Blog 9

6 am... dark tree top shapes against an opaque pale dawn sky... silence but for a long rise and fall of sound, “Oohoo”. Another, fainter comes from the wood across the valley... they combine their sounds, closer and more distant answers come from down by the river. 

It had been appropriate that during this clear night of the seven dazzling bright planets they had been calling to each other loud and clear – tawny owls. The fabulous photo, taken by Chris Wardell, was probably one of the owls answering in the distance, way down along the river towards Bradford. The Tawny Owl’s hearing is ten times better than a human’s.

Enjoy this image by day – the wonder of every feather’s camouflage pattern (and its texture assisting silent flight), the fulsome “eyebrow” feathers and the mouth definition around that fearsome death-delivering beak. Combined with asymmetrically placed ears giving good directional hearing, plus excellent night vision by virtue of low-light sensitivity rod cells in its eye retina, this is a fiercely efficient night predator.

Shakespeare’s “Tu-whit, Tu-who, a merry note...” this stereotyped call is actually a duet of female “kew-weck” and the male replying with “hooo”.

Asleep and resting by day in sheltered thickets, owls of the night are a photographer’s nightmare. The photo below of a carefully chosen privacy screen of ivy illustrates the point! (The well-nigh invisible animal within brings to mind Basil Fawlty - frantically prodding his fingers through a large fluffy pudding “There’s a duck in here somewhere!”) Look through the close-up maze of twiggery...the owl is in the centre, behind the main narrow tree trunk. Tiny areas of feather camouflage are just about visible!



Willdlife Gardening notes: This is a perfect illustration of the importance of shelter – when an animal is asleep or doing nothing in particular (applicable to many a lot of the time). Ivy provides the perfect year-round shelter... and comes with the bonus it is easy to grow – just leave it!

Ivy provides food too – Pigeons will strip every berry as efficiently as fussy secateurs. 

The flowers (Photos 4, 5, 6) provide nectar and pollen for Ivy Bees and more... come rain or shine.












Photo 7 sums it all up – notice on an RSPB reserve.



AND check your bee hotels are safe and away from damp, rain and frost.


Photo credit: Photo 1 Chris Wardell; 2-7 Nicolette


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Which Bird Feeder? and Swans

Image
Wildlife Garden Tips Which Bird Feeder? and Swans As winter gets colder (and wetter) bird food ‘sharers’ and the ‘wide boys’ get hungrier Attempts to give the little birds a share leads to feeder defences becoming an escalating battle of wits, expense and ingenuity! As a special Christmas gift, I have just indulged myself with two new Red Barn feeders - one for seed and one for fat balls  I felt I deserved it, having for some years improvised with an old broken feeder for balls ... replaced wire access, hung it upside down in order to support balls, clad it in wire netting for extra protection, and battled with bits of bent wire to refill it! The solid base designs (5) will catch dropped food and the sturdily constructed cage simply lifts off for refilling and cleaning. It is quite a lot cheaper than the Squirrel buster design which works on a sliding collar principle – creatures over a certain weight close the access (one can adjust the critical weight). Above shows a Red Barn nut...
Read more

Roses and Wildlife Gardening

Image
  30 June 2025  Roses and Wildlife Gardening Summer, roses, warm scented days ‘... are such stuff as dreams are made on...’ or gardener’s dreams certainly! Carefully placed in grand designs, climbers and ramblers sprawling over cottage gardens, allotment flowers for cutting – roses are the all-time favourites.  Vibrant bright red,  (  ‘Parkdirektor Riggers’),  delicate apple-scented pink  (  ‘Albertine’), profuse bunches of bright pink ( 3 ‘ Dorothy Perkins’) – all gardener’s favourites standing the test of time from 1957, 1921 and early 1900’s. Wildlife Gardening Tips : But are they any good for a wildlife garden? Photo says ‘definitely yes’ – quote White-tailed Bumble Bee! Families of Bluetits would also vote ‘yes’. Frequently I see them working their way steadily along this ‘Dorothy Perkins’ stem and other roses, picking tiny creatures from amongst the leaves... presumably greenfly, as a visiting professional gardener marvelled at the fa...
Read more

RiverFestival

Image
New life emerges > RiverFes The season of new life emerging and in the making! Fresh female Red Mason Bees have emerged from my bee hotels, mated and laid eggs provisioning them with food for next year’s newborns, closing off each ‘nursery’ with a neat door of pollen and mud In a  thicket by the river there are more eggs in waiting - five speckled blue eggs lie cradled in a carefully structured masterpiece of woven stems and dead strands Elsewhere, more eggs have hatched - the still of the water is rippled by a passing family of Canada Geese Between egg and adult, many types of insects pass through several stages: here  a Bush Cricket in miniature clambers laboriously over Veggiemesh. It is extremely miniature... Bush Crickets change form and shed hard outer skins 5-6 times before becoming adults. In another part of the garden, underneath a Hop leaf  an unknown inert creature, somewhere between caterpillar and dormant pupa, is hidden. It will soon emerge with win...
Read more