Closer to Home

As I had my little twitch :) with the Lesser Yellowlegs last week I was eager to tell you about it the next day which was when I was originally planning to publish this post. So, after all the excitement of last week, and later than intended, this is one of my more usual posts.

I was reminded a couple of weeks ago that the most magical moments in Nature don't always concern unusual sightings, sometimes the most 'ordinary' creature can deliver something very special.

I was walking close to home when I noticed a Carrion Crow perched on a fence post at the edge of a field. As I approached I expected it to fly away, I started to take photos mainly because I hadn't seen much else of interest during my walk. To my surprise the Crow was completely unperturbed by my presence, as I stood within arm's length of it, clicking away with the camera. For a few moments it seemed that I was totally at one with this bird which seemed to have a certain wisdom in its eyes.



'Crows can recognise individual human faces and hold a grudge for years against people who have treated them badly. This ability – which may also exist in other wild animals – highlights how carefully some animals monitor the humans with whom they share living space.

John Marzluff and colleagues at the University of Washington in Seattle prepared six masks from casts of people's faces, then wore different masks to capture crows in each of four locations. In each case, they found, the crows recognised and scolded whichever mask they had seen when they were captured, and ignored the others.'

(Bob Holmes, New Scientist.)

Unfortunately, all too soon, the spell was broken by the approach of a group of people with dogs and my muddy beaked, new friend flew away.

In a Japanese city, Carrion Crows have discovered how to eat nuts that are too hard to crack. One method is to drop the nuts from a great height on to a road. Some nuts are particularly tough, so the Crow drops it among traffic. To retrieve the nut without getting run over, some birds wait by pedestrian crossings and collect the cracked nuts when the lights turn red! You can see this behaviour here.

~~~

It was lovely to see a butterfly recently, after not seeing any at all for some weeks when the weather inevitably turned from late Summer into Autumn. I suspect that is the last one I will see until next year now.

Red Admiral Butterfly

The hedgerows were laden with fruit waiting to provide a tasty meal for the birds.

Rose Hips

'Autumn! soul-soothing season, thou who spreadest
Thy lavish feast for every living thing,
Around whose leaf-strew'd path, as on thou treadest,
The year its dying odours loves to fling

Their last faint fragrance sweetly scattering.'

(Bernard Barton)

Hawthorn Berries


Blackberries

As I walked around the local reservoir I saw a number of Goldfinches flitting through the trees and hedgerows which line the path. By the time I realised my camera battery had run out of power and replaced it with the spare, most of them had dispersed and I only managed to get a very distant photo of one examining a solitary berry, while another sat below it presenting me with a bottom shot!

Goldfinch

As is usually the case there was nothing of great interest on the reservoir itself. About the only birds I have ever seen on the water there are Mallards, Grey Herons, Cormorants, Mute Swans, occasionally Great Crested Grebes and of course gulls.

Black-headed Gulls

On this occasion, apart from the usual Black-headed Gulls, I did see this one which I think is a Lesser Black-backed Gull, if you think I have problems identifying waders I have even more difficulty with gulls!

Lesser Black-backed Gull

And here with a Cormorant.

Cormorant and Lesser Black-backed Gull

A Grey Heron was patiently watching the water, hoping to spot its supper.

Grey Heron

'Hermit-like, he stands and muses,
Until he seems to be,
Moveless in dream-like silence lone,
Some spectre bird, or sculptured stone,
Or stump of scathed tree.'

(Bernard Barton)

Surprisingly there were no ducks at all on the reservoir, not even the usual Mallards but I did see some through the hedge on the river

Mallards (male, left and female)

and it was nice to see a couple of wildflowers blooming in October.

White Campion


Comfrey

I will finish with this lovely Robin singing its heart out in the way I love to see them most.

Robin

'Bird, are you singing to me ?
Singing of wood and of dell ?
Of the flowers I used to take,
Of the nut-trees I would shake,
Of the fishing on the lake.'

(Menella Bute Smedley, Fanny Wheeler Hart)

Have a good weekend and ... enjoy the beauty of Nature, wherever you are.