My first attempt at filming with a hand-held camera, with the lens at quite a high zoom setting. Need more practice holding the camera steady!
A male blackcap taking sunflower seeds from a feeder. Directly below, a male blackbird on the snowy ground, picking up the seeds the blackcap and others have let fall.
Mistle thrush standing near to one of the winter flowering cherry trees in West Park, tilting its head in different directions as it appeared to be listening intently for something.
I approached it steadily but indirectly after closer pictures. It was aware of my presence, but carried on giving its main attention to whatever it was trying to hear.
Spider, probably one of the cellar spider species. The picture was taken with a mobile phone camera on its “macro” setting, in poor lighting conditions.
A female duck on the lake at West Park. A cross. One parent a must have been a mallard. What was the other?
The following day I couldn’t see any sign of the duck, nor on subsequent visits.
Each teazle seed carries what looks like a vicious spike. In fact, a small hook on the end is there to catch on fur or feathers to disperse the seed.
In earlier centuries, teazles were cultivated for their economic role. During the middle ages, England’s most important export was wool; first as fleeces, and later as finished cloths. Teazles were needed for finishing off complete cloths: these had to be brushed with the seed-heads to raise the nap.
Shovellers are another wild duck species which like tufties gather in a small flock on the West Park lake for the harder months of winter. The flock is usually ten to twenty or so birds, with perhaps two or three times as many tufties.
Neither species takes the breads and grains from people who feed the birds (ignoring all the instructions about avian flu!). Tufties dive for their food, and tend to congregate in groups in what may be the deepest water; often midway between the shore and one of the islands. Shovellers swim around in tight circles, shovelling with their beaks, just under the surface of the water, sieving it for small particles. They spend most of the time close to one of the islands, often half-hidden by the overhanging branches.
Like the tufties, it seems that this year the shoveller population on the lake is one where there are more of brightly coloured males.