Lockdown Day 12 - Partridges

Today, with the sun shining first thing this morning, has been a day for getting out on the bike and cycling to a supermarket. Permitted exercise and shopping in one go! As I have mentioned, the country lanes around us have little traffic and few people and, even in less restrictive times, are good places to see wildlife.

 Not long after setting off from home I came across two Grey Partridges (Perdix perdix). These are indigenous to the British Isles having migrated over time to these shores since the last Ice Age. They have, however, been suffering large declines in population since the 1950s due to pesticide and insecticide use on farmland and also habitat loss from removal of hedgerows and intensification of farming practices.

They have good camouflage even out in the open like this.

It is unusual for me to find grey partridge out in the open like this, usually I find that I will get a brief view of them before they scuttle away into dense crops or undergrowth.

Here you have both the male (front right) and female (rear left). By this point they had noticed me and shortly afterwards took off with an alarm call into the next field. They don't generally fly far, just enough to get out of immediate danger.

Here is a close up of the male bird.

They are quite distinctive from the introduced red-legged partridge which started being released onto estates in the 1770s.

Both partridges are regular sightings for me around where I live though of course I prefer to see the native species.

Lockdown Day 11 - White Storks in Germany - October 2019

In October 2019, we had a holiday in Muenster and Dortmund in Germany. Whilst in Muenster we rented some bikes from the hotel we were staying in and headed out of town one day to Rieselfelder Nature Reserve, a few miles north of the city. Muenster is very well suited to cycling, with cycle paths everywhere and it is estimated that 35-40% of trips made each year locally are by bicycle. Bikes are everywhere!

We had just stopped to look at a map of the reserve next to a cafe when a huge bird glided past us into a nearby field! It was one of those moments where you can't really believe your eyes as it was the end of October and I thought that white storks would have migrated south by then! However, in the next field were about a dozen white storks together with half a dozen great white egrets.

Here are two of the storks working their way up the field looking for worms and amphibians and lizards.


The nature reserve is extensive with multiple lakes and reedbeds and other habitat. We cycled round the perimeter and also saw a White Fronted Goose and Middle Spotted Woodpecker. However, we spent a good half an hour looking at the storks and afterwards went in a cafe where in Spring they nest on the roof. Incidentally, whilst in Strasbourg in early March 2020, our eldest daughter was watching white storks build and maintain nests on the rooftops and trees in the city, that region is very densely populated with them after a long running conservation programme which started in the 1970s.

More information on the Rieselfelder Nature Reserve (in German) can be found here
http://www.biostation-muenster.org/

Lockdown Day 10 - Wine Making!

If you have seen some of my blog or Twitter posts over the past few years you may have seen that I home brew my own parsnip and blackberry wine. At this time of year, any remaining parsnips in the allotment are all woody, have started sprouting again and as such are unfit to use as vegetables in meals. However, they can still be used for wine making!

I have already gone into some detail on the process involved and this is described in the blog posts here

http://cashandcarrots.blogspot.co.uk/2013/01/parsnips.html
http://www.cashandcarrots.com/2013/03/parsnip-wine-making-part-2.html
http://www.cashandcarrots.com/2013/06/wine-tasting-and-bottling.html

 Here are some photos from today.

There were 2kg of washed, peeled and chopped parsnips, 1kg of sultanas, 4.5 litres of water and 1.25kg of sugar.

The mixture was brought to the boil for a few minutes then put into the large tub in the second photo to cool down, and given a bit of a mash to extract more juice from the sultanas.

It is not a good idea to overcook the parsnips as you don't want lots of mush in the mixture, it is the juice and sugars you are after.

Now, I am waiting for it to cool down before adding the Campden tablet to deal with any wild yeasts that may impair the wine, and after 24 hours I will be then adding the wine making yeast and putting in a warm place to ferment for a few days before siphoning off to put in demijohns for further fermentation.

I find it best to leave for 9-12 months at least after bottling, it does sweeten and mellow with age, although is drinkable after 6 months.

Lockdown Day 9 - remembering the bison

Many people who know me in person know that I am very interested in all things Russian and speak a little of the language. In April 2014, we were very fortunate to be able to stay with a Russian family on the outskirts of Moscow for ten days. During that time we visited many of the well known sights in the city, Red Square, the Kremlin, Lenin's Tomb, St. Basil's and so on, but also some slightly less well known ones such as VKNDH (All Russia Exhibition Centre) and Christ the Saviour Cathedral. We also spent half a day on the Metro system looking at all the amazing underground stations.

However, one day we went outside the city, about two hours drive south east to a European Bison conservation project in the Prioksko-Terrasny nature reserve. There we were given a guided tour by one of the scientists working there (I think she was the daughter or maybe grand-daughter of the founder of the reserve) and went to see the breeding programme to help re-introduce the European Bison to the wild. By 1927 there were no wild European Bison and the only remaining animals were in zoos and collections. The breeding programme has now resulted in around 3000 wild bison, in Poland - Bialowieza Forest area,Ukraine, Russia and Belarus.

The bison are bred in a fenced off, but otherwise natural habitat and then when old enough introduced into the wild proper.

There are still threats - the destruction of the Bialowieza Forest continues despite mounting international pressure and deforestation in Russia continues also.

While we were there we also saw Middle-Spotted and Black Woodpeckers and a Goshawk and heard a Nutcracker.



More information about the reserve can be found here https://pt-zapovednik.org/pitomnik/

Lockdown Day 8 - cycle ride

Although quite grey and not very warm, I decided today to cycle into the countryside near where we live. As I understand it we're allowed to exercise locally as long as you social distance with anyone you meet, so off I went on some little used country lanes to see what wildlife was about.

Quite a few farmers were busy sowing seed and spraying early crops and I did meet (but across the road from!) a few people out walking and cycling. But most of the time I was alone and with a lot less ambient noise from traffic, it was lovely to just hear birdsong.

More chiffchaffs (Phylloscopus collybita) heard and seen today, five I think in total. They are, even at this time of year with little growth on the trees, still very difficult to see and tend to sing from high branches and only seen when they move elsewhere.

A hamlet I go through regularly (and there's very few people about even in normal times!) is Catterton, and since my last visit a field on the edge of the village has been split up for smallholding with an area for chickens and another area for a very interested and smiley goat!

Goats seem to be in the news today after a herd has decided to take over Llandudno in Wales!

Goats will eat anything they can!

This isn't a very good photo of a brown hare, but in general I have found them skittish and only seen at a distance. I did see two chasing each other round a field earlier in the ride. I've only ever once seen two hares "boxing", and this is why they do it

https://www.woodlandtrust.org.uk/blog/2019/03/why-do-hares-box/

Chaffinches (Fringilla coelebs) are ubiquitous in the hedgerows in the areas I ride in. They either live in noisy groups or a male will sit on a wire or hedge shrieking for ages. They are often very inquisitive and quite tame at picnic benches. On one holiday in Glen Nevis we had chaffinches tapping on the window of the holiday cottage every morning wanting food!

Also common around here are Yellowhammers (Emberiza citrinella) although I've not noticed any of them singing their notes to "a-little-bit-of-bread-and-no-cheese" yet


Askham Richard is a pretty village with a duckpond. The ducks are very inbred and cross bred with feral ducks now and look a little mixed up. Today was the first time I have seen Canada Geese on here. Almost all the Canada Geese seen in the UK are descendants of introduced ones a century or two back, very occasionally a truly wild one from Canada will fly in with winter geese flocks.

Also seen on my ride was a Reed Bunting, and Linnets and Skylarks, the latter are singing away in the sky and very hard to spot once they are up there!

Lockdown Day 7 - Baby Woodpigeon from last year

So, a week now since we were put on lockdown and I still have a long list of things I would like to do! Which is a good sign - I think! It has been a bit cold for outdoor work these past couple of days and so, apart from watering the seedlings in the small lean-to greenhouse we have on the front of the house and popping to the supermarket (which seems to have more stock in now), I haven't been out.

So, today's post is a flashback to last year when we had a pair of Woodpigeons nest in our hawthorn tree at the front of the house. Woodpigeons can be a pest, especially for farmers but in an urban area they do little harm. It is of course illegal to disturb an occupied nest anyway.

OK, hands up who has actually seen a baby pigeon? When they fledge they are almost indistinguishable from adult pigeons apart from being a little smaller.

So, being able to observe this nest from a safe distance to avoid disturbance was actually quite interesting and the first time I had in fact seen a baby pigeon!

There were, we think, two youngsters in the nest but with the dense foliage it was often difficult to see the nest properly and see both youngsters at once.

One of the adults has been back this year but despite some animated head bobbing and coo-ing, doesn't seem to have been successful in attracting a mate this year.

Lockdown Day 6 - Rest day, moths and butterflies

It has been rather cold out there today, in fact there was a very brief snow shower this morning, obviously the weather hasn't got the message about it changing to British Summer Time! (or has it?!!)
So, today has been a rest day inside. Plans for next week include putting some more onion sets in, starting some sprouting broccoli and probably more peas if we have the space. I have planted mroe gherkin seeds as only one of the previous batch germinated.

Whilst I am generally interested in most things in the natural world, the particular interests I have include birds, moths, spiders and bees. In the garden and allotment we get some rather interesting moths from time to time.

This one is a Buff Ermine (Spilosoma lutea)
moth, the "ermine" being self evident in the shaggy bit around the head! This one turned up on the door lintel one morning.

The go-to website I use to help identification is
https://ukmoths.org.uk

though I have a couple of guide books in the house to help too.

One of these, the Concise Guide to Moths of Great Britain and Northern Ireland features the drawings of an amazing wildlife artist called Richard Lewington who has illustrated a number of field guides.

A link to this book can be found at the foot of this blog post.

We have had a range of butterflies in the garden and allotment, including painted lady butterflies, which have a multi-generational migration strategy from Africa, last year was a very good year for them. We get the Common Blue, Comma, Gatekeeper and Meadow Brown ones too along with the Tortoiseshell, Red Admiral and Peacock, Orange Tip and white ones.

I'd love a hawk moth in the garden but we've only ever had a hawk moth caterpillar and that was many years ago.

A few miles from our house is the nature reserve at Askham Bog and just opposite the entrance to the reserve, in a small island of nature between the road into York and the A64 is home to a colony of Six Spot Burnet moths (Zygaena filipendulae). They are in my opinion one of the most distinctive of the smaller moths and this photo was taken in June 2016 when dozens were on the wild flowers in this rather unlikely habitat!