The Alternative Bird Garden

the stand off
Originally uploaded by wherethewolvesare.

We went to Lotherton Hall & Bird Gardens at the weekend, between the downpours. Whatever your opinions on captive animals, I feel that animal collections serve at least two good purposes. Firstly, all of the ones I’ve been to are involved in captive breeding programs for some of the world’s rarest animals, usually rare because of human activity. Secondly, it’s very hard to care for something that you’ve never experienced, so these places allow people, especially the young, to see animals close to. Some collections do it well, others less so. Lotherton doesn’t do it badly at all, with breeding programs, an education centre, frequent enclosure improvements and it’s free to get in.

After all that, we didn’t go to the bird garden today, we visited the adjoining deer park and went around the formal gardens. The red deer are well into their rutting season, with four impressively armoured males laying claim to a small territory, each one apparently centred on one of the equally impressive oak trees that abound in the deer park. With the sound of bellowing stags and a hint of mist in the air, we could have been in a highland glen rather than a half hour drive from Leeds city centre (you just had to put the distant cries of the whooping cranes, from the bird garden, out of your mind). You can certainly see why Landseer was so inspired by the stag.

In the formal gardens, the least contrived wildlife spectacle was in full flow – migration. Redwing were streaming over, there must have been four to five hundred, dropping into the trees to feed. This thrush is one of my favourite winter visitors, they arrive from Scandinavia in large numbers. The redwing joined good numbers of titmice, starlings and a single siskin. In the surrounding fields, there were an equally good number of fieldfare – another Scandinavian migrant thrush. All were feeding like their lives depended on it, which they probably do. So maybe we did go to the bird garden after all.

Who's laughing now?

BH gull
Originally uploaded by wherethewolvesare.

Twitching is like eating chips, I know its wrong but I still like it once in a while. Twitching is chasing after rare birds that someone else has found, it's more of a lazy sport than anything to do with nature so I try to limit my twitching to local rarities. This has lead to me spending lots of the last week trying to see a Laughing gull that's been hanging around the Pontefract and Featherstone area. Well, the bird's laughing - at me, and I should think any north american readers are laughing - because it's probably very common over there.

I finally caught up with the gull yesterday evening, got the adrenaline rush, watched it for half an hour then went home for tea. I was very happy.

The other upside to this tale is that I've basically spent a week watching flocks of common and black-headed gulls. I've improved my skills, I know common and black-headed gulls in all variations of winter plumage, and from all angles, in flight and on the ground (not that you'd know it from my sketch, perhaps). I've spent more time than I normally would simply being closer to nature. There are worse ways to spend your time.

The Therapeutic Jungle

my jungle
Originally uploaded by wherethewolvesare.

In the book ‘The Therapeutic Garden’ by Donald Norfolk, the author tells of the many beneficial effects of gardens, gardening and of just being within sight of plant life. This sketch shows some of the plants I keep in my classroom, drawn in biro whilst the class did a test. Kept for no other reason than they're good for the soul and I love ‘em. Its tough love though, I’m afraid. I tell myself that forgetting to water and feed the plants is just a form of natural selection, survival of the fittest, and that as Alan Titchmarsh once pointed out, an underwatered plant can always be saved but an overwatered one is lost. Good job too.

On more natural matters, the trees (outside!) are starting to colour up nicely, with definite tinges of gold and rust beginning to appear. This seems quite early to me, I just hope we don’t get any strong winds for a few weeks so we get to see the colours develop. Maybe the colour coming early will give it a better chance before the autumn winds really get started. It bodes well at present.

Talking about plants and jungles, congrats to Castleford Tigers Rugby League, for roaring back to the Super League, through the play-offs on Sunday. Sorry for the awful pun and the tenuous link (the Tigers play at ‘The Jungle’, although it’s still Wheldon Road to me).

For the record

mistle thrush
Originally uploaded by wherethewolvesare.

As well as this blog, I write a 'Bird of the Month' column for a local magazine, the Rothwell & District Record. A nice magazine, ran by nice folk. Anyway, I also illustrate the column with my own artwork. This is a mock up of next month's probable bird, the mistle thrush. It's a rough attempt, the bill and legs are the wrong colour and the markings on the head are too imprecise. But it's still better than some of my subsequent drawings, better get a move on - 15 days to copy deadline, and counting!

Mistle thrushes have been a peripheral presence ever since I started thinking about them around a fortnight ago. It seems like thinking about them has made them appear. Everywhere I go, a mistle thrush hops across the path, flies overhead or rattles from the depth of a bush. I'm now going to start thinking about fox sparrows on my bird feeders....

A different kind of flyover

study of canada geese
Originally uploaded by wherethewolvesare.

It's official - it is autumn! It's been autumn since Wednesday morning at about a quarter to seven, because that's when the geese flew over for the first time since last spring.

From late September through to early March, a small flock of 30-60 Canada geese fly directly over our house from... er, somewhere to... erm, somewhere else. They usually fly south in the morning and north in the evening, but sometimes it's the other way round and today they flew south both morning and evening?! There's plenty of fields around to feed in, not that I've ever seen them during the day, but I don't know of anywhere in the vicinity that they might roost on dark nights.

To be honest, I don't know where the geese go and I don't care. Just like I don't care they're an introduced species that some folk don't care for, and I don't care it's not Islay or north Norfolk numbers. That's because each time I hear them, I still excitedly rush to the window or door, hoping to catch a glimpse of the geese flying over. My spirit flies with them.