Saturday & Sunday 08/09 November 2014
Missed It!
Saturday was dull with a little more rain to add to the monthly total. Sunday in complete contrast started off sunny and cold although it did cloud over a little in the afternoon.
We decided on a trip out on Sunday to do a little bit of steam train photography. The plan was to head into Lincolnshire to photograph ‘The Robin Hood’ on its journey from London St Pancras to Lincoln. As it wasn’t due to pass our chosen location until the middle of the afternoon our plan was to spend some time in the morning and early afternoon at the National Trust Property -
It’s usually a good place for a bit of wildlife photography with lots of geese, swans and ducks feeding down by Clumber Lake.
The low angle of the sun at this time of year gave a rather prehistoric look to this photo of a couple of cormorants making the most of the little bit of warmth still in the sunshine.
Besides walking by the lake there’s a lovely walk through the woods back to the Visitor Centre. There’s a few very large old tree stumps which have bird seed scattered on them. They prove to be very popular with the local bird life. A visitor to one of the tree stumps was a nuthatch but for most of the time it kept its back to the camera refusing point blank to pose nicely. In the end it decided to give us a quick opportunity for a decent photo.
Of course being a wooded area with free food on offer the local grey squirrel population can’t resist the temptation. It’s hard not to take their photographs as they dash about the forest floor but I was looking to find a bit of a different shot. The squirrels were busy finding nuts and burying them amongst the piles of fallen autumn leaves. This one couldn’t resist a quick snack half hidden by the bushes and fallen leaves.
Catching the birds in the trees rather than feeding on the tree stump was a bit of a challenge. If only they would stay still for a little longer. It’s as if they know exactly how long it takes me to spot them perching on a branch, zoom in, focus and press the shutter. As my finger moves to press the shutter they take off.
This great tit was a little slow off the mark.
The steam train photography wasn’t at all successful as we arrived at our chosen spot as the train arrived. There was no time to find a decent spot or consider any camera setting or any obstacles that might spoil the view of the train. The video has been consigned to the cutting room floor. Sue did at least manage to point the camera at the the train and get a couple of photos. At least we didn’t have to hang around waiting for the train to arrive. It was just as well we’d had an enjoyable few hours earlier at Clumber Park.
Monday 10 November 2014
Poor Chaffinches
Monday wasn’t a bad day, dry and reasonably mild after a rather cool start to the day.
You’ll know if you read yesterday’s blog that we visited Clumber Park on Sunday. We’d both taken lots of photos of chaffinches feeding from seed left on the old tree stumps. It was only when we got back home and downloaded our pictures that we noticed something odd about some of the chaffinches.
Some of the chaffinches were fine as you can see from the above picture. But that wasn’t the case for all of them. Look at the legs of this chaffinch in the picture below.
He’s got really clumpy legs and feet. Looking at our pictures quite a few of the chaffinches both male and female, (and a blue tit), were suffering from this condition. It didn’t seem to bother them too much and their behaviour wasn’t obviously any different from the fit and healthy birds. I’ve never noticed this on any of our garden birds so I had a look on the RSPB web site to see if this problem was identified.
Judging from information on the RSPB web site I think the birds probably have Chaffinch Viral Papilloma or CVP.
This is the reply to a similar query to the RSPB and the full response can be found here
CVP is thought to affect around 1% of the chaffinch population at any given time and can affect both sexes. Cases usually occur in clusters and quite high proportions of local populations may be affected in outbreaks.
As you've seen, the disease causes wart-
The fact that cases occur in clusters suggests that the presence of affected birds presents a risk to others that are susceptible. The mode of transmission is not known but it seems likely that the virus may be spread via surfaces the birds stand or perch upon or by direct contact.
Even birds with large papillomas often appear to behave normally so, in some cases, the growths may be little more than an inconvenience and relatively minor irritation. However, lameness is sometimes observed and this clearly indicates pain. In some cases these tumours may regress, but in serious cases death is unfortunately inevitable.
No treatment can be administered to birds in the wild, because it is impossible to ensure adequate dose for the infected individuals and prevent healthy birds picking up the medicine. Some drugs that will cure one species can be lethal to others.
The most effective method to avoid cross-
We don’t get a large number of chaffinches in the garden but I guess it is a reminder to keep feeders as clean as possible. We certainly don’t have chaffinches queuing up at feeders unlike starlings and house sparrows.
Tuesday 11 November 2014
Mild’s Not Everything
The sunny, cooler crisper weather of Sunday seems to have been a bit of a one off. Following on from Monday’s mild but dull offering Tuesday was very similar but with a drop more rain. Sunday’s average temperature was 5.8°C compared to Tuesday’s 10.4°C but of the two days I’d much prefer the weather to be sunny and crisp like Sunday.
The Met Office forecast doesn’t offer much hope for any brighter weather in the next few days.
Wednesday and Thursday 12/13 November 2014
Rubbish Forecast Turns Out Right!
That forecast from the Met Office that I posted on Tuesday’s blog has turned out to be accurate. The weather for the last few days has been pretty poor as the forecast suggested.
Temperature and Rainfall from Tuesday 11 Nov to Thursday 13 Nov 2014
I haven’t posted the daily sunshine record as there hasn’t really been any amount of note with only 30 minutes of sunshine hours recorded over the three days. That was in a little bit of a brighter spell on Wednesday afternoon. The temperature has remained remarkably consistent over the three days with only a little bit of a dip late on Wednesday otherwise it’s been around 10°C, mildish for the middle of November.
The rainfall has amounted to 4.2mm over the three days and it’s probably brought tidying up on the plot to an end for this year. I don’t like treading on saturated soil so trips to the plot will more than likely be for harvesting our remaining winter vegetables.
In that brighter spell on Wednesday afternoon I managed a little bit of tidying up at home and sorted out the rubbish that had accumulated by the garage. I hope it’s obvious which is the before and after shot. It also involved cutting back a climbing rose and a honeysuckle which were supposed to be climbing along the trellis but had escaped and were doing their own thing. I did manage to find one rose in flower which I couldn’t consign to the Council recycling bin.
Thursday’s damp and dull weather did give us chance to sort out our weekend photographs from Clumber Park and get them uploaded to our Zenfolio web site which can be found by clicking here or on the image below.
Friday 14 November 2014
A Day of Two Halves You Might Say
Friday morning was wet with heavy rain on and off throughout the morning. To make matters worse it didn’t seem to want to be bothered to get light either. By lunchtime we’d had 7.0mm of rain and it was still dark.
Lunchtime arrived and suddenly everything changed. It stopped raining and the sun came out and everywhere looked much brighter.
We could do with a trip to the plot to harvest a few vegetables but after all the morning rain we decided to leave our trip until Saturday hoping that everywhere might just be a little bit drier. After several days of near constant temperature of around 10°C all that changed as we moved into Friday night as the temperature headed downwards rather quickly.