On arriving at Fox Corner today there was a busyness about the birds and more of a presence than previous times. I had to slow myself down into the mode as I flushed a number of Redwing’s by my rapidity. They were rather nervy today anyway.
The weather was mild and a little overcast. A Nuthatch was calling and there was a melifluous sound of a Mistle Thrush which I could not locate. The sound seemed to fill the whole air and distracted me from anything else. I moved more stealthily towards the sound but was still unable to find the bird making it.
A Mallard quacked, a cock-cock of pheasant sounded. I scrutinized an old oak as it was being worked over by two Nuthatches who were calling and tapping around on the wood. There was no sign of a Treecreeper in this area which I had seen once before. (The area being to the East side of the pond where there is a tall stand, almost avenue of Poplars and Alders). A Goldcrest also caught my eye as it flitted around from branch to branch calling. The same area later had a drumming Great Spotted Woodpecker in the afternoon.
Spring was very much in the air with a distant twittering of a flock of birds very possibly a charm of Goldfinches. A distant call of Yaffle came from over towards the back of the houses which are around the edge of the nature reserve. I later flushed one out of the meadow where I have seen at least one the last few times I have visited the site. Usually two together are in evidence.
I didn’t attempt to sit at my usual place as it was a little damp from the rain and I was happy to stand. The pond is warming up for this time of year as I saw signs of life within it from tiny ripples. I approached and peered into the gloomy mass of water which comes up to the edge of the boardwalk with dead leaves of reed mixed in and saw a couple of diving beetles, not quite large enough to be the Greater variety. When I came later on there was a large plop in a similar area and a shake from the water surface and into the plants growing out of the pond – I suspected a frog but I was unable to see anything.
On my return loop towards the other side of the reserve I was standing observing a finch when there was a mysterious faint click that came from behind me and a sparrowhawk came right out of my left arm pit heading towards the trees opposite me at the same height and landed on a branch, other branches obscuring its head. I clearly saw the colour of the wings and witnessed the speed it went into the trees and after sitting for a short period continued off diagonally upwards towards the South East. It had been spotted by small birds as there were a number of alarm calls but I can’t quite recall whether they occurred after, during or before it appeared; it happened all so fast!
Some fungi caught my eye on this trip as well, which I hadn’t noticed last week. The first two were halfway up a dead tree and looked like insulation foam bursting out of the bark, the same colour and constituency. I then rounded the bend in the stream and saw a hole in a tree which had been cut years before, behind it was a large stem gall and to the right at the front a fungi that must have been quite fresh because it had that look and was still quite rounded but with the blistering appearance of Scaly Polypore or Dryad’s Saddle.