Kingfisher on the river Wear in Durham city
Cabinet of Curiosities
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2d ago
  The river Wear begins its great loop around Durham cathedral peninsula here, at Elvet bridge. It’s always a busy spot. Aside from the rowing crews and scullers training for regattas, there are tourists in hired rowing boats and a constant passage of joggers, cyclists and walkers along the riverbank footpath. Mostly busy people on their way to somewhere, but it’s often a good place to just stand and stare: there can be interesting birds here. In winter there were goosanders fishing. In early spring little grebes took up residence for a while: energetic divers that we timed submerged for ..read more
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Early spring in the Derwent Walk Country Park, Gateshead
Cabinet of Curiosities
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6d ago
 Some pictures from a walk last week in the Derwent Walk Country Park, Winlaton Mill, Gateshead. Silver birches and willows, seen from the top of the Nine Arches railway viaduct over the river Derwent. The buds of the birches take on a purplish hue at this time of year, as they begin to swell, while the willows have an orange tint. Carrion crow. Handsome birds, with a hint of blue iridescence in their plumage. A fine display of colt'sfoot Dutch rush Equisetum hyemale spore cones beginning to disperse spores. An uncommon plant, but there are some fine patches of it beside the footpat ..read more
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Fence post lichen garden
Cabinet of Curiosities
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1w ago
Maybe it's time someone produce a survey of the flora of rotting fence posts. There are so many fascinating and often beautiful examples of these miniature gardens, colonised by mosses, lichens, fungi and flowering plants, where the water retentive end-grain of the wood provides just enough moisture for the organisms to survive throughout the year.  Pixie-cup lichens Cladonia spp. are some of the commonest colonisers. I noticed this exquisite example on the site of the former Brancepeth colliery at Willington in County Durham.   ..read more
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Wren finds food in mossy crevices
Cabinet of Curiosities
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2w ago
When I'm looking out of the kitchen window early in the morning I often see this little wren rootling around in the front garden. Here it's pecking tiny animals from the moss that grows between the paving bricks in the garden path. I often see people pressure-washing away the moss that grows in the crevices in block paving, which seems a pity, since mosses are home to an enormous range of tiny organisms that sit at the bottom of food chains. One way to make a garden more wildlife friendly is to encourage the moss growth ..read more
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Bullfinches eating cherry plum blossom
Cabinet of Curiosities
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3w ago
 Cherry plum Prunus cerasifera is in full bloom here in County Durham and its blossom is attracting bullfinches, that feed on the flower buds. You could almost say that their territory is defined by the availability of fruit tree blossom buds. This cock bird is one of a family party that can always be seen from a footpath along a disused railway line that's bordered by wild cherry, blackthorn, cherry plum, crab apple, and pear trees that must have grown from discarded cores, providing flower buds from now through until May. Later in the year I often see them feeding on seeds of dandelions ..read more
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Siskins
Cabinet of Curiosities
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1M ago
 We've had single siskins at the garden bird feeder since December but lately their numbers have risen, so now we have a small but regular flock of about half a dozen. They are feisty little birds that easily hold their own on the feeders against competing tree sparrows and greenfinches. Their plumage colours intensify as we get closer to the breeding season. In some of these photographs you can see just how sharply pointed their beaks are - like fine forceps - well  adapted for extracting seed from alder cones, their preferred natural food source at this time of year ..read more
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A barn owl at mid-day
Cabinet of Curiosities
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1M ago
 We watched this lovely barn owl, hunting at mid-day, a couple of weeks ago. The location was the naturally re-wilding site of a former coal mine in the Wear valley near the village of Willington. It 's about sixty years since the mine closed and it has reverted to open grassland with scattered alder, willow and  hawthorn, with well-established young oaks that must have been sown by jays burying acorns from old woodland nearby. It's a fine location for grassland butterflies in summer and in winter there's a very high vole population, so it's a perfect hunting ground for barn owls.&nb ..read more
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Early blooming spurge laurel
Cabinet of Curiosities
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1M ago
 At this time of year we are all on the lookout for the first sign of spring flowers - the first celandine, colt'sfoot or maybe even a precocious primrose - but one of the first native species to flower is a shrub, spurge laurel Daphne laureola.  Its lime green flowers, with golden stamens, tend to be tilted downwards under the glossy evergreen foliage, so are easily overlooked.  This plant is one of several currently in flower on the south bank of the river Tyne, upstream from the Tyne Green Country Park in Hexham, Northumberland. Spurge laurel is an unco ..read more
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A waxwing at last!
Cabinet of Curiosities
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2M ago
 It's thirteen years since we last saw a waxwing, when a whole flock turned up in our garden, feeding on crab apples. There have been numerous reports of these spectacular birds all over the north-east this winter, but  it was only yesterday that we finally found one, feeding on hawthorn berries near Willington in the Wear valley. I didn't have a proper camera with me, so these pictures were taken with an iPhone 7 SE. Luckily, the bird was very obliging and let me get with a few feet before it flew higher into the tree ..read more
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Great-spotted woodpecker and Sitka spruce
Cabinet of Curiosities
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2M ago
 Watched some interesting behaviour by a great spotted woodpecker recently. It arrived at a sallow carrying a Sitka spruce cone in its beak, then wedged it in a hole that it had already hacked with its beak, so it could use this as a vice to hold the cone while it pecked out the seeds. Sitka spruce is clearly a winter food source for this bird because there were scores of cones that it had discarded on the ground under its tree. The Sitka plantation nearby is carrying a very heavy cone crop this winter - enough seed to supply dozens of woodpeckers ..read more
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