Hot News - A Redpoll!

Monday 27th January 2014

This afternoon on the bird feeder in the garden we had a little visitor that I didn't recognise.  I managed to get a really good look at the bird as it munched happily for about ten minutes.   I had to look it up in my bird books and it was most definitely a redpoll probably a lesser redpoll but it may have been a common redpoll.  It was a similar size to a goldfinch, with a bright red bit on it's head, sparrow like brown wings with a white band on and a pinkish colour on the top of it's chest.  

I am easily pleased and we haven't seen one of these in the garden before, apparently they are often seen with siskins and we do have a few of these about at the moment. It's a shame we didn't see it over the weekend as we were recording for the RSPB Big Garden Birdwatch but never mind that's the way things go!!

Bramshaw Telegraph - New Forest

Saturday 25th January 2014

We parked at Bramshaw Telegraph this afternoon for a walk of just over three miles to look for a geocache.  It was quite an open walk across the heath to the cache site, through lots of puddles and mud as is usual at the moment! The only wildlife we saw today was a lone deer running across the heath at speed until he reached cover at some gorse bushes, I have no idea where his friends were!

Standing water everywhere, still there is a bit of blue sky!

The footpath somewhat wet underfoot!

More surface water.

At the cache site, number 980 in the bag!

Otterbourne & Snowdrops

Friday 24th January 2014

This afternoon we chose to stay fairly close to home and went to look for two geocaches in Otterbourne, one of which we had to find answers to clues in the churchyard and the other was in some woods along a very muddy slippery uphill path!  It was a dull and dreary afternoon with light drizzle in the air but it was nice to spot a bit of colour in the flower beds and snowdrops just coming into flower in the churchyard.

The Otterbourne village sign located in front of the church.

Some winter colour at last at the lych gate leading into the churchyard.

My favourites, snowdrops amongst the graves.

St Matthews church

It was a dull afternoon and inside the church it was very dark but this window with the light coming through looked magnificent.  We had a quick look round - I'd like to come back on a brighter day to have a proper look - it was a very lovely place.

The camera flash made it look quite light inside! I reckon it must look very atmospheric with the candles lit.

In the woods we spotted this fungus which I thought looked like a bird about to take flight.

We successfully found both of the caches we went looking for, well, one had been 'muggled' ie found by non-cachers and the contents were strewn around the cache site so we had to do a bit of a tidy up there and report back our findings to the owners when we got home.   

Cold in Swanage

Tuesday 21st January 2014

Today we spent the day in Swanage visiting family and had a couple of walks, one after lunch and one in the early evening.  We had a nice lunch in a restaurant overlooking the sea which was calm in the bay and looked quite rough further out to sea.  

Swanage at this time of year is lovely as there are very few people about - I'm not one for crowds!

Looking towards Ballard Down and Ballard Point with not a person in sight - fantastic!

Looking towards Peveril Point, still no people.

Looking along the beach.

Swanage Pier

Swanage at 7pm, think cold, very cold!

By late afternoon the rain that had been forecast started, but once it stopped this evening it seemed like a good idea to have another swift walk, but oh my, we didn't realise how much the wind had got up and it was absolutely freezing, my head felt like it was shrinking!!!

You can't imagine how cold it was along the seafront in this photo, I had no end of trouble keeping the camera still the wind was so strong. Funnily enough there were more people on the beach this evening than there were at lunchtime, mainly dog walkers making the most of the fact that it had stopped raining.  It felt quite tropical once we walked back through the town centre away from the seafront.  Then it was back to the warmth of the car and time to go home.

Black caps

Friday 17th January 2014

Over the last few days in our garden we have seen briefly another winter visitor, well two winter visitors, two male black caps.  We usually see them around this time of year for a while, so hopefully they'll hang around for just over a week for when we do the RSPB Garden Birdwatch.

We had a visit to Swanage yesterday, involving lots of driving between home, Swanage and Poole, resulting in over four hours in the car.  One highlight however was seeing deer on a wooded area at the side of a main road happily munching.  At first I thought they were goats as they were on a really steep slope and it took my brain a while to process the that fact they weren't goats or dirty sheep but deer.  I couldn't say what type of deer they were as it was such a quick glimpse and no-one else in the car saw them but I'll keep an eye out for them next time we are this way.  

One other highlight was getting back to Swanage late afternoon to a fantastic rainbow, it was spread out ahead of us and we could see the whole arch, it was fantastic, just what we needed.

Catkins

Wednesday 15th January 2014

Here are a couple of photos from today's walk on Southampton Common (in the rain funnily enough!)  In the car park this tree was loaded with catkins, some of the first I have seen this year.  

We also saw a heron on the island on the cemetery lake, lots of jays and hundreds of wood pigeons.  

An old oak alongside the boating lake.

That was it for today, it was too wet to take many photos!

Between Valley Park and Chilworth

Tuesday 14th January 2014

A few words would sum up this afternoon's rather lovely walk - mud, fallen trees, cows and  a yellow helicopter.  We went looking for two geocaches, luckily finding both easily,  this was the view from the first cache.

Blue sky again.

A little further along the footpath we came across plenty of this .......

mud! Luckily we didn't have to go through this field, although there was a fair amount of squelching on the footpath itself.

A beautiful cow with blonde curly highlights, who unfortunately was in the above muddy field.

and his friends.

Our next obstacle was two fallen trees together across the footpath, a pine tree and a silver birch there was no way round, under or over them so we had to go through them.  Like you do!! 

Having found the second cache we went back through the fallen trees (literally) and had just passed the cows when a helicopter flew over quite low, it had 'electricity' on the side of it and it seemed to be checking out the pylons and cables.

Helicopter passing by and check out that blue sky!

Hovering, taking a closer look?

A very pleasant two mile walk, close to home, with plenty to see, just what I like!

Deer Day at Stoney Cross

Sunday 12th January 2014

We awoke this morning to a hard frost but it disappeared all of a sudden at about 9am, it was really weird, there one minute gone completely the next.

We had a walk this morning at Stoney Cross, one of our regular spots, where there is an old oak tree that our son has liked and photographed since he was young - he is 22 now! (in fact we had his 18th birthday family picnic here).   We have photos of this tree in all seasons and weather - apart from the snow - I do NOT do snow!!!!

'Adam's tree'.

We walked through a woodland where the trees are mainly beech and we have noticed over the years that the moss seems to love this area, it looks so lovely lush and soft at this time of year amongst all of the dull hard landscape.

Lots of lush green moss.

The beech wood, with moss around the bottom of each tree.

At this point despite it being very wet underfoot, we saw the first few deer of the morning in the trees in the distance.  I zoomed in as best as I could but my epic little camera isn't really capable of decent photos from such a distance, still never mind it's possible to see the deer, these stags I think are roe deer?

It's just possible to see their large antlers!

After this point we saw lots of deer, fallow and roe but because we were sloshing and squelching our way around everywhere, we couldn't do much stealth so the deer were always one or probably quite a few steps ahead of us and we kept seeing them running across in front of us at speed.  We must have seen near on sixty deer, we saw one group of eighteen, a group of twenty seven and a smaller group of about twelve. It was most definitely a day for deer - I think we must have scared them all witless and they certainly got plenty of exercise, not that they need it!!

Parts of the old airfield used in the second world war still remain.

Mud and water everywhere - here's a little factoid - according to our local weather station, we have had rain every day since the 9th December apart from the 28th - must be about time it stopped then!

I thought at this point that it seemed to be getting brighter, but once out of the woods, there was a fine misty drizzle and cold wind so it was good to get back to the car for a coffee.  Yum.

Proof that it was still cold..... ice.

Things!

Friday 10th January 2014

We haven't been out anywhere exciting lately, hence the lack of posts, however I do have a few things to report.  Firstly, the sun came out yesterday morning and what a difference it made, everything looked colourful and bright instead of dull and grey - there was even a lovely blue sky!  In fact, apart from a very brief shower this morning (whilst we were sale shopping in the West Quay) there hasn't been a lot of rain for a couple of days now.  

Having sale shopped we then had to fight with the terrible traffic problems in the centre of Southampton, (caused apparently because there are five cruise ships in today) luckily I found a good route to avoid most of it.  At one of the main sets of traffic lights on the way out of Southampton we usually find ourselves waiting for ages in a filter lane alongside a few bushes in the central reservation. These bushes always have sparrows in them, summer or winter, they sing away (or as in today's case squawk away). Joining the sparrows today were quite a few long tailed tits, flitting from one side of the road to the other, seemingly oblivious of the traffic!

Back in our own garden we have all the usual bird visitors, but there are a few pairs around at the moment, which makes a change.  We have pairs of robins, blue tits, pied wagtails (winter visitors) blackbirds and great tits.  I don't remember seeing a pair of robins for a while - baby robins fingers crossed- lovely!

Hopefully this weekend we will get out walking in the fresh air and hopefully sunshine - you never know!

Minstead in the Rain

Sunday 5th January 2014

To sum up this afternoons walk at Minstead - rainy, wet and very muddy!  

We decided to venture out despite the weather to try and find a fairly new geocache.  Well, I reckon that Tarzan and Jane must have set this one as there were no footpaths to the cache and most of the way there was cross country.  It's amazing how many fallen trees there are in the New Forest, not that have fallen lately, some have been down for many years, but we must have come across all of the fallen trees in this area and had to either climb over them or head through holly bushes to avoid them.  

Looking up through an old oak, with rain on the camera lens.

It's amazing what you come across in the  middle of nowhere, there was no sign of any other bricks or old building, just these few bricks...... odd.

Some sort of fungus, bright orange and very pretty on a dull afternoon.

Luckily after tromping around cross country we found the cache quickly and took the easier route back to the car along a country lane, then came on home to dry out!  All of this rain is wearing just a little bit thin now, enough is enough I feel and I have had enough!

Floods and Fallen Trees on Southampton Common

Saturday 4th January 2014

The heavy rain and strong winds are taking their toll on Southampton Common, with water running across footpaths and puddles everywhere.  The poor trees have had a bit of a battering with trees down as well as numerous large branches, it must be keeping someone with a chainsaw very busy!  

At this point the water was running quite fast across the path.

It was pouring with rain at this point!

In the rain we did a quick lap of the common, taking in the fact that the awful weather doesn't stop the fishermen fishing on the Ornamental Lake - crazy!  Mind you they probably thought the same about us.  

The family of swans on the lake are still looking good, with the cygnets almost completely white.

Cygnet in the rain, with lots of big droplets pooling on it's back.

A tree had fallen across the car park, luckily there was no car underneath it!

One benefit of going out in the rain is that there were very few people out and about on the common apart from the dog walkers who are obviously a hardy bunch.

Between Calmore and Ower

Thursday 2nd January 2014

As it wasn't raining this afternoon we decided to head out for a bit of geocaching and make the most of not getting wet - well at least not until we were nearly back to the car.  The theme of the small circuit we did today was Halloween, with some inventive cache containers all well hidden of course, here are a couple of examples.

Some sort of bracket fungus?

At one point I came over all arty farty and tried photographing something different, looking up into BLUE sky!

Mud - here we go again!

I should have known how muddy it would be after the amazing amount of rain we have had over the last 10 days or so - it may have been longer than that as I have lost track of days and weather. It was most definitely a wellie walk, walking boots would have suffered.

Five geocaches later, we walked on back, getting rained on once again along the final section of footpath back to the car.  Never mind, it was nice to get out in the fresh air.