Birch Wood on a cloudy Sunday

I spent some time with Toby reviewing Birch Wood. There about two and a half hours, moving very slowly.

We started at the Ash tree by the path entrance, and up in the canopy there was some dead twiggery and a hung up broken off branch, with the oak tree behind. I am still worried about the pedestrians on this footpath.

There are some large Sweet Chestnuts to the northwest of the pond, variously damaged, possibly by squirrel.

There are some lovely tall "valley Alders" just by the main streamside, with mophead top shapes, but these are intermixed with a lot of tall Ash with a bit of dieback.

I added a moderate sized Oak towards the north as a notable tree but didn't get a good position fix.

I thought there were likely to be some large Birches and Cherries on the northern boundary that might be worth recording, away from the path, beyond the three Birches at the path junction.

There are a few Hornbeams mainly in the north, of various sizes.

As you move south through the mixed woods there is a patch of about half a dozen large tall Beeches.

Just to the south the tall trees change to a mix of Ash, Oak and Sweet Chestnut.

There must be half a dozen large Sweet Chestnut coppice stools on either side of the path by the eastern entrance. These, with the Beeches to the southern gate, are probably the most ancient trees in the remaining wood.

Oare to Uplees

Dunlin, Golden Plover, Redshank, Curlew, Oystercatcher, Grey Herons, Little Egrets, Black-headed Gulls, Herring Gulls, Little Grebes, Shelduck, Shoveller, Teal,

A cold Leybourne

Long-tailed, Blue and Great Tits moving around the shores of The Ocean. Black-headed and Common Gulls, Larus canus.

Greater Spotted Woodpecker at far side of the Ocean at the cross-roads. Still relatively few fungi.

Oare to just beyond Uplees

I disturbed half a dozen small finches from the salt marsh by Uplees Copse, and they ended up in the top of one of the trees in the copse. The one pictured turned out to be a male Linnet, Linaria cannabina.

  
There was a Grey Heron standing on the edge of the muddy shore:

As we walked along, individual Common Redshank, Tringa totanus, were regularly startled from their feeding points along the mud, and here is a nice view of one in flight, showing the barred tail. You can just see part of the white back stripe.

There were lots of Black-headed Gulls, feeding on the mud and flying around. By now the light was so poor that the ISO was preventing much cropping in the photography.

There were some Herring Gulls along the shore, as well as over-flying. This one appears to have a dark tip to its tail, and a blackish gonys spot on its beak, with no brown obvious on its wing, but a good yellow iris to its eye, so just possibly a fourth winter bird.

Lesser Black-backed Gull I think,

Greater Black-backed Gull on the channel marker,

Curlews in flight over The Swale

The first of two female Marsh Harriers flew over The Swale, possibly to roost on Sheppey.

On the far side of The Swale there was a very large raft of Teal and Wigeon apparently resting quietly, probably well over a thousand birds in total. This is a small part of the raft

There were Shelduck scattered around the Swale, sometimes feeding, sometimes flying. Here is one flying in front of the raft of duck in the background

On the way back, we came across a group of about a dozen Black-tailed Godwits, exploring the mud. They are often a bit later getting out on to the estuary than some of the other waders, after roosting at high tide.

Walking back towards the copse, a single Turnstone was very busy, examining a clump of seaweed and stones:

Got a little crustacean, or something else?

Oare to Conyer

At one point I spotted a kestrel returning to its lookout post on the seawall. Sadly I had to disturb it to complete my walk to the mouth of Conyer Creek, and I didn't see it again on my return:

At Oare slipway and beyond Uplees Wood, there were good numbers of Dunlin - and also some Redshank - feeding on the mud.

There were a few individual Curlew,

a few Oystercatchers

and two Great Crested Grebe, one of which looked to still be, at least partly, in juvenile plumage. here the youngster appears to be "checking" with the older bird.

Goosanders at Brickfields Pond, Rhyl

Staying for a day with Nain in North Wales, having returned her home after Christmas, on a rather cold day I was glad to find this new site to me, a well-visited pond on the edge of Rhyl housing and industrial parks. In theory I was looking for a reported Slavonian Grebe, but instead was delighted to find half a dozen or more Goosander, both male and female. Checking on the females has improved my knowledge of these birds no end.

Here is one of the better pictures of a female, showing the clearly demarcated white chin, the long-fringed crest, the sharp edge to the chestnut-red head colouring, the thicker bill at the base, and the less striped face.

The light was fairly poor, so most of the images were washouts, with relatively little detail.

Alder leaf galls at Cae Ddol, Ruthin

Had a good walk up through Cae Ddol to the old bridge, and looked for a few leaf-miners and some galls.

I think this is Eriophyes laevis, one of the fairly common mite species that colonise Alder leaves. Most of these have now turned black, and presumably have gone over. There is an earlier post from Haysden Country Park, showing the chambers at an earlier stage.

This is Aceria nalepai (Eriophyes inangulis) with its chambers along the vein axils along the midrib, and the corresponding areas of unusual hairiness of the axils underneath the leaf. I have seen this at least once before, at Haysden Country Park near Tonbridge.

I might also have seen Taphrina tosquinetii on one Alder leaf.