Sofa-birding

I'm going to sneak in one last blog post for 30DaysWild because I never got around to writing this one up and I rather enjoyed doing it.

This was from the Saturday after the referendum, when I was feeling a little low in mood and not particularly well either.  Various plans I'd had to go out had fallen through and to be honest I was feeling a little sorry for myself.

As beneficial as a day's birding would have been, I wanted nothing more than a day on the sofa catching up with Netflix.  But I also had to get in something for my 30 Days Wild, so I decided that I'd see what I could see out of my window.

Now, I really don't have much of a view out of my living room window.  Its an upstairs flat in central Newcastle and looks out onto a back alley and the roofs of the terraced houses in the next street along.  There's not a trace of any greenery.  It really doesn't look very good for birding.  It's certainly not like my last garden; a large, wild space backing onto a train line and then a golf course, birding gold!

So I wasn't too hopeful.  This started out as something of a throw-away gesture.  But I surprised myself.  Once I'd set myself this challenge I started paying a lot more attention to what was out there.  It started out strongly with some Swifts soaring high.  Herring Gulls were also passing over and wheeling around pretty regularly.  There were also occasional feral Pigeons flying straight over.

Then a Jackdaw came and sat on the chimney pots opposite.  A Carrion Crow found something to eat at the top of the neighbours' roof, dropped it and chased it all the way down the tiles.  Starlings gathered on the wires and descended en masse into the alley to scavenge among the bins.  A couple of fat Woodpigeons found a chimney to shelter on for a little while.  Magpies soared overhead.  As I got my eye in I was able to pick out the occasional Lesser Black-backed Gull among the Herring Gulls.

One of the biggest challenges was that I could only see a relatively small patch of sky, and often a bird would be past as soon as I saw it.  I learnt how to pick them out quickly, or I missed them when I waited to see them from the second window and they never appeared.

30 Days Microadventure

Last night I slept in the woods.

This wasn't something I'd been planning, but it made sense for two reasons, two challenges. The first is Alastair Humphreys' microadventure challenge, or rather his Great British Summer Microadventure Challenge (linky) where he's trying to get an overnight microadventure happening in every county of the UK in June.  A microadventure can be as simple as spending a night sleeping on a hill, a beach or in a wood, preferably without a tent. Now, I've already done one of these, with my overnight stay in North Yorkshire, but last week I discovered that Tyne and Wear hadn't been done yet.  I could hardly leave my home county as a blank space on his map, could I?  Plus, Alistair has prizes to give away, and I could really do with the kit!  (Did I mention his excellent blog? Just follow the link above, and if you like the idea of microadventuring, he's also written a book on it).

The second challenge is the Wildlife Trust's 30 Days Wild challenge, which is coming to an end today.  I've loved doing this but have been struggling a bit for the last week, so I really wanted to finish it off with something special.

Now this was the fourth night this year I've spent sleeping in the wild, but it was very different to the others.  This is because there was no other purpose to it.  I wasn't backpacking and spreading my trip over multiple days.  I wasn't there to see any nocturnal wildlife or to get an early start on a day's birding.  I was purely there for the fun of a night in the woods.  I didn't even take my binoculars or camera! I was also pleasantly surprised how much lighter my pack was without my cooking kit, so maybe it's time to shop for a lightweight stove!  I arrived at the woodland centre at about ten o'clock at night, walked up to a nice, remote spot where I'd actually practiced with my hammock one afternoon in March, spent the night and came home on the first bus at half past five.

Just like in Yorkshire I took my hammock but didn't bother with a tarp cover.  It really makes a huge difference to the feel of it, you feel so much more open and not at all like you would in a tent.  Obviously there's also a big difference in how sheltered you are and I certainly wouldn't fancy a wet or windy night without it, but one of the beauties of microadventuring is that you can easily base it around the weather.  This time though I did throw my new bivvy bag in on top of my sleeping bag for some protection in case of showers.  I discovered it kept me a lot warmer, even if I didn't need the waterproofing.  My hammock has a built-in mosquito net that I hadn't used before last night but that got used too as the midges started biting as I was setting up.

One thing I love about hammock camping is that it totally changes how you look at camping sites.  This is particularly useful in woods, where it's hard to find an open spot that's level and clear of roots and stumps.  With the hammock I don't even need to clear the pine cones away!

I was far from alone in the woods.  There were at least two Tawny Owls calling earlier on, a deer barking off in the distance, and then I was woken shortly after three by a roding Woodcock flying, grunting and whistling over my head.  Shortly after this, the Song Thrushes got the dawn chorus started, with the Woodcock joining in as best he could, before everyone else joined in.  It was a really special treat to be able to just lie there, snug and warm, drifting in and out of sleep to that orchestra and a wonderful way to start the last day of my 30 days wild.  It was made even better when a gorgeous young Fox wandered along the path just a few metres away, totally oblivious to me.

Sleeping up there, I felt like I was somewhere remote, somewhere wild.  It was actually quite startling to see that just five minutes walk had me back at the bus stop on a fairly busy road, and to be back in Newcastle in twenty minutes.

It felt like quite a big leap doing this, in some ways a bigger leap than backpacking across the Highlands or the North York moors, because I was still so close to urban centres, but it's definitely something I'll be doing again!

The Stars Aren't Coming Out Tonight

I was pretty busy most of day 16 finishing off a play-house project for my kids in my wife's garden in Blyth, and then settled in for a film night with my mum, when we watched Stardust.
Afterwards, while Take That were belting out the end credits theme, I decided that since I was still quite awake and as it was a lovely summer's evening, I'd sit out in her garden for a while with a wee dram.

Disappointment followed on almost every count.  Firstly, there was but half a dram left in her whisky bottle.  Secondly, there was not a star to be seen.  I really shouldn't be surprised by this.  After all I grew up in Newcastle, and have lived there most of my life apart from a few years in central Liverpool and a time in Blyth.  I've often said in this very blog that there is a surprising amount of nature to be found in our cities and other urban environments, but one of the main drawbacks of urban living is found whenever you look up at night.

Light pollution is such a problem that even at midnight on a fairly clear night you get nothing but a dull, colourless haze.  Now that I've got my hammock, and my bivvy bag has just arrived too, I'm definitely going to get out and spend the night at a few of Northumberland's dark sky sights.  I want to see the stars.  I want to see other planets and other moons.  I really, really want to see the Northern Lights.  What I don't want to see on those rare occasions when I stay up late is reflected lights on the clouds and precious little else.

Some more whisky would be nice too!  Luckily my lovely mother brought me a one litre bottle of Jameson's back from her recent Ireland trip and I still have my whisky flask tucked away somewhere.




Oh, and in case you were wondering... Here is the play house, now finished.  I still think it would be better if you removed the swings, hung some bird feeders up on those hooks and used it as a bird hide, but my wife and three kids aren't having any of it!

Fields of Gold

I had quite a busy day for day 15, with a Work Programme appointment in the morning, followed by a far from pleasant trip to the dentist in the afternoon.  You know your dental appointment isn't going well when the dentist's assistant steps back and looks away and your dentist says to her "You're not keen on gore, are you?"  It makes you wonder just what is going on in your mouth.

But enough about that...

I had to sneak in what wildness I could between appointments.  Luckily, despite living in the middle of a busy city, that isn't really a problem.  The route from my house to my dentist takes me right across Newcastle Town Moor, a vast open space of grassland just north of the city centre, which has Skylarks ascending and hirundines swooping across it.  On this particular wet and murky Wednesday it was pure gold.  There were buttercups everywhere.  It felt like the only sunshine to be found was growing straight up out of the grass.

With cows grazing in the background it was hard at times to believe that I was still in the city, and the flowers really brightened up my day.  I also noticed that the few Swallows that were out were flying very low to the ground, which made me wonder if this is related to the weather at all?  Maybe the insects don't fly as high in the damp?

After the carnage at the dentist, I walked through Jesmond Dene to my dad's house.  Hidden away at the top of the dene is one of my favourite places in the whole city, St Mary's Chapel.  Believe it or not, at one time this small chapel was one of the most important pilgrimage sites in the whole country and brought religious people flocking to Newcastle.  Now it's been left to go wild and this little corner of the dene always seems very quiet and seldom visited, unlike some of the main paths.

There were plenty of birds singing, though I didn't manage to see or identify many of them.  Just walking through there though, I could feel my soul being restored.  Maybe it's finding that connection with nature, or maybe there is something of power lingering in these old sacred stones?

Stolen Moments of Wildness

I was challenged last week by a good friend of mine, the Sedgedunum Warbler, (check out his blog here) as to whether I could count half an hour of sitting on a wall in Killingworth new town as "wild".  As ever, he had a point.  Compared with spending 24 hours in a remote forest or backpacking around the Scottish Highlands, it didn't really feel particularly wild.  But we can't have big adventures like that every day.  In fact, I've found that a lot of my bigger plans for June's 30 Days Wild have been curtailed or at least postponed because the Work Programme has finally caught up with me and filled my diary up with meetings and workshops.  This has left me with a random selection of free mornings, afternoons and evenings, but very few full days or longer periods to get away somewhere truly wild in.

Given this suddenly relatively busy schedule, I've found myself relying more and more on small patches of "wildness", which are generally urban.  These provide a valuable break in my day and I think they are just as important in their own way as the bigger adventures.  Besides, there's something lovely about being able to get close to nature in the middle of a city.  It feels almost like cheating, connecting like that so close to home.

Day nine saw me heading up to Killingworth, a new town built on the outskirts of Newcastle.  Despite growing up in the city I'd never visited Killy before the start of this year, when I headed up to see a Smew on the lake there.  There are actually two lakes, one fairly large and a smaller one just across the main road from it.  It's actually a lovely little oasis in a rather built up area.  My main reason for this visit was the report of some Great Crested Grebe chicks.  I love grebes, but I've never actually seen these little "humbugs" before, though I have seen Black-necked Grebe chicks.  The sun was shining, as I started with the larger of the two lakes.

One of the first things I found was a Great Crested Grebe sitting on a nest ridiculously close to the bank, being watched by three other people.  I learnt that one there were three eggs in the nest, two of which had been laid that morning.  I spent a very pleasant hour or so sitting watching the grebes, who swapped places a couple of times, while chatting to a fellow birder, Brian, who I'd never met before.








These are really beautiful birds, and the opportunity to watch them so closely was superb.  I'll definitely be coming back to see how they get on.  It was also a pleasure to meet Brian and to swap birding stories with him.  There was another Grebe with a chick on the smaller lake, but it was fairly distant and unfortunately I didn't get a very good look.  Hopefully this pair will be successful and I'll get to see some humbugs next month.

Mallard ducklings and Mute Swan cygnets added to the baby bird list.  The cygnets were the first I've seen this year, and a picture of them went straight to my sister in London, as we have an informal annual competition for the cutest baby bird pictures.

Day ten ended up being another quickie.  On the way to my mum's house in Heaton I took a small detour and spent half an hour sitting by a stream reading my butterfly book.  I grew up near Jesmond Dene and the Ouseburn will always have a place in my heart.  One of my favourite stretches of the river (apart from the bit with the pubs on it!) is the section between the Cradlewell Bypass and the culvert, because it's relatively cut off and quiet.

There's a bridge that goes over the river below the bypass, with a small trail down to the bank and it's a lovely little spot to sit, with the traffic well overhead and very few passers by.  I always think it would be a good spot to take the kids to play along the river, and maybe build a troll den (one of the National Trust's extra messy selection of 50 things to do before you're 11 3/4) as the river level here is very low and there's a lot of exposed stones.  It made a lovely place to sit and read about the butterflies I'm still hoping to get out and see this summer, if my diary and the weather forecast ever align.

I didn't see any Dippers or Kingfishers, two of the star species of the Ouseburn, but I did see a lovely colourful Grey Wagtail on the other side of the bridge.

On day eleven, I went out with my mum for a bit of a twitch.  There's been a Red-necked Phalarope on Grindon Lough for a few weeks now, a bird I've never seen before.  I've tried for it once before, on the way down to the Dales with some friends, but we dipped on that occasion, possibly because a farmer on a quad bike flushed everything just as we arrived.  It had been reported again though, so I managed to persuade my mum to drive up there and spare me the long uphill walk from Haydon Bridge.  I got pretty decent views of the bird, considering I didn't have a scope.  It was close in to the bank on the western end of the lough, and easily distinguishable by shape, size and behaviour though I couldn't see the colours or markings in the poor light.  I'm not sure I'd really call this an act of wildness though, as all I really did was drive up, get out, look at the bird for a few minutes and then head home.

What was truly lovely and probably a lot more in line with the Wildlife Trust's aim for this campaign was the hawthorn hedgerows we drove past the whole way there and back.  These were in full blossom, a gorgeous mix of white and pink flowers covering every tree and made the drive up to Grindon Lough a pleasure in its own right.  This transitory beauty is one of the things I find so special about early summer.  These flowers are everywhere for a few days and then they are gone again for another year.

Red-necked Phalarope:
Life list - 255
Year list - 216.

Random encounters

I spend an awful lot of my time going out looking for specific birds, mammals, butterflies, dragonflies and damselflies.  I have a library of books that I use for my research, site guides, species field guides, calendars, and piles of information leaflets I pick up everywhere I go. I use the internet, reading blogs and checking Twitter to get the latest news on what can be seen where.

Despite all of this, some of the most exciting encounters are totally random. Today was one of those days.

I've been out looking for Holly Blue butterflies several times now, in parks and graveyards, without any success. Today was a lovely sunny day but I couldn't get out any where because I was spending the day with my youngest son at my dad's. We were enjoying tea and toast in his back garden when a Holly Blue flew right over my head into the neighbouring garden. A few minutes later it came back around past us for another look. I couldn't believe my luck!

Later on we popped down the road for a bit of shopping in Sainsbury's and I found my first Angle Shades moth, a really lovely specimen, sitting on the side of a litter bin on the main road.

Two wonderful little insects I couldn't have planned to see, but which really made my day.

Then we picked the other two kids up from school and went wild at the beach!

Urban Wild Spaces

I am a big fan of urban wild spaces.  I adore deep forests and long sweeping coastlines, but equally I couldn't do without those little pockets of wildness that I can just dip into on a daily basis.  I'm very lucky where I live in Newcastle.  I have Leazes Park just a few minutes away, and my route into the city centre takes me right through it.  I also have the Town Moor to the north, with its Skylarks and hirundines, and the river to the south.  The trouble with these spaces though is that I don't often get them all to myself, particularly on days like yesterday when the sun is shining.


Of course it is a good thing that other people are connecting with nature too, but sometimes I just don't feel like sharing my little bit of wildness with the fitness groups, the dog walkers, the anglers and the sun bathers. So yesterday I took myself somewhere I hadn't been to before, even though I'd passed it hundreds of times; somewhere where there were 25,000 other people, but where I could feel totally alone with nature; somewhere surprisingly full of life.

Jesmond Old Cemetery is just outside Newcastle city centre.  It has been "retired" from use, and allowed to go fairly wild, though in a cared-for and managed way by the Friends of the cemetery.  It's also really quite beautiful.  There's a blending of nature and sculpture throughout the cemetery that makes it so much more interesting than a simply overgrown wild space would have been.

There are also some simply magnificant trees, vast things, with spreading canopies, often covered in ivy right up their trunks.

 

I particularly liked these two trees, blending together to create one large, multi-coloured tree in a most attractive way.

There were plenty of birds around too.  A Wren was singing from the top of a tombstone, Blackbirds in the bushes around the edge and this Crow looking particularly appropriate for the surroundings.

Little gaps and holes in the cemetery wall provided additional nesting areas for small birds.  I could hear baby birds calling from several tiny little holes between the blocks, and found a pair of Blue Tits disappearing into another hole.

I don't know who is buried here, but it is quite lovely seeing nature being allowed to take over like this.  I hope whoever it is doesn't mind!

One of the more elaborate sculptures, and a very pretty one.  Things like this really made this wild space a special one.

There were loads of Celtic crosses throughout the cemetery, but I've never come across anything quite like these flowered crosses before, and thought they were really charming.

A fine example of Celtic knotwork.

If this inspires you to explore a cemetery too, just don't forget one final piece of advice: Don't blink!

Close Encounters of the Wild Kind

Hello and welcome to my new blog.

Today is day one of the Wildlife Trust's 30 Days Wild campaign, and I'll be spending the whole of June doing something wild each and every day. I've got a few plans, involving the coastline, mountains and valleys and woodland, but I still need to come up with a few more ideas. I'll also be blogging about it all, which is something new for me.

Today being half term I got to spend the whole day with my three kids. The plan had been a trip up to Bamburgh where I was hoping for some rock pooling, but the weather forecast was against us and we settled on a museum day in Newcastle instead.

I had a couple of great outcomes from today: you don't need to go out into the wilderness for some special wild encounters and getting up close to wild animals is absolutely amazing for small children!

We started in Leazes Park, in the centre of Newcastle and backing right onto St James' Park. A Common Tern was circling the lake and the young Coots have reached the cute stage. The real treat though was when we abandoned the soggy playground and went stalking for rabbits along the paths. Moving slowly and quietly, my children managed to find at least half a dozen rabbits, and got close enough for some great views before the bunnies disappeared with flicking white tails.

Later in the day we headed down to and across the river to the Baltic Art Gallery. I'm not generally a big fan of the modern art inside the gallery but I am a strong admirer of the birds nesting on the outside of the building. The Tyne Black-legged Kittiwake colony is the most inland colony of these attractive small gulls in the world and is a special part of our quayside, and the viewing gallery jutting out of the fourth floor of the Baltic has to be one of the best places in the world to see these birds. Where else can you get to within mere inches of them without disturbing them at all?

It can be hard at times to get even generally wildlife enthused children interested in bird watching when they are struggling to pick the birds out in the distance or amidst dense foliage. Even I find it rather soul destroying at times! But with close encounters like this it's easy. There's nothing between them and a whole load of wild birds but a protective glass screen. They were enchanted and the Kittiwakes were totally unfazed. 

We then moved inside where the RSPB team from Coquet Island was running an event about Puffins and Roseate Terns. We took the kids on the Amble Puffin Cruise last year around Coquet Island, so they were happy to sit for ages colouring in Puffin pictures while I had a fascinating chat with some of the team who spend the summer living on the island protecting and monitoring the birds. They also had some shiny tech to show off and a pair of 360° vr glasses gave me a Puffin-eye view of life on this lovely little island off the Northumberland coast. The Puffin experience left a lasting impression on me!

It all proved a little much for child number three who fell asleep during a video about the Terns!

So a fantastic start to my 30 Days Wild campaign and some great wild encounters in the middle of an urban environment.