Wallington West Woods

I enjoyed a very pleasant afternoon at the observation hide in Wallington's West Woods yesterday. The weather was fine, if suddenly very much colder after the recent mild spell.

Activity at the two feeders was frenetic: Chaffinch, Nuthatch, Robin and Blue, Great and Coal Tits were all regular visitors. Happily, the ground-feeding chaffinches were joined by a group of four Brambling; I was particularly pleased to these as they are still to return to my Redesdale garden this year. Two male Great Spotted Woodpecker's were present and a Jay put in an occasional appearance. A single Red Squirrel popped in and out to feed from nuts it found on the ground.

A male Brambling (Fringilla montifringilla)
A male Great Spotted Woodpecker (Dendrocopus major)
Red Squirrel (Sciurus vulgaris)
I include a picture of the Jay (Garrulus glandarius), only because I am pleased to have photographed one for the first time (it's certainly no prize winner).

Exmoor Ponies in Redesdale

The ancestors of all our native pony breeds came overland from Alaska approximately 130,000 years ago and became widely distributed throughout what is now the British Isles. Dramatic changes in our climate some ten thousand years ago restricted the amount of open grazing available to mainly the mountain and moorland areas of Britain. The herds became isolated in these upland areas and the British hill pony developed as a result.


First domesticated by the Celts, these herds of ponies can trace their history largely through their first contact with man. Although there is little early written evidence of the Exmoor pony, records from the sixteenth century onwards show that there have been as many as a thousand as few as fifty living on the moor at different times. In the early part of the last century, for example, due almost entirely to the popularity of the Moorland Mousie children’s stories of Muriel Wallace, the breed enjoyed something of a revival. Their numbers then declined for several reasons, not least because of changes in farming practice and the choice of other, more fashionable breeds, for pleasure riding. More recently, thanks to the dedication of a number of hill farmers, their number has again grown steadily and the worldwide population is now more than a thousand. Put into context, this still makes the Exmoor pony rarer than the Giant Panda and the breed is classified as critically endangered by the WWF-UK.


Exmoor ponies are stocky and strong, with deep chests and large girths. They are bay, brown or dun in colour, with black points and no white markings; this allows them to blend in well with their native background of heather, grass and bracken. The large capacity of the digestive system is important in winter as they consume large quantities of rough material which provides them with internal warmth. And because their teeth are well adapted to a coarse diet, the ponies do not damage plants as readily as other breeds. Instead they graze neatly around them, allowing the plants to flourish and increase in number. Because of this, small groups of Exmoor ponies are being pressed into ecological service all around the country, grazing open spaces and helping maintain the natural balance of the indigenous flora.


There are a number of sites in Northumberland where Exmoor ponies are helping in this conservation work. The ponies shown here, living on the moor below Padon Hill, a little more than three miles west of my Redesdale home, are mostly yearlings and are expected to spend the next three years grazing this site. They will be gelded in the autumn and will return to spend the winter on the moor. These attractive ponies would previously have had a very uncertain future; now with the help of the Moorland Mousie Trust they will go on to make lovely family ponies in time.

Short-tailed Vole

One of the seed feeders at the observation hide at Wallington Hall hangs beside a twiggy pyramid erected by the wardens to provide cover for the visiting birds. When I visited the hide last weekend, a tiny creature popped its head out of a hole in the earth under this structure and looked around. The ground surrounding the hole was covered in wasted sunflower seeds, some of which had germinated. The creature, a short-tailed vole, emerged from the hole and fed briefly from the seeds before returning underground down an adjacent hole.

Short-tailed Vole (Microtis argretis)
Because of the poor available light, it was quite hard to process a record picture from the deeply shadowed original. I hope the following will serve to confirm identification.

Short-tailed Vole (Microtis argretis)

Red Squirrels

A population of red squirrels is clinging on in the woodland surrounding Wallington Hall, a National Trust property in mid-Northumberland. If you are lucky, you can see them almost anywhere in the woodland but the best views are from the observation hide in the West Woods. Here they come to glean the sunflower seeds and peanuts dropped by birds visiting the feeders.

Today, there are only three seed feeders at the observation hide; the bird table and all the other feeders, including some very large peanut feeders fastened to the trees, have been removed. Recent thinking suggests that if feeders are used by both red and grey squirrels they can be responsible for spreading the squirrel-pox virus which is fatal to the reds.

The two red squirrels I watched on Sunday were finding easy pickings amongst the wasted bird food under one of the feeders. My friend Harold took this beautiful picture of one of the reds sitting amongst the grass to the side of the feeders, and I would like to thank him for sharing it here ...

Red Squirrel (Sciurus vulgaris)
Red squirrels survive in woodlands throughout Northumberland. You can read more about their protection here.

An Unexpected Meeting

After my visit to Falstone Moss, I travelled home by Sidwood and Black Middens. I had seen a male Emerald Damselfly at Sidwood on an earlier visit and hoped to find it again and take a better picture. There was no sign of the male but a female put in an appearance and made a very fine study on the grass she settled on ...

Emerald Damselfly (Lestes Sponsa)
Black Middens, as you will know if you have been following my recent pieces, is just across the Tarset Burn from Sidwood. I travelled up the valley towards Comb, at the end of the metalled lane where the forestry tracks begin. Someone had told me I might expect to find dragonflies in one of the lane-side fields. As I approached the field, my attention was distracted by animal activity at the side of the lane ahead of me. And then, after a moment and walking down the lane towards me, was a young badger. It was about five in the afternoon.

I stopped, hardly able to believe what I was seeing. Perhaps I should have just taken its picture through the car windscreen and hoped for the best. I reached for my camera, however, and gently opened the car door. By this time the badger was sitting at the side of the lane, its head raised as if sniffing me out. On putting a first foot outside of the car, it disappeared into the undergrowth and down the bank towards the burn.

There were no dragonflies in the field but the sighting of the badger more than made up for their absence. Later, I stopped to photograph a Small Tortoiseshell, basking in the sun ...

Small Tortoiseshell (Aglais urticae)
And this Pied Wagtail, standing on a fence post, finished off a good afternoon.

Pied Wagtail (Motacilla alba)

A Hare on the Hill

The road in highest parts of Upper Coquetdale is very narrow, sometimes barely a car-width, and in places where the valley side is at its steepest, the road seems to look for the best contour and cling on by its finger tips. Occasionally, on the sharpest bends, there is an old post and rail fence on the down-side edge of the road. These are a blessing to passing itchy sheep but I doubt they would stop an errant motorist from crashing over the edge and down into the river.

It was on just such a bend last week that I came upon a carefree Brown Hare sitting in the middle of the road. The hare sat perfectly still, seemingly unstartled by my arrival. I reached for my camera and it was only when I lifted it to my eye that the hare reacted. Two quick steps took it across the road and up onto the grassy valley side. I thought I'd seen the last of it, but no. As I drove slowly forward, I saw that it was just above me in the grass, ears erect, eyes alert, crouched and ready to spring off in a flash.

Watching hares is always rewarding but this was a rather special encounter.

Brown Hare (Lepus capensis)

Redesdale

My friend Beryl Charlton, in her book The Story of Redesdale, says: "The jewel in Redesdale's crown is it's history, for this is the valley which is richer in story and ballad than any other in England. Prehistoric people built their settlements here, the Romans established themselves at High Rochester and buried their dead in a cemetery near by. The most bitter battle in the medieval Anglo-Scottish wars was fought in Otterburn and the Border Reivers carried on their deadlie feuds from strongholds in the valley. The 17th century Covernanters held seccret meetings in the hills, whisky smugglers and drovers used the old Roman road of Dere Street and the body of the murderer William Winter was hung on the gibbet above Elsdon. The violence and stubborn courage, bloodshed and romance, triumphs and tragedies continue to excite the imagination of historians, novelists and poets".

The valley is also a place of great natural beauty, especially for those who seek it out. Kingfishers and herons patrol the river Rede and red squirrels are found in its woodland. And in spring and summer, the haunting call of breeding curlews is all around. Sadly, too many pass through without noticing in their haste to reach Scotland, just over the hill pass at Carter Bar at the valley head.


The River Rede


Brown Hare (Lepus capensis)


Meadow Pipit (Anthus pratensis)


Rupert's Wood

Watching Fallow Deer

I spent an afternoon recently looking for the fallow deer in Billsmoor Park, on the edge of Coquetdale. It's a beautiful place and fills much of the ground in the centre of my title picture. You can see the wall enclosing the park taking an up hill line in the right of the picture. As might be expected, the deer are very nervous and they move around a good bit, shifting each time you get close to them, so I had a long walk to keep up with them.


The buck, pictured below, was seen on an earlier occasion and photographed from a greater distance, some 350 yards, from outside the park wall. All of the pictures were taken with my Nikon D50 DSLR camera and Nikkor 70-300mm VR zoom lens.