Francis Hickenbottom’s Nature Notes.
16th January 2010 2009
The snow cover which has lasted since the fifth of the month has now all but disappeared, helped on its way by heavy rain overnight and this morning. Animals have obviously found it difficult to cope with the snowy conditions and I have been told of changes to the behaviour of birds and other animals. In gardens, there have been sightings of a number of bird species which have not visited them before, or which rarely visit, and I have heard two accounts of mice entering buildings. Unusual bird species, such as woodcock, have been seen and lots of people have had fieldfares and redwings coming down into gardens for the first time.
Despite the demanding conditions, the daylight hours are now increasing and some species have been showing that they are starting to get ready for the beginning of the breeding season.
There is a small rookery, consisting of only about eight nests, near my house and there was a lot of activity there during the coldest of the weather. Even when the nests had thick snow on top of them, the rooks were cawing at each other and displaying by fanning their tails as they jostled each other around the nests.
At Ackworth, great tits have responded to the milder conditions of the past two days by beginning to sing. Their “peechoo peechoo” calls can be heard coming from trees in one or two parts of the school grounds. Also, jackdaws can be seen sitting in pairs on chimney pots and seem to be showing increased interest in the holes in which they breed.
At a local RSPB reserve earlier today, I had a rare sighting of a water rail. As the lakes are mostly covered with ice, the water rail is being forced to leave cover more often than it usually would in order to reach the isolated patches of open water and mud.
During my lunchtime strolls in the school grounds, I have been checking on the little owl which roosts in an oak tree. I have made the usual error of thinking that I have been seeing the same bird each day but it seems that this is not the case. On Friday, I located two little owls roosting in the same tree. Each owl was sitting against the trunk of the tree on the side which usually offers shelter from any wind. One owl was about two metres above the other.