The park’s twelve drummers drumming are great spotted woodpeckers. They begin drumming at the end of winter as part of a courtship ritual in which the male marks out his territory and advertises his presence by drumming his beak against hollow wood 10 to 20 times in just 2 seconds, and the females replies briefly as she enters his territory.
Here is a video:
Video recorded in March 2019 by George Ewart
We have both greater and lesser spotted woodpeckers on our species lists but it is many years since the single sighting of a lesser spotted woodpecker in the park. Here is a video from the BTO to help you tell the difference between the two.
….here are long tail tits preparing for a cold February night.
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Keep a look out for hibernating amphibians as you tidy up your garden ready for winter. Frogs, toads and newts will find sheltered places to hibernate in hedge bottoms, compost heaps, under stones and in log piles and are best not disturbed. Take particular care if you are planning to clear out a pond: frogs and newts will sometimes overwinter in the mud at the bottom.
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More about our oaks.
Continue reading “Oak gall ink”
Here’s a thing worth thinking about over your coffee of a Sunday morning.
The header picture is of the path through the copse between Sleeper Field and Sheep Field.
Here is a video, taken from BBC Earth’s Spy In The Wild series, about squirrels caching acorns.
The header picture was taken by DKG
All summer long, swallows, house martins and swifts have hawked and hunted for winged insects over the park. The swifts have already begun their migration, the swallows will leave next and the house martins will go last of all.
Here is a short video to help you tell the three species apart.
Lambrok Stream is home to rare and protected water voles.
Simon Knight has sent us video taken in the park, of a Roesel’s bush cricket.
Continue reading “Roesel’s bush cricket”
Another video about the park’s burrowers.
There are two rabbit warrens in the park: one at the far end of Sleepers and one in the thick bramble hedge that runs alongside the central path from Fiveways to Puddle Corner.
Here is a fascinating video, narrated by Chris Packham, about a rabbit warren.
A short video while we wait for the next sighting of the barn owls in the park:
The snowdrops in the copse in the southern corner of Village Green are beginning to open.
Video by Neil Bromhall
Header picture taken in the park by DKG
Here’s one of last year’s posts from snowdrop time:
A squirrel video to cheer you up on a really wet Sunday morning.
Enjoy!
If you regularly walk near the Lambrok or any of its tributary streams, keep a lookout for water voles. They are an important protected species and any planned development along the stream will need to take their presence into account.
Continue reading “Water voles”Extraordinary little video of an emperor dragonfly hatching into its final adult form.
Published on Jul 31, 2012 by wildvod.
Emperor Dragonfly larvae emerging from the kitchen garden pond at the Tyntesfield National Trust Estate in June 2012.
Here is a fascinating little video of a peacock butterfly emerging from its chrysalis. We know that there are at least two nests of peacock caterpillars in the park so, by the end of July, we should see these beautiful adults.
Has anybody heard or seen the tawny owl that was spotted in the park three weeks ago? We are hoping it is still here, perhaps with a mate, looking for nest sites.
Tawny owl calls are unmistakeable, the classic too-wit-too-woo, but their camouflage is excellent and they are difficult to spot against a background of tree bark. Here is a short video from YouTube to help with identification.
Contact details, if you have anything to report, are here.
More about tawnies:
