John and Clare wish all Liddells’ supporters a Happy New Year with plentiful opportunities to engage with nature.
Please remember that to view any video footage in the Blog post you will need to access it via the Blog page on the Liddells website: www.liddells.co.uk
1st January - the seventh day of Christmas
Clare enjoyed watching Gordon Buchanan’s documentary ‘Wild Horses, the Rockies and Me’ which followed Buchanan’s interactions with a herd of wild horses in the Canadian Rockies. When Buchanan was able to scratch one of the young horse’s rear and said, “The power of the tickle is strong”, Clare had fond memories of finding Paul the pony’s favourite ticklish spot.
2nd January - the eighth day
Clare took Juno to see Little Red Riding Hood at the local theatre. This version of the fairytale challenged preconceptions about wolves, highlighting how they live in an exceedingly complex social unit—an extended family of parents, offspring, siblings, aunts, uncles, and sometimes dispersers from other packs. The aggression of the wolf in the play was attributed to the loss of his place in such a group and thus feeling unloved. A decent psychological interpretation. The French hypermarket chain Intermarché adopted an equivalent vulpine principle in last year’s Christmas advertisement. You can enjoy it here. C’est très amusant. Thanks to Clare’s sister Jean for sharing this.
3rd January - the ninth day
The day of the Wolf Moon and Clare and Juno were able to see it as it rose in the morning. Read more about the phenomenon of Super moons here. The Wolf Moon might be so called because wolves seem to howl particularly loudly to their packs through January nights; it is also called the Stay Home Moon - a good idea in the cold with all those wolves about; others might refer to the Moon after Yule - the first full moon after the winter solstice.
4th January - the tenth day
An avian start with Tweet of the Day which featured the Jackdaw. Clare then went up to Liddells to prepare for a special tree planting. She noticed a flock of starlings on the Hayfield. There has been quite a large murmuration near Clare & John’s home since October. It is conceivable that the birds on Liddells join in with this of an afternoon. Neither Clare nor John have noticed a flock of Starlings on Liddells before. Paul and Julie arrived for the planting (Julie had managed to keep this a secret from Paul until the previous evening; after bumping into Paul in town when she was with Juno the day before, Clare had told Juno about the plan. They then bumped into Paul again about half an hour later after which Juno kept stage whispering “Secret Tree Man!” as she went down the street.) In spite of the frost the ground gave enough to plant the Rowan - a yellow-berried variety particularly favoured by Waxwings - and then Clare, Julie and Paul walked around Liddells, seeing a hare, and Fieldfares and Redwings close to the hide.
Today also marked the sheep’s return to their home farm. Clare was excited to see John R arrive with his dogs and quad as up till today she hadn’t been present when the sheep were moved and she had wanted to record the event for the Blog. Disappointingly, such was her state that she failed to capture the sheep at all and took a singularly uninteresting video of the road surface. Not included. Heigh ho. Maybe another year.
5th January - the eleventh day
Clare watched the David Attenborough documentary on wildlife in London. She recalled that during her twelve years in the city, leaving in 1985, she had never seen a single fox and Ring-tailed Parakeets were still considerably further south. The birds are now present to the east of Liddells in parks near Newcastle and it will presumably only be a matter of time before they arrive on Liddells.
6th January - the twelfth day
Clare went for a walk with Pat and noticed for the first time this year a Great Tit calling “teacher, teacher” - a territorial announcement to other Great Tits. A good end to Twelve Wild Days.
10th January
With a deep frost it was very beautiful on Liddells today. Clare noticed a pareidolic owl looking out of a tree trunk.
With the prospect of warmer weather ahead John bought the panels for a very necessary reroofing job on the hide.
Clare was walking past the pond and caught sight of a small face at the end of the overflow pipe for Pond Maggiore. It disappeared then briefly appeared again. Clare could not be sure what it was however it would have to be a creature that doesn’t mind wet feet as water was flowing through the pipe in spite of the pond being frozen. Clare wondered about a rat. She set up a camera aimed, as she thought, in front of the pipe and scattered a few peanuts to tempt whatever creature it was. John collected the disc the next day and Clare discovered the inaccuracy of her focus. A Blackbird was captured benefitting from the nuts (not shown) and a group of Pheasants appeared to enjoy being on the ice.
11th January
Clare thinks the bird captured in front of the pond might be a Mistle Thrush.
12th January
John watched two hares boxing in the Pit Wood. Although hares can box at any time of year, it is more common to see this phenomenon in the Spring. Later this evening John saw another two hares in a different place near Liddells and they were running around each other, often a preparatory move for boxing.
14th January
Although the pond camera was wrongly positioned for the overflow pipe, it was beautifully in place to record a Heron’s visit.
The bird stayed for 50 minutes and was motionless for much of that time. It was successful in catching newts or frogs twice and unsuccessful twice. The length of the aigrets (black plumes on the back of the head) suggest it is a male. The aigrets are shorter on female birds. Several videos showed the Heron moving its capture down its gullet. One video shows its stealth in lowering itself nearer the water.
The final video shows a hare loping past the bird. On a whim Clare searched to see if there was a fable entitled ‘The Heron and the Hare’. She was surprised to find there is a book entitled The Adventures of the Heron and the Hare in which ‘[t]he two animal friends go on adventures in the forest, where they meet and help various creatures, including a squirrel, a fox, a mouse, a bear, a deer, a family of birds, and a fish. Throughout the book, the Heron and the Hare show kindness, bravery, and teamwork as they help their new friends’. She read further: ‘This book is a literary experiment utilising the Artificial Intelligence tools, ChatGPT & Dall.E 2 for narrative assistance and story image creation.’ (https://www.amazon.co.uk/Adventures-Heron-Hare-John-Gregory-ebook/dp/B0BVPLLBNW) Hmmm.
15th January
Clare arrived to change the camera discs and twice heard a Mistle Thrush so perhaps she was right in her identification of the bird by the pond.
The pond camera has captured several videos of Blackbirds eating Hawthorn berries - the birds are numerous, suggesting that the winter visitors are still around, maybe even filling up ready for departure.
16th January
Clare made a start on cleaning out nest boxes ready for the coming season.
17th - 20th January
A Grey Heron appears to be caught by surprise by the depth of the water in Pond Maggiore. It flew off immediately after what you see below, its feathers perhaps a little ruffled.
The Mandarins are still coming to Pond Maggiore though apparently not in such great numbers as previously - the camera recorded at most seven at any one time. A couple seemed to be perplexed by the ice - not really up to Dancing on Ice standards, more a comedic interlude.
On 18th a pair of Mallard flew in and were in the water at the same time as the Mandarins for 24 hours or so and then no more Mandarins were recorded. A pair of Mallard flew off when Clare collected the camera disc on the morning of 20th, which suggests the birds had been resident all night and staged a coup de l’eau.
While Clare ticked more nest boxes off her ‘to clean’ list, John almost finished sawing the timber from the Ash felling.
While Clare was in the Pit Wood she noticed a Tree Creeper doing what it says on the tin.
She also noticed a small flock of Long-tailed Tits moving through the same tree. They didn’t seem to go far. When Clare arrived at the hide only a few hundred yards away, the birds were on one of the peanut feeders. The pecking order allowed Blue Tits to share the feeder.
23rd January
The big buck made a brief nighttime appearance in the Pit Wood - long enough for John to see that it is in velvet (no video included here).
24th January
Hares are quite often spotted at the moment, both singly and in pairs. Here is a pair in the Pit Wood close to where John witnessed the boxing earlier this month.
25th - 26th January
Deer have been noticeably absent from trail camera footage this month so John and Clare were pleased to see the glimpse of the big buck and two brief sightings of the small buck in the Pit Wood on these two days. John speculates that the presence of the sheep may have driven the deer away for a while.
29th January
John saw a Woodcock on the west verge of the Pit Wood today.
He said the spring is gushing as much as he’s ever seen and there is water bubbling up around the original site of the spring. The large stones which usually break the surface of the Roadside pond are pretty much all submerged.
The button buck (last year’s kid) appears again in the Pit Wood and for long enough to see the growth of his buttons. They too are in velvet. John observed that it is unusual for the young bucks to be separated from the does this early in the year. Maybe there will be more deer footage if they are venturing back now the sheep have left.