Little Sea and Studland

It's been quiet on Dendrocopos lately because I've been really busy with lots of exciting new life changes! In short, I've just quit my old admin job, started a new field studies job, passed my driving test, and done lots of travelling up and down the country. Now I'm based down in Dorset, teaching geography in Purbeck for the next 6 months.

Studland

The most exciting adventure of this week (so far, it's only tuesday) has been a trip to Studland and Little Sea with my parents. Studland is a peninsula created over 300 years from blown sand, forming distinct dune systems with ridges and slumps. Without going into too much geological detail (mostly because I am not an expert on it!) Studland is made up from deposits of sand, silt and gravel from the sea, which has built up over years and years of deposition. Heathland has grown over the area today, creating a unique environment perfect for studying blown sand formations.

Image from Southampton Geology

I'm pretty familiar with Studland as it was my main research site for my dissertation! I spent about 3 months looking at wood ant nests (very closely, getting covered in ants a lot)... which is what half of this post is about! It was quite a warm day today, which meant that some of my favourite residents of Studland were active- which actually was quite surprising for me, as although the sun was out, I didn't think it would be quite warm enough for the insane numbers of Formica rufa we saw about their nests.

Ant swarms! This actually makes sense for the time of year- it's the warmest it's been for a couple of weeks today, so they've all come out to swarm and make new nests. Interestingly, on the first active nest we found, there were only ants in a select few places on the actual nest material, clustered mainly in a south easterly direction, where the sun was at that point in time! You can sort of see this in the picture above, with air holes as well where ventilation of the nest was taking place due to the massive numbers of ants clustered in one part.

Glorious microfauna

Moving on from this first nest, which was a teeming mass (to put it lightly), we moved on to one of the hides on Studland to have a quick look around to see what birds were on the lake. On the walk down to the hide, we came across this monster of a nest- not only is the nest the very dark mass of ants (literally, that's just ants!), but to the right as well, the huge flattish pine needle area. You can actually only see half of it, and there were trails all over the place as well- I'm balancing on the log there because it was the only place I could stand for more than a second and not get absolutely coated all over my legs with interested foragers and upset soldiers!

The best animals to pet

Eventually we moved on from this spectacle to take a wander down to the hide. It's tucked quite away from the road, so not many people really know about it, which makes it a pretty nice spot. There isn't a whole lot to see a lot of the time, unless you sit there for ages with a pair of strong binoculars, but there is a diary that people write their sightings in, so if you're lucky you can see marsh harrier and some nice ducks like pintail and little grebe (or dabchick). We saw a couple of great crested grebe and a couple of cormorants- and then hit the jackpot.

One of the lesser known residents of Little Sea are otters. We've been going out to this hide for the past 18 months or so (basically since we first heard about it being a good spot to otter watch), and have never seen even a tail, only the records in the aforementioned diary that there had been sightings. The last one was January 30th, so we didn't really think we'd spot one. But then, just as we were about to pack up and head off, black ripples in the water! Not just one otter, but a whole family of them swimming across the lake!

 The picture's not fantastic, but there they are! Will definitely have to be heading back again in the future to see if we can spot them again, and actually remember to take binoculars next time...

The Monsal Trail

The third walk we did in the Peak District was the Monsal Trail in Chee Dale. This was actually supposed to be our first walk, but due to snow forecasts on the 26th (which came true!), we decided driving the dodgy Cat & Fiddle road probably wasn't a good idea on that day. Also, it had rained a fair bit on Christmas Day, which might have put a spanner in our plans. When we did head over to Buxton, even though we took the new Cat & Fiddle road, it was pretty scary driving through just white snow on every side- and that was without doing the super-dangerous old road. I have a couple of pictures from the drive back; they've got a bit of window glare on, as we didn't really want to stop when there was nowhere off the road, and certainly we weren't when the hills had some pretty huge snowclouds coming in.

On the way there though, it was gloriously bright and clear, and we could see all the way back to Macclesfield. Ben pointed out where we had been the day before; Shutlingsloe really did earn its name the Mini-Mountain, by far the steepest-sided hill on the horizon. I was amazed, because we hadn't been able to see anything at all the previous day. A flock of grouse whizzed over the fields in front of us, shrieking as they settled down beyond sight of the road.

On the way back, the clouds were so thick we couldn't even see the Cat & Fiddle pub on the side of the road until we were driving past it!

The Monsal Trail runs through Chee Dale, Miller's Dale and Cressbrook, following the river Wye. The most exciting part of the walk, that meant we had to pick a good day to walk on, is the stepping stones that makes up the path at a couple of points along the riverside- they're fairly high above the waterline in the summer, but in the winter when there's a lot of rain, the trail can become impassable as the river level picks up. We parked at Blackwell Mill, which was super-icy (enough to cause a couple of cars to wheelspin horribly when they tried to get out, although they didn't really have the right technique on complete ice), and walked down to the river. Immediately we found we were going to have a bit of difficulty with the trail...




















But we persevered, whether through foolishness or adventure. If the trail becomes completely impassable, there are regular crossings of the river under the old dismantled railway, so it's easy to double back and get up onto high ground to continue your walk. With our first obstacle passed though, we decided that would be only the last resort, and we were definitely going to get as far as possible along the river! Also, we forgot our map, so just following the river was the easiest thing to do.

There are multiple old viaducts along the river walk

Anyway, we set out along it, not really paying attention to how far we were going, just making sure we kinda knew we weren't going to get stuck anywhere (permanently). The snow made it difficult to see the muddy spots, and ice made some bits where water had dripped down onto the path slippery, but we made it! Following the path (which both sets of our parents would have deemed 'too unsafe' to continue along a long time previously), we finally found the first set of stepping stones!

They were almost underwater and there was nobody else around- so nobody else to embarass ourselves in front of in case we fell in, right?- we slowly made our way across to some excitement. Then, further along, another set! These, I got one foot a bit wet with as one or two were definitely underwater, but not enough for us to get dissuaded.

There were only a handful of other people walking, which meant my bird count was through the roof. Long-tailed tits, blue tits, great tits and coal tits filled the trees, with their companion calls one of the loudest noises, next to the sound of the river. Robins and blackbirds also made their appearances, the robins especially Christmassy against the snow. Saving the most exciting until last though, we spotted maybe five or six Dippers along the river, taking off with a blur of white and black!

Super undercutting of the gorge

The path didn't get any easier the further we went along- if anything, it was more difficult as the gorge tightened and we were forced right alongside the river up on a slope at some points. It's a limestone gorge; lime kilns can still be seen alongside the old railway line today. The sides of the river are steep and difficult to walk at points- this is not a light walk! You can read more about the geology and biology of the area here. Anyway, we managed to get along alright, then we came across this rather large obstacle...

We knew we could get across because a couple had come across with their dogs only a little bit before, and we had come much too far to turn around now. So, very slowly, we crossed the network of fallen branches and logs that now made up the 'path', until... yes!

If you can't work it out, this was the other side

Feeling victorious after this, the rest of the path was 'easy', and we emerged out at Miller's Dale station, not nearly as far as we were expected to get in the amount of time that we had been walking, but pleased none the less. The view from the old viaduct was great, and the old railway tracks made a super-quick and easy walk back.

The old Miller's Dale viaduct

The railway closed in 1967, although the main buildings from the station remain; it served as an important transport connection for Buxton to London and Manchester. There was even a Post Office on the platform! It's not there any more though. Walking back towards Blackwell Mill, you can follow the railway line the whole way, which is a much straighter and flatter route than the riverside walk. The few tunnels sped up our progress even more, because it meant not having to trek through a foot of snow!

It only took us about 1/2 hour to walk back along the train line, what had taken us 2 1/2 hours to get to following the river gorge. And, we managed to get out of the car park in one piece!

The Mini-Mountain

Ridgegate Reservoir

The second of our Peak District walks was Macclesfield Forest and Shutlingsloe hill. Heading towards the Peak District, we knew there'd be a lot of snow- there were still big snow clouds lingering from Boxing Day night (Boxing Night?), but we didn't quite realise how much there would be once we got up into the hills. Macclesfield had had a bit of snow, but no more than a few centimetres at best. So, when we got out the car and put on our boots at Ridgegate Reservoir, although the road was icy and there was a lot of snow in the forest, even then we didn't understand the amount of snow we were going to come across.
For reference, the walk we did should have taken around 2-4 hours, depending on walking pace and stops. In the very difficult weather, it took us around 6-7 hours. We did stop at the Hanging Gate pub for a fairly long time though.

Macclesfield Forest is owned by the Forestry Commission, and is used as a source of timber and water, from the two nearby reservoirs.It also has important leisure and wildlife connections. Primarily spruce, it provides habitat for goldcrest, crossbills and other coniferous-loving species. We headed up the red route towards Shutlingsloe through the forest, and quickly found that there was a lot more snow up here than there was in the middle of town!

Despite this, it was fairly busy in the forest, until we came to the footpath up to Shutlingsloe peak. Apparently another name for it is the mini-mountain, which, as I found out the following day, when we drove past and visibility across the Peak District was much better, was very very apt. It's 1,660ft high, and pretty much the epitome of a mountain in all but height. Straight up one side, straight down the other- when we came to it, through white-out snowclouds, there were a few people sledging, which made me think it was less steep than it actually was.

The bottom of Shutlingsloe

Then, I saw the path, disappearing up at a 45' angle, and realised we were in for a climb, rather than a walk. It was a trek up that can't really be put into words, so hopefully a few pictures will do it justice...

The top was sheer white-out, with none of the view to be seen. The path down the other side towards Wildboarclough was difficult to find through the masses of snow- there are actually two paths, one that's very steep, and one that felt very steep, but apparently wasn't quite as bad. In the thick snow that came up to our knees at points, it was pretty treacherous. It's not a walk for those who have any difficulty in walking difficult routes, because under the snow there were still tufts of grass, rocky bits and very steep parts of the path. Which I assume we were on, as most of the time we ended up just following previous walkers' tracks, and hoping we wouldn't trip and cause a broken ankle. There was no way of avoiding falling over completely, and more than once we both found ourselves covered in snow after a slip!

The 'view' at the top!

At the bottom the path ran down to Wildboarclough, and a small pub, the Crag Inn. We didn't stop as we had a long way to walk still, heading up through the fields on a footpath. This again, was popular with sledges and snowboarders! A couple of kestrels sat on the electricity wires near Sheepclough Gutter. We found a few more snowmen along the walk as well, and a big buzzard got disturbed on our approach to one of the remote farms found out in a valley.

The walk back from Wildboarclough

It was starting to get dull by the time we got to the last crest of hill and saw the Hanging Gate pub in front of us- caution had paid off, as we would have had a very long walk in failing light across hills if we had stopped at the Crag Inn! This last part of path was extremely muddy though, and a bit of a challenge to get down without getting stuck.

Happily we both kept our boots though, and found the Hanging Gate was tiny, but served hot chips and had a fire to dry our coats out a little bit by.

When we left it was dark, so I don't have any pictures of the walk back along the country lane to the car. It was very straightforward though (literally), and not difficult to walk at all. The snow clouds had cleared by this time (it was about 5.30pm), and the sky was utterly dark, with the stars really bright. The moon was only half-full, but we could see our shadows as we had our back to it walking along, which meant we kept checking back to make sure there wasn't a car on it's way! Thankfully it was very quiet, and we made it back to the reservoir fairly quickly for about 6pm. The last car there, there was none of the tricky parking that we had had to do in the morning!

The Shivering Mountain

Been on a bit of a hiatus over the holiday season, because I've been so busy travelling up and down the country and enjoying the (fairly good) weather! A large part of my holiday I was in the Peak District, so the next few posts are going to be from there.

On Boxing Day (my birthday), we headed to the Peak District from Macclesfield to Mam Tor. Mam Tor is a fairly massive steep hill near Castleton, which you can see from the top, factory belching smoke included. The path isn't the easiest climb, but it's well maintained by the National Trust, so it's not horrendous. Once you get to the top, there's an awesome view- even with cloud- and a nice long walk along the ridge of hills.

The path from Mam Tor

It gets a bit rougher further along, but even in the mucky damp weather we had, it was alright to climb, and very busy! In good weather, you can see really far, almost to Manchester, but we had low snow clouds for the whole day, so we couldn't see that far.

It took us a couple of hours to work our way along the top of the ridge and down towards Castleton, to the east of Mam Tor. The path down was a bit difficult for us to find, as our map was a little dated. There were some pretty steep bits here and there, and lots of winter mud too, but it was okay with walking boots on!
Castleton is small- we didn't go into it really as our path diverted away along the Odin Sitch river and back towards the hills, but we did find some chickens interested in stealing bits of gingerbread...

We also came across a hare bounding through the fields as we walked through the fields! Too quick to take photos of though, it was off in a flash. Heading back up the hills, we came to one of the most interesting bits of our walk; the A625 road. Now, this might not sound exciting at first mention- after all, how can just an A-road be interesting?

Backstory time! Mam Tor is also called the Shivering Mountain, because of Mam Tor's primarily shale geology. Multiple landslips have occurred over time, causing multiple smaller hills to form on the side of the peak itself. The A625 road was built in the 1800s, but closed in 1979 due to landslips distorting the road beyond safety. Once we got there, it was instantly obvious as to why!

Cross section of part of the old tarmacked road. The drop was a good 5ft down

You can see the effort put into trying to keep the road flat and open, by the multiple levels of tarmac put onto the road! It's ruined now, although a couple of cars did follow us up quite a long way along the driveable part of the road... which was concerning, when you couldn't see the drop in the previous picture until you were literally standing on it!

We didn't stick around for too long, as it was fairly late by the time we got to the road, and the snow clouds were starting to close in more and more. So, these are annoyingly the only two pictures I have! By the time we got back to the car though, it was dark. And, an extra-special birthday surprise, it started to snow when we were walking along the last (driveable) road to the National Trust car park for Mam Tor!

You can find the approximate route for the walk we did on the National Trust's page.

St James' Park

St James' Park in London, at first glance, looks pretty standard; but once you get to the lake, there are some really interesting ornamental ducks. In the 1930's, oriental ducks were introduced to St James' Park; today there are over 250 waterfowl on the lake. The most exotic of these are certainly the famous great white pelicans that once ate a pigeon (not for the faint hearted). There are 4 pelicans in the park today; clipped on one wing to stop them from escaping into London and causing chaos- which they used to do quite regularly, flying over to London Zoo to steal fish from the birds there! We were lucky enough to come across all four pelicans on our London adventures.

It's not just the pelicans that are awesome about St James' Park though. There are loads of smaller ducks that aren't found very frequently, and are really very cool. On an island in the middle of the main lake there's a bird breeding sanctuary. Visitors can't go and see the birds breeding there, but on the water it's easy to spot red-crested pochard, wigeon, mandarins (ducks, not small oranges), egyptian geese and possibly my new favourite, the fulvous whistling duck. The park also has booming populations of canada goose, swan (black as well as white), shag, heron, coot, moorhen, mallard and heron. Despite being in the middle of London, there's a huge range of birdlife! There's about 114 species annually, with around 90 extra rarer birds on top of that that sometimes visit.

 

The squirrels are well known for being some of the boldest, tamest around in this park as well. Bring peanuts at your peril, because they're absolutely everywhere, and won't hesitate to come and mob you for free food. They don't care at all if you creep up to get some close photos, although they are very curious! Too close, and they'll swipe at your camera lens.

 

It then leapt on my arm before skittering away when it found it had made a mistake

The pigeons are very tame too, and always on the lookout for food. We didn't even have anything to feed them, and they were all over our feet!

The best time to see the waterfowl is between November and April, because the drakes (male ducks) are in their breeding plumage, so are really brightly coloured. There are a couple of small cafes in the park to go and warm up in afterwards if it's a chilly day, so it's definitely something awesome to go and check out if you're ever in London for the day!

We went on a bear hunt...

This isn't really my normal sort of post, but at the moment London is covered in bears. Paddington bears! There have been a lot of sculpture trails in the past (you name it, there's probably been a sculpture trail of it), but these ones are pretty cute to go and visit a few. We actually came across another couple who were running around visiting all the sculptures within one day, who had already visited 20 when we found our first in Covent Garden at 10.30am! They were hoping to end up at the O2 dome by the end of the day having seen them all.

Covent Garden, Rainbow

The bears are in London from the 4th November to the 30th December, so they're still around for a while to go and visit over Christmas! There's 50 spread across London, a lot of them around Soho and Marylebone, so that's a good place to start if you want to see a lot in one go. There are also London Buses all over the place too, so tying the two together as one big sculpture trail could be a great day out exploring bits of London you might not normally end up in! We were heading towards the British Museum anyway, so a cheerful bear was an extra bonus to find outside.

British Museum, Bear Necessities

After running around the British Museum for a couple of hours, and then back to Covent Garden for lunch, the next place we happened across a Paddington was Regent's Park. I've got another post coming about Regent's Park itself, and its fantastic collection of ornamental waterfowl. This little bear was sitting outside by the Cabinet War Rooms though, providing more interesting stuff to look at outside the park as well as inside it.

Regent's Park, Paddington Jack

After wandering around Regent's Park a little bit, we headed back towards South Bank for the evening to see the Christmas Market via Big Ben. We managed to find another bear by surprise, which I think was my favourite one of the day. He was attracting a lot of interest when we turned up (which I think made him easier to find), but we managed to snap a quick picture when a few people wandered off again.

Westminster, Good News Bear

Jays

I've been quite surprised, after moving back into Hertfordshire, at the number of jays roaming around. Down in Dorset and up in Birmingham, a jay was a fairly rare sight for me; magpies and crows were much more common, and it was quite exciting to see a jay bouncing along a tree branch, or picking up leaves off the floor. Here though, while I keep expecting the terrible chak-chak-chak racket to be one of the former two birds, it normally always turns out that in fact it's a jay.

Image from RSPB.com

For all the commonness of them here, they still seem to be completely under the radar of most people- the first bird I tend to go for when the question's asked 'what's that big colourful bird?' is jay. I am always surprised by their unknown status by most when you take into account a jay's striking plumage; they must be one of the brightest large birds found in a garden, almost on a par with the green parakeets of London. I find these aren't quite as bold though, even if they are really very very noisy still!

Image from Wildlifephotographic.com

Jays are actually one of the biggest planters of acorns, collecting and planting up to 3000 acorns each in a month! This may be the reason for why I've been seeing so many around recently, as it's peak acorn time- and there are a lot of trees around where I live too, their preferred habitat. Jays, like all corvids, are clever birds. Although they don't use twig tools to get at food like crows do, a study by Cheke et al (2011) showed that they could actually learn to use tools if they wanted to. Multiple birds in the study learnt to use tool when they got an immediate reward, but less understood how to receive a reward when multiple different tools and stages were needed. Individual differences obviously had an effect. This was only a small study though, using five different birds, so conclusive evidence that jays can or cannot use tools to extract rewards shouldn't be taken from it. It can be said that they are very clever birds though!

Map from Birdforum.net

Jays are spread really widely across the world; the one we have in this country is the Eurasian jay (or just a jay, it's the original jay after other species in different countries are named). They're pretty birds, and I do enjoy seeing them, but they can make you jump with the noise they make!