There has been lots of flooding this week in some areas of the UK and my woods are not far from the area but there was no problem getting through yesterday. Naturally the woods were very wet and many of the leaves are down but it is still looking pretty in it’s Autumnal colours. The pond was full of leaves so the first job was to scoop as many out as possible with a home made net. Someone gave me a chunk of pondweed, so I threw that in too and hope it will multiply and add some oxygen.

As I made coffee, a robin appeared, just as it had done last time, landing only a few feet away. It was clearly interested in me, so I quickly pulled a few crumbs off my sandwich and held my hand out to it. It came closer toward my hand. It hovered like a hummingbird then unsure, flew back to the branch. Eventually it plucked up courage to land and take a piece – fantastic. It flew to the ground to eat it then back onto a branch. Rather than come back for more, it started to sing loudly. My human brain thought, “How nice, it’s happy and saying thankyou”. I heard another robin respond then a coal tit arrived to check out the scene. Seeing no obvious food it didn’t stay. My theory is that when food appears, some of the small birds announce it to others. It doesn’t quite make sense as you would think they would like to keep it to themselves, avoiding competition. But time and again, as soon as I put food at the feeders, several birds will appear within minutes.

I wonder if any bats have taken up residence in the bat box. Can you spot it?

My main visit was to meet some neighbours and  agree some new locations for the W.T. fixed photography project. Two of the locations I was taking were showing no signs of progress, so I wanted some new ones where active management is being, or will soon be done. That took up the bulk of my time but I did take some time to have a good look around and see what I could find. I came across something that looked quite gruesome, a grey ball containing various small bones and what appeared to be bird claws. It was about an inch in diameter and I recognised it as most likely and owl pellet.

For those of you that don’t know what that is – a brief description. Owls will swallow small animals whole, bones, feathers, fur and all. Their stomachs will digest the meat but all the indigestible bits get rolled up into a pellet which the owl eventually regurgitates and spits out. Examining these pellets will give some clues as to what the bird ate. Looking at this one puzzled me. It appears to be the foot of quite a large bird. The claws are way too big to be a normal woodland species that you might expect it to predate such as robins, blackbirds, bluetits etc. I had to take it apart to see more clearly what it was. It is a whole foot and part of the lower leg. The bobbly white material gave me a clue. It’s the pads on the underside of some sort of predatory bird.

The watch wasn’t in the pellet by the way, ha! Now I would have been worried when camping. That’s just to show it’s size. I thought only owls produced pellets but many others do too including larger predators such as hawks etc. Owls have also been known to eat each other and this appears to be the foot of a Tawny Owl. Maybe it was a vulnerable young one earlier in the year. So who got the meal and why eat the least nutritious part? I’m guessing that whatever ate it, didn’t kill it and was simply eating the remains of a carcass that had mostly been devoured already. Could have been another owl or maybe a buzzard.

Onto more pleasant subjects. The trailcam in it’s new position revealed shots of a fox and a pair of muntjac deer. The same position produced similar results a year ago. Sorry I haven’t got around to doing compilations of the pond clips yet. I’ll leave you with a few photos of my walkabout.

Jelly Ear fungus (used to be known as Jews’ Ear)