Spring - birds and flowers in the woods

Early spring is usually the best time to photograph birds in the woods - the light is better than winter, the leaves aren't yet obscuring the view, and the birds are hungry as they head into the nesting season. We were over at some friends' woodland today, and I was pleased to get this photo of a Greater Spotted Woodpecker in flight, as it came past us to raid a bird feeder filled with nuts!

Here's the feeder itself, with a couple of Blue Tits taking a meal:

Back over at our woods, I heard a woodpecker knocking loudly a few days ago, and tracked the sound over to our neighbour's wood, where I just about managed to get a photo of it, at the extreme end of the zoom range of my camera lens:

There's lots of birds near the feeder in our own wood too, such as this male Chaffinch, which perched in the oaks and then came down to feed on the ground, preferring to eat seed fallen there rather than go to the feeder itself:

There was a female Chaffinch around as well, though I wasn't sure what kind of bird she was at first:

Robins are still around of course, though not interested in the seeds in our feeder. Maybe we should get some nuts too...

Great Tits are in abundance as usual, and I got a nice sequence of this one. First it was perching near the feeder to check I wasn't a threat:

Then it flew over, and I got a photo as it was coming in to land:

A quick nibble...

... and then off again, seed in beak:

There's Coal Tits there too:

Meanwhile, any seed I spill while topping up the feeder is quickly hoovered up by the Pheasants:

Meanwhile, in another part of the woods, the wild boar have been creating some more 'bomb craters' with their digging...

Moving on to spring flowers, the Primroses are putting on a good show:

And the Wood Anemones are back as well:

The trees are waking up, with Hornbeam leaves just forming:

Sweet Chestnut is a bit slower, but the buds are beginning to green up and swell:

Sycamore, in the few places it grows, is well ahead though, with most buds showing some leaves emerging:

and others starting to cast some shade!

Looking forward to Bluebells before too much longer...

Mike

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Greater Spotted Woodpeckers feeding their chicks

Check out this video of Greater Spotted Woodpeckers feeding their chicks in our woodland! We had heard the woodpecker hollowing out a nest in this tree some weeks ago, but hadn't seen where it was. This weekend I was in the woods preparing logs for next winter, when I heard the chicks, from about 40m away as they were making so much noise as they were being fed! You'll be able to hear them in the video. Photos follow after the video...

Here's a woodpecker approaching the nest:

And here's one of them peeking out of the nest to check it's safe to leave:

Here's a close-up of the nest hole, taken with flash to illuminate some of the interior. It's on the underside of a branch and then turns a corner, so you can't see the chicks. Apparently woodpeckers normally drill sideways into a trunk and then downwards, but I guess this pair fancied a change!

Here's the logs I was processing for the woodburner ready for next winter:

I went home with a nice trailer load!

Mike

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Back to the woods: fungi, a woodpecker and chainsawing windblow

I had a good day in the woods today; not only did I get a decent amount of work done, I also got photos of some of the wildlife, including a Greater Spotted Woodpecker. The first thing I saw upon driving in though was these Fly Agaric (Amanita Muscaria), so I stopped to get a pic:

Once out of the car, I realised they were all over the place!

Lots of other fungi out too, such as this decaying bolete:

and some Brown Roll Rims:

While I was getting my tools together I heard a woodpecker up in the trees. They're normally quite hard to photograph in the woods, being a bit shy, but this one came out in the open, though still a fair distance away:

I eventually got on with the job for the day, and headed over to Sweep Wood, using the log trolley to transport my tools:

The area I was working in had suffered from some windblow, here it is a week ago, before I did some work on it with my friends Paul and Marcus:

At the start of today the main clearing that's been created just had a couple more to take down:

but there were still quite a few trees across the path and some broken stools to deal with:

Here's a short timelapse video I took with the GoPro camera to show you what I was up to...

So now there's a new clearing, which I'm sure will spring into life next year with the light coming in:

and the path running past it is clear and safe to walk along:

Some of the logs that were produced were fairly rotten, so I left them for the bugs to live in, but there was quite a bit of good stuff, which I moved with the log trolley.

From today and the day I did with Paul and Marcus, we've got a decent pile of wood out of this bit of work!

We only need 4-5 times what's in that picture to do a year's heating at home...

Mike

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