March to May 2019
Just the day before, Ranger Helen had watched three
red kites squabbling high above Gibside. Engaged in a dog fight (for want of a
better metaphor), the two males locked talons and plummeted into the trees,
risking serious injury in pursuit of a mate. Late March: it’s that time of
year.
In the Ice House Woods blackbirds scuttled and a
couple of wrens flitted around in path-side shrubs. Wood anemones planted in
their thousands here last autumn are pushing up their first leaves among the
first signs of wood sorrel and cuckoo pint. Dog’s mercury, lesser celandine and
yew are in flower. A nuthatch rehearses being noisy and appealing. At a
distance trees still look wintery but, here in the woods and along the Avenue,
they too are unfurling their leaves in readiness for the start of nature’s
year.
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| Nuthatch |
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| Wood sorrel |
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| Wood anemone leaves emerging |
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| Wood sorrel flowers |
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| Wood anemone in flower |
Although the grass had barely had chance to grow, somebody
was playing with a new lawnmower; a machine that looks like a hybrid miniature
of a bin lorry and combine harvester – a combined harbinger of spring, perhaps.
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| The new lawnmower in action |
In the air above the Octagon Pond, a buzzard, red kite
and kestrel all appeared at the same moment separated vertically and
horizontally by some invisible air controller. It was a photo lost to a slow
camera and a slower wit. On the pond, coots were preparing to nest. In the pond
were frogs, frogspawn and knots of toads. It’s that time of year.
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| Toads "tying the knot" |
Five weeks on, on a rainy day that ought to have kept
us at home, we wandered Ice House Dene Woods once more to check out the wood
anemone. It was cold - exceptionally cold for May. There was a gentle breeze
that nevertheless allowed the rain to fall straight down in a tolerable
fashion, pleasant even. We walked on to the riverside by Ladyhaugh. Ranger Phil
had seen otters here recently, but not today. We were cheered, though, by the
sighting of a dipper mid-stream and a roe deer grazing in the open – made
bolder with the rain keeping visitors and dog walkers away.
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| Bluebells on the edge of Ladyhaugh |
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| Horsetails in Lily Pond |
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| Hawthorn just coming into flower |
We wandered on making a mental note of plants and
birds, and stopped off in the dry of the bird hide to write down what we could
remember over a sandwich and cup of coffee. Bedraggled woodpeckers monopolised
the feeders. Below, a young chaffinch was being fed by mum. It’s that time of
year.
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| A splendid maple tree |
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| Coot on nest with young - Octagon Pond |
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| Wild strawberry |
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| Apple blossom - Walled Garden |
Steve Wootten & Phil Coyne
