Haysden Country Park

A small troop of Bonnets, Mycena, among moss on the bark of a Goat willow in Haysden Country Park just by Barden Lake.

There was a probable hybrid Canada x Greylag Goose, maybe with some Domestic Goose parentage, feeding with the mixed flock by the roosting area near the first bird feeding area.

Clowes Wood, The Blean

Lots of cars in the car park, and people along the paths. Frost-edged leaves and few birds to be seen.

The Grove, Teston

This smallish patch of woodland greatly repays a closer look, as it is a good mix of trees including at least two huge Sweet Chestnuts at the eastern edge.

It is nice to find a few fungi around, and today I was lucky enough to find two species of Stereum, in the group known as Crust Fungi.

The first species is Stereum hirsutum, the Hairy Curtain Crust, which is perhaps one of the commonest observed Basidiomycota in the UK. The highly tiered brackets are quietly colourful and easy to spot on branches and trunks on the forest floor.

The second species is Stereum gausapatum, the Bleeding Oak Crust, although I actually have no idea what branch it was on, on this occasion.

Exotic Gulls at RSPB Dungeness

Well, perhaps not that exotic, but very interesting to finally see these two relatives of Herring Gulls from warmer climates!

This is a Yellow-legged Gull, Larus michahellis, from Southern Europe, the Mediterranean and North Africa, which was on the board as present and visible from the Scott Hide, but I am still glad to say that I did find it without it being pointed out to me, or knowing that it was still there.

Here is a reasonable picture of the bird, but a little blurry due to camera shake - the light had gone down much faster than I imagined, and I lost exposure speed in comparison to the fixed ISO and aperture. I spotted the very white head and yellow legs fairly quickly when I first saw the bird, but there are other features that I think can be picked out, according to the books and websites. The back and mantle are a trifle darker grey than the normal blue grey of the Herring Gull, although this can often be a little misleading, even minute to minute as birds turn from one angle to another, or the light changes.

Looking at the photo, it does look quite a "neat" bird, full-chested, perhaps slightly leaning forward, with a long "fuscus"-like rear end. The legs do look quite long, and the bill looks quite large and parallel-sided. It is certainly quite a bright bill, with an extensive red gonys-spot. The eye is quite small and beady at this distance, which was out in the middle islands on Burrowes Pit.

Cliffe Pools

A rather grey late afternoon at Cliffe,  properly with most birds too far away to photograph. I had a good look at the Great Black-backed Gulls for colour-rings, but had no luck reading the rings of the two (probably) Scandinavian birds - with orange rings on the left tibia - that were there.

Looking at the bills of the GBB Gulls, few seemed entirely adult, and although this one was close, the dark marking on the bill might indicate either a 4th winter or young adult bird.  A Juvenile GBB and juvenile Herring Gull behind and to the right.

This is probably a first winter bird, with a completely black bill, and now a paler head than a juvenile:

This is quite a nice view of what is probably a third winter bird with the tip of the bill turning yellow but the rest remaining black, and what looks like a mix of grey and black on the back:

This group below I think  indicates the variation in apparent size of the Great Black-backed Gull, with the younger male on the right (bill completely black, grey markings on the back) being substantially bigger than what are probably first a 4th winter female (slight black markings on the bill) and then an adult female on the left - and then I wasn't not sure of the rearmost bird.

This youngster is showing the classic angled forehead, flat crown and rather mean eye, together with the parallel-sided large bill with a bulbous tip.

Scotney Castle in the gloom

Looking for Hawfinches, but only found Mistle Thrushes, Blackbirds, Starlings, Greenfinch, Chaffinches and Blue Tits. Wandered around the car-park, and walking along the parkland/farmland trail anti-clockwise, deviating through Colliers Wood a little.

This is an interesting sign, but does not absolve the landowner from completing the normal visual tree safety and other assessments.

The woods had many monitoring tubes in them, all marked by hazard tape:

Out on the fields the oak trees had some tall modified Tulley tubes to protect them:

Bontuchel

Visiting Nain, the bird-feeders are going incredibly well, Blue, Great and Coal Tits, Robins and at least one Nuthatch. Also Mice.

Nuthatches are amazing looking birds with very sleek grey backs and warm peachy undersides. They also have long vicious bills. According to the RSPB, the birds seldom travel far from the woods where they are hatched, so the one in Nain's garden may have come from the woods around the Woodlands or perhaps from those on the other side of the valley (average distance of ring recoveries are less than a kilometre away from their ringing site). They will take food from bird-tables and secrete it around their territories, which are held throughout the year. They are unique among UK birds in plastering mud around their nest-hole entrances (eh? House Martins?)

They are found across most of England and Wales, and now just into Scotland, forming a population of about half a million birds altogether, with numbers steadily rising since the 1970's - perhaps due to increasing use of bird-feeders. It will be interesting to see if ring-necked parakeets compete vigorously with it for nest sites, and have any impact on its numbers in the future.

Their hoarding habit is long term - three months or more, and the hoarded food is used strategically, mainly in periods of severe food shortage, and rather less in more benign weather.