I was trying to write a weekly report on the wood but then I went on holiday and now I have been back almost a month, so I have got out of the habit, also in December the days are grey and not that much happens. So maybe ‘That was the wood this week’ is a bit over ambitious but that was the wood recently is more realistic.
It has been grey, very grey, there has been quite a lot of rain but not that cold. Most of the trees have lost their leaves and the vast numbers of acorns that earlier, in places virtually covered the ground have now either been eaten or stored away or covered with leaves, so that they are less apparent. However I have noticed that there are still quite a few and that now they have roots growing out of them. Will there be hundreds of little Oaks come Spring time.
The bird life rapidly resumed visiting after my holiday, Halfeye (the buzzard) and her partner were back visiting straight away and the little birds were also soon visiting the feeders. I have not seen any mammals apart from Squirrels and a dog that someone had let off the lead. The problem with the dog was that apart from eating the Buzzards dinner, it also peed in several places. Thus the area would smell strongly of dog for some time, not to us humans but to animals like deer, badgers, foxes and all the species that I am trying to encourage. I did speak with the dogs owner (politely) and pointed this out and asked that they kept their dog out of the wood and when passing by kept it on a lead. She was apologetic and I think she saw my point. Was I being too fussy, maybe?
I did see some Long-tailed Tits recently and a Tree creeper, the Tree Creeper just moves through the area searching in the bark crevices for insects. However the Long-tailed Tits visit the feeders, both the peanuts and the general mixed bird food, but they only stay around for a very short time. Why do they move on? surely food is in short supply and staying for some time would make sense. Of course this might also apply to the other birds like the Blue Tits, Robins and Hedge Sparrows. It seems that they are constantly back and forth but you do not know if each time a Blue tit turns up if it is the same one returning or a new visitor.
I read an article some years back where they put up mist nets in a garden and caught all the little birds and then ringed them so you could tell on from another. What they found was that a particular Blue tit would often visit a particular garden and feeder at the same time every day and that the Blue tit that turned up at say 10.00am was different to the one that visited at 12.00 noon and that they followed a sort of pattern, tracing the same route every day working their way round the neighbourhood.
So Mrs Jones looking out of her kitchen window might have thought she was seeing the same Blue tit back and forth through out the day but really it was different ones at different times.
OK nearly Christmas, I shall visit the wood once more before the 25th and then my next report will be sometime in mid January, unless of course I see a Pine Martin or a Stoat, is that possible please Father Christmas? I have bee a fairly good boy this year, maybe a Badger? I will wait and see.
Ninewells Wood 