mimicking the blue of the sea. The sea was beginning to emerge from the murk: tatters and shreds of fog blowing up past us anc coalescing around the higher ground, leaving a flat-calm, azure blue sea behind. In the distance a long grey bank of fog obscured the view north and east towards Dorset, whilst Berry Head and Scabbacombe Head floated in and out of view as the fog drifted, all accompanied by the mournful wail of the foghorn on Berry Head.

Scabbacombe Head emerging through shreds of fog

One sheep looking startled, the rest of them looking for food.

We strolled on steadily towards Scabbacombe beach, where we stopped to eat, relax, paddle and admire a small flock of Manx Shearwaters heading south, just inside the fog-line - which by this time was rolling back towards the land. Eventually, however, it was time to tackle the hill to Scabbacombe Head. We crossed the stream - hedged with Purple Loosestrife and Hemp-agrimony, resounding with hoverflies and bees - and slogged our way up to the top of the hill. Turning inland we began to leave the fog behind, but before we'd left it's grasp, we were startled to see a small wader on the gravel track in front of us. Despite all hopes to the contrary it proved to be a juvenile Dunlin, but was one of those birds which is remarkably confiding: it pottered along in front of us, then turned back and tentatively approached almost to touching distance. Eventually, after a lot of to-ing and fro-ing, it decided we were alarming enough to warrant flight and promptly flipped over the hedge to the neighbouring field. Presumably on its way south towards West Africa and bamboozled by the conditions into landing for a while in an apparently unsuitable area - lets hope it makes the journey successfully.

Lost and perhaps a little confused: Dunlin

For no particular reason other than I quite like the image - and it's a tough life being a limpet.

And again, for no particular reason except that it's a new species for the garden: Oak Bush-cricket.

Inselaffe mode again

A thought struck us: let's get away from the English 'lack-of-summer' and spend a week in Germany, where the sun will shine, birds will sing and the inlaws will look after Sabina occasionally whilst we relax a little. Well, we kind of got it right...

The journey over was quiet - we occasionally had to check that Sabina was still in the back of the car, she was so quiet - and we drew up at French border control in Dover with plenty of time to spare before our ferry. We were waved through without even a cursory glance at our passports (!), spiralled around the port and got to check-in, where the lady behind the counter knew who we were even before we'd rolled to a halt. A ticket for an earlier ferry was issued and we were through to the queue almost before we knew it. Amazingly slick!

The ferry proved to be a deeply absorbing place for Sabina, who spent most of the journey flirting with other passengers. We left Dover with two colour-ringed Herring Gulls on board, but unfortunately never had chance to see whether they continued with the vessel or returned to the port - I can't help thinking there must be a few international movements across with the ferries though. And predictably enough, as we reached France, it started raining...

So we rolled off the ferry at Calais under the overcast and headed briskly off through northern France (flat), Belgium (flat) and finally western Germany (nearly as flat), arriving in lovely - and sunny! - Leverkusen just about ready for a snooze. Our post-drive wind-down was serenaded by a male Black Redstart on the neighbours' roof: a sure sign that we're not in England any more. Nice.

Garden birds in Leverkusen.

Day one in Germany and we're woken with a mildly damp start. A walk around the Biesenbach seemed the perfect way to stretch legs tired out from constant slouching in the car. Sabina into sling and off we tromp. Black Redstarts feeding young, tails quivering rufous, are everywhere around the horse-paddocks just beyond the houses. A Lesser Spotted Woodpecker calls from an orchard tree. Better still, a Firecrest pipes up from the conifers by the path. Starlings buzz through between grass and holes in trees, trailing fat grubs for chicks rasping their hunger to the air. Swallows and House Martins skim the trees and grasses. All in all a pleasant start. Once away from the fields and gardens and walking through the Naturschutzgebiet along the stream, we're into proper wet woodland with swampy fens growing into Alder carr. If it was warmer we'd be looking out for dragonflies. As it is, we're not. Blackcaps seem to be everywhere. Under the trees the path is lined with Wood-sedge, Remote Sedge, Wood Melick and strawberries, whilst the Beech canopy casts a cool and luminescent green light over everything.

Nature red in mandible and palp

The afternoon passes with a blur of relatives, whilst the bird feeders in the garden are bedecked with young Great and Blue Tits, Greenfinches and Bullfinches - and the odd Ring-necked Parakeet. After their departure we head out for another wander in afternoon sunshine, where we encounter some of the local Yellowhammers and a flyby Hawfinch.

Our second day began in slightly damp fashion again, so we set off on a longer and more complicated walk - starting by heading upstream along the Biesenbach. As we walk up the valley, we're slightly surprised to see a house with a substantial pond and extensive lawn, upon which graze a pair of colour-marked Mute Swans. A large duck-house-type building on the edge of the water has a Grey Heron on top, and another heron sits on top of the main house, where a walkway leads up from ground to roof. We wonder vaguely whether these are pets rehabilitating birds, or coincidental. On the roadside there's a family of Egyptian Geese, mother grazing and guarding eight semi-featherd goslings, whilst father sits on top of a building and watches for trouble.

Further along the valley the sun finally deigns to come out as Naomi feeds Sabina. We follow this meal up with a scramble up a steep bank, then a trudge through thigh-deep wet grass (mmm!) around a field-edge to a track, then across the road and down another field margin - to be met by neck-deep nettles! After that the walk back through the woods and across the plateau of the Schoene Aussicht is a breeze... Highlights of the day: a Red Kite drifting overhead, more Yellowhammers and a corking male Serin who flies over, then circles back to land on the fence just in front of us. Sometimes it's just worth it. The weather staying nice persuaded Na to head to the local swimming lake for the afternoon, where she and Michael swam whilst I strolled around with Sabina and admired the wildlife.

Some Leverkusen countryside. Next to the dynamite factory.

Garden birds in Leverkusen. Hey, this is just like home.

Wednesday, our third full day, dawned downright English: cold and dismal. We thought this would be a good point to stretch our wings a little and visit the Ohligser Heide, just to the north of Leverkusen, near Solingen. We found our way to the rough area without incident, but then struggled to find the heath before being put right by a kindly passing dog-walker. Calling it a heath seemed excessive to me, given that most of the site was planted with trees, but some heath restoration has occurred - and looks to be paying dividends: lots of heather, some Purple Moor-grass, sedges and Bog-myrtle in a variety of heathland types from dry and sandy through to proper wet. Despite the heathy element, the birds were rather woodland-ish: Pied and Spotted Flycatcher, Wood Warbler, Short-toed Treecreeper and more Firecrests. Crested Tits purred at us from the trees every so often, and we watched an entertaining spat between Great and Lesser Spotted Woodpeckers in the trees above, whilst a Red Squirrel ambled unconcernedly across in front of us.

By Thursday we're in the mood for something a bit different - and joy of joys, so's the weather! We head down to the banks of the Rhine, to Hitdorf am Rhein, where we crossed on the ferry as foot passengers for a walk along the banks to some of the remaining auen. These are the remnant riparian forests which once would have stretched along the banks of a wildly meandering river, but now are confined to small remnants, patched here and there with oxbows and fragmented by pastures and meadows. The auen around Cologne are restricted compared to those I've been used to in Austria, where they form the basis of a National Park, but in many ways they are similar beasts. Tall poplars stand over a dense shrubby understorey of hazel, nettle and (aargh!) Himalayan Balsam and Japanese Knotweed, rides cut through the woodland are the haunt of mosquitoes, butterflies, hoverflies and dragonflies, and the air is full of mingled songs of Blackcap and Blackbird, mixed with the more exotic strains of Icterine Warblers and Golden Orioles. On top of all that the sun shone gloriously warm and for a while, a brief glorious while, I could abandon my coat and my jumper! And on our return to the ferry, whilst Na fed Sabina, there in front of us was a female Eider, meandering along with the local Mallards for the cone-ends that the local ice-cream seller threw them. No rings, no sign of wing-clipping, but an Eider on the Rhine in June??

One of the many barges which make crossing the Rhine such an exciting experience. This one with the endearing name of 'Tossa'. I kid you not.

And here she is: star of the show, in a sense. I'm still a little bemused.

Friday, however, returned us to rain with a vengeance: almost continuous and absolutely tipping it down. Our consolation prize: aving dragged ourselves round the local shopping centre, we found a family of Fieldfares feeding their young on the lawns of the local park... Every turn a new treat.

Our final full day was yet another rainy day. We threw caution to the winds and took ourselves off round Altenberg, in the hope that it would ease off later on (as forecast). Well, it didn't, proving that German weather forecasters are no better than the Met Office (ha!). We strolled around the woods, listening to the trees dripping and admiring the mosses glistening, but saw little of note until almost back to the car, when a male Goshawk hurtled from the trees in front of us, smashed through a small pack of crows - sending them all into hysterics - and disappeared back into the trees as suddenly as he'd emerged. It all happened so fast that we didn't even get to see if he'd made a kill (I blame the amount of rain on the binoculars and the fact that juggling binoculars, an umbrella and a reluctant baby in a sling is nigh-on impossible), but it was an undeniably impressive display of speed and power.

Finally, a bit of German culture: a half-timbered house in the Altenberg area (listed building fanatics, please note: they get to install double glazing in listed buildings, because it's more efficient, safer and people in Germany like to feel warm in winter)