Patten's Quarry

After a 400-and-something-step climb the ground opens into the vast bowl of Patten’s Quarry. Huge beeches form a stockade, their great buttress roots showing the most recent attempts to excavate the limestone. The winter sun struggles to reach the meadow, which in mid summer would be awash with bee orchids and bee beetles. It is now empty, except for a towering yew. There is a 20m tall sheer rock face at one end; the other end is open, gaping out down the gorge, where the Severn snakes away. The town of Ironbridge is a mere 300m below and although you can see it, it can’t see you. I descend through the woods down the old railway line and before I know it I’m back amongst the hustle and bustle of the Ironbridge tourists. Little do they know that above them lies a quarry, which produced the limestone for the iron of the world famous bridge, and nowadays produces some of the county’s best sightings.

Forever autumn

Is it the end of summer or the beginning of autumn? The steep hedgerows are a deep emerald and lack the early summer colours of dead nettles, yellow archangel and garlic mustard. A huge sycamore proudly brandishes its red stems, which stand out magnificently in the greenery. There’s a flicker of red in the sea of green and a pair of ruddy darter dragonflies emerge to wrestle in mid air. A stiff north wind picks up, driving the darters and the summer sun away. The thistles’ purple flowers have disappeared - bad news for bees but brilliant for birds, and I notice goldfinch and greenfinch gnawing at the cotton wool seed heads. I cross into another field where a hedge keeps the wind at bay and the season switches back to summer, golden stubble providing rich pickings for birds from crows to great tits. Walking along the verge of the next empty, ploughed field, autumn seems set to stay, and the bleak browns which will carry through to winter dominate. But there’s colour in the hedgerow: beautiful, bountiful colour - sloe and hawthorn laden with blue and red berries and rich, succulent blackberries hidden under fiery rosehips.

Hare today...gone tomorrow

From the savannah-like grassland, burnt and browned by the late summer sun, Europe’s cheetah emerges. First some black ears and yellow eyes then some white feet and a tail. The brown hare is the fastest mammal in Europe, reaching speeds of 45 mph, however due to loss of habitat it has been steadily declining. It moves quickly and cautiously, ears twitching, eyes darting, feet pounding silently on the dry grass. It is startled and dives into the meadow, the swallows are chattering as the hobby glides past, yet I focus on the hare, invisible in the swaying stems of scabious. The minutes pass before it emerges again, hugging the meadow at all times. It then plucks up enough courage to cross the garden to the vegetable plot, looking around nervously it wanders in, eyeing up the cabbages greedily. Normally I would run in and scare off the intruder at this point, but today I just watch the animal nibble the crop-it’s not everyday that you get a hare coming for tea.

The perfect hobby

They’re not harvesting here yet, but yesterday the sickle shaped wings of the hobby cut through the Shropshire landscape. A pair of ‘big swifts’ darted between the motionless pines and poplars of the Corve Dale making even the swallows look sluggish. They changed direction and altitude in a matter of seconds, elegantly effortless, as they hawked for hawker dragonflies. The hobby is the peregrine’s daintier and more agile cousin, smaller than a kestrel or sparrow hawk it flies direct and at speed. It is a great migrant, wintering, like the swallows it hunts, in Africa, and possibly the pair I saw were already on their way south. Certainly I haven’t spotted them before. I focus the binoculars on them as they circle, silhouetted far above my head, then suddenly, out of the blue, they dive. The chase is on. Struggling to keep up with them I see the slate-blue wings, white cheek patch and the heavily streaked belly. They swoop across the grass almost scratching the hedge top, and then, as they head back into a dizzying climb, they finally flap their wings.

Moth magic

Moth trapping is a hobby I strongly advise everyone to get involved with: it’s very cheap, requiring only a light and some egg boxes, and, with thousands of British moth species, it’s infinitely rewarding as you reveal the night’s haul.

            Today there was a good mixture of the common, the spectacular and the quirky. The ermines - fairly small, either white or light brown, with black spots – are common, yes, but equal to many butterflies in terms of beauty, and ten can easily visit in one night. The great thing about moths is the majority are asleep in the morning so require no chasing after with a butterfly net. But some are more lively than others and the carpets often refuse to sit still. A green carpet, freshly emerged, is one of the commonest garden moths, but with its jet black and emerald green wing is incredibly striking. Many of the moths you might disturb in patches of nettles during the day are carpets and they are fast flying – often making a mass breakout from the trap in a shower of green, white, brown or yellow.

            Poplar hawkmoths are a regular. At about 4 cm across and quite happy to sit in your hand, you could almost make pets of them. Today I had a first - the spectacle - which gets its name from the ‘spectacles’ around its eyes. Species I have never seen before can visit the trap and I have been trapping for five years now. Moths are some of Britain’s most underrated animals: very few people have seen the rich metallic gleam of the burnished brass, the painted crimson splodges of the garden tiger or the bird dropping-like Chinese character. Once you have – you’re hooked

Summertime...and the living is easy

On the hottest day of the year so far, I take a stroll where both the parched landscape of summer and the greenery of spring sit side by side. On Windmill Hill, above the carpet of trefoil, speedwell, buttercups and clover, small heath butterflies dance restlessly. Wild strawberry flowers twinkle through the grass and a startled rabbit bounds away from me. I take a path diagonally down through warped trunks, onto the old railway.

            On the track I realise how dry it’s been. The earth is like concrete, although ferns, wild garlic and minute willow saplings have managed to penetrate it. I see flashes of wings - a dunnock darting in front of me with a caterpillar; a wren cocking her head on a low branch. The shade becomes dappled, then dark, so I can now only hear the birds. A jay cackles as I try to spot it amongst the trees. Only the blackbirds reveal themselves, skittering across the path in their search for food.

            Back out in the sunshine I marvel at the swallows’ aerial acrobatics as they wheel around their roostings in some old, unconverted barns. I head down an arrow straight track, through clouds of cow’s parsley. The foliage is abuzz with life: soldier beetles, red tailed bumble bees, lesser spotted crane flies, and the metallic tick of click beetles. A small tortoiseshell darts past my ear; a speckled wood brushes the hedge top.

            In the next field there’s a beautifully clear stream. Along its banks, ragged robin and dog daisies make the most of the water, along with the midges which feed the swooping swallows. A brimstone butterfly flashes yellow. Summer.

Where kestrels dare

There’s a gliding club on the Long Mynd but the true masters of the airspace above the Shropshire Hills are the kestrels. Atop the highest peak in Shropshire-Abdon Burf on the Brown Clee - I think I have the greatest view in the county. From the Clent Hills to Cader Idris, from the wilds of the Mynd to the urban skyline of Birmingham, I can see for 70 miles in every direction. I stand admiring it until a silhouette skirts the ground before me - a kestrel. Head into the wind it hovers, glides, swoops and soars, covering the slopes in a blink of an eye or hanging motionless, for an eternity defying the wind. On a hilltop you see kestrels as you rarely do from lower ground, at eye level, or even from above.

            The kestrel drops beyond the slope and I walk back. The top of the Clee is more of a plateau than a peak encompassing ponds, bogs and marshes. A reed bunting perches in a reed bed, its call non existent over the howling wind. Wagtails dart on the grass between the most powerful of gusts and crows walk rather than fly. A wheatear hops onto some quarried rocks-the Brown Clee was once heavily quarried and the scars, such as the ruined stone crushing plant, are still visible. Although there is an abundance of birds and a variety of them, they hug the ground: the wind is too strong for them, not one flies where the kestrels dare.       

Spotted! - flycatcher

For all my time living at this house I’ve marvelled at the airborne agility of the swallows, however this year those ‘red arrows’ may have a dog fight on their hands...

            For several days I have seen a bird from the window but have dismissed it as ‘just another warbler’- brown colouration, fairly small -  and I’ve never got close enough to identify it properly. Yesterday an opportunity arose, as it perched  conveniently on the car aerial. Bird book in hand, I watched for ten minutes and worked my way through each warbler, discarding them in turn. It was only when I turned the page onto flycatchers that I saw a photo jump out at me.

            A spotted flycatcher. At close range you can see the streaks on its head and breast that seems less pure than most warblers. And this bird was more captivating than the warblers, rather than hiding in trees or reed beds this was out in the open and its large black eyes were constantly turning, tilting and taking in the surroundings. Sure enough I was shown why it gets its name. Whereas the swallows dart around in constant flight the flycatcher is like a guided missile, from its perch - the aerial -  it locked onto some prey, darted off and returned in a single swift movement. Sadly the spotted flycatcher is declining - between 1980 and 2005 numbers fell by 79% - so I’m very privileged to see such a bird at such close quarters. The real moral of this story, however, is never make assumptions. Nature is full of surprises and is constantly out to trick us: if I had lazily assumed and called the flycatcher ‘just another warbler’, I may have never spotted the spotted flycatcher

Swallow that!

I’m reminded of Blue Planet – a swirling mass of mackerel whipped into a ‘bait ball’ by speeding tuna - as I watch the fifty or so swallows wheeling, circling and diving over the pond. At around 2:00 pm - even in the most terrible of conditions – they gather, swooping and skimming the water, in their hunt for the newly hatched flying insects.

            It is those insects I went in search of today. Faintly inspired by Springwatch I went pond dipping, something, rather like rock pooling, guaranteed to bring out the kid in everyone. With every net load you get a new trophic level – the entire pond pecking order from hydra and bloodworms to water fleas and great diving beetle nymphs. If you never break the surface of a pond, you never really see this diverse and hugely important ecosystem. And by temporarily transferring them to a plastic container, you get to witness their interactions firsthand. It is the nymphs that interest me the most, though. From the strangely familiar, large eyed and long tailed damselfly nymphs to the transparent body of the phantom midge larvae. It is these animals that link the pond to the sky - providing vital roles in both ecosystems.

Bluebell Beauty

An annual pilgrimage to Helmeth Hill, some fabulous spring woods. Before I even get there the track takes me through a mass of flowers – stitchwort, vetch, red campion, soapwort. Soft foxglove leaves and unfurling bracken fronds bring future promise.  Knarled hazels and alders mark the damp ground, and marsh marigolds tumble down the path of a stream. Delicate wood sorrels colonise the moss of fallen trunks; there’s a wiff of wild garlic on the wind; my pace is measured by the drumming of a woodpecker.

            Once inside the wood, birdsong takes over, drowning out the woodpecker, the lambs, even the ravens on the hills. The path rises steeply and I take it slowly: there’s so much to see. It’s mainly ash and coppiced hazel, open enough to allow the anemones, bluebells, violets, sorrel and garlic to flourish: a tapestry of blues, pinks, white and green. Mossy trunks and decaying stumps have their own beauty, many home to bracket fungi. Honeysuckle scrambles over others. Hollies add a dark, wintery note.

            Later, the oaks take over. It’s more enclosed here, the steep slopes so densely awash with bluebells that little else has a chance. Today is dull, but even so they radiate light. In sunshine, the iridescent combination of violet blue and emerald spring green is dazzling. I’ve waited longer than ever this year. Now I simply stand, and enjoy.

The Water Margin

There, I hear it again, the tap, tap, tapping. What is it, I ask myself, as I scan the nearby bank of the pond. The tapping continues and my ears home in on a clump of last year’s hogweed – just dishevelled remains after the snow crushed it like matchsticks. Tap, tap, tap and my eyes focus on a single wasp, its mandibles chomping away at the stem. I would rather have seen a bee getting material for a nest, but the buzz of a wasp is surprisingly comforting after the recent heavy rain and biting wind. I move further round the pond, fish fry are topping on the surface and I catch a fleeting glimpse of our very own Loch Ness Monster - the ghost carp. On the opposite bank I see bubbles on the surface: they must have come from a tench feeding off the bottom of the pond. All the while frogs are calling - since April their croaks have been like cicadas in Crete - just as loud, normal and annoying!

            The serenity is shattered: the fish dive as I here the ominous call of a heron. It lands on its chosen peg on the far side of the pond and then wades in - an expert fisherman. I watch it for 10 minutes before it decides to cast in, its snakelike neck striking the water and then getting a frog. Then, expertly balancing the prize in its bill, it throws it down its neck. I stand up and make my way back home. The heron sees me and flies away, but it’ll be back. The fish begin to top, the frog chorus returns and still – tap, tap, tap.....    

Let's go spy a kite

For years, I’ve looked forward to my sporadic journeys down the M40 for one reason only: kites. As the motorway cuts dramatically through the chalk near Stokenchurch, you can always see large numbers of them swooping overhead. On holidays in France, too, I’ve marvelled at them riding the currents of the gorges. But, despite living a stone's throw from a wood know as Kite’s Nest Plantation, I’ve never seen one at home. Last week I looked out the window, hardly registering the bird of prey, and looked again: ‘That’s a buzzard, I tell myself, no, a goshawk...a peregrine.’ It was none of the usual suspects. The red kite flew out of the sun like a spitfire pilot, its wide wings effortlessly gliding, soaring, turning. It was only when it turned to make for home that the distinct fan tail gave away its true identity. Now I’m waiting to see it again.....

Blithe spirits

I have the babble of a stream on my right which seems to have woken the birds - a jay cackles, a song thrush drops to the ground by a bed of wild garlic and a single golden saxifrage, a raven cronks and blue tits chatter nervously in the hedge. I see some weary snowdrops, silently thankful that winter has loosened its grip, and then turn my attention to the hill ahead.  The taller cousin of Wenlock Edge takes you up towards Bourton Westwood at around 258m. The far off song of skylarks teases me as I climb. I challenge myself not to look at the view until I reach the top.

            North, the last of the snow is retreating on Caer Caradoc, but opposite, the softly folding south Shropshire landscape - Spoonhill, Corve Dale, Aston Hills and the imperious Clee – whispers of spring. Now I see as well as hear the skylarks, their soaring flight and trilling song both noticeable against the cold wind. Is it the words of the poets, or their increasing rarity, or simply their illusiveness? I don’t know, but there’s something magical and ethereal about skylarks which have taken this walk out of the ordinary.

Winter's Tail

As the shafts of light force themselves through the dreary covers of winter a great haze is produced over the Shropshire landscape. The view across the Corve Dale becomes a dappled patchwork of greens: bright, new shooted fields merging into deep hued pine plantations, bounded by the remote wilderness of the Clee. Only the skylark's song is clear as I walk back to Bourton, a crisp endless trill as the bird rises up and into the strong easterly headwind.

            Even now I can’t escape the snow. There are paths still unusable with drifts which the sun has not yet shrunk and everywhere grimy snow-ploughed heaps refuse to yield. Daffodils are struggling to lift their heads after being flattened for so long under the weight of white; grass which should be green and springy is lank and dull.

            Why are the fields so dry after the snow, I ask myself, and then I realise my position - 250 m above sea level. The wind has done its work on the sloping ground and gravity is doing the rest. The rutted tracks and field edges below have streams of water running down them; water which will flow down into the haze until it reaches the Corve. What is usually a tinkling stream is today a torrent.

Afternoon shadows lengthen and I decide to follow the water home, determined to see not the remains of winter but the signs of spring - primroses, celandines. I have never been so happy to see the wearied leaves of a plantain as it pokes out from the deep banks of snow.

Is there a green hill far away?

Humans are not very well adapted to snow. I envy the coots - their great galoshes of feet enable them to skip lightly over the drifts that have swallowed up our road. I, on the other hand am forced to plough on, the snow coming up to my knees.

            The adverts for creme eggs are the only thing to suggest spring is here. Is it here? Where are the daffodils, the daisies, the buttercups, the violets, the primroses, the nesting birds, the frogs, or the sun? Winter’s icy grip has hung on to Easter, with its worst snow falling in March. Snowdrops and crocuses seem to cryogenically frozen in time, and the shoots of hawthorn in the hedgerow or apple blossom in the orchards are nowhere to be found.

            A jay breaks from the wood opposite our house, its grating call echoing off the metre high snowdrifts butressing the hedge. A mixed flock of finches have been disturbed and scatter to the pine plantation. The stream in the verge is still flowing and is visited by a song thrush, but even he can’t stand the easterly wind for long and flies to a more secluded spot. In Bourton churchyard a mighty yew has been split asunder, centuries of growth shattered by the weight of snow. The wind picks up again, the drifts are moved like dunes in a desert, and the snow continues to fall.

March on the Edge

A typically windswept March afternoon on Wenlock Edge. The hedgerow’s a tangled mass of hawthorn and blackthorn. Filigree leaves of varied ferns carpet the area and Jack in the Hedge is poised to spring into growth. Through the gothic tracery of bare branches, you can look along the backbone of the Edge, before oppressive pines close ranks. There, above the ominous roar of Harley Bank, I hear the shrill cat-like mewing of buzzards. Ten appear, hunting in a pack like Harris Hawks from Arizona. One turns, drops, dives, captures something, swoops off. I am once again alone.

            The path narrows, meandering around spooned out hollows, with Dog’s Mercury spearing through the fallen debris of last autumn. I spot a huge colony of Hart’s Tongue ferns clinging to a quarry face, their leaves reflecting the last of the sun and catching the percolating water. Weaving between silver birch, under a drapery of catkins I pass another huge quarry, where the strong buttress roots of yew and willow cling like talons on the precipitous Edge.    
             Everywhere the scars of industry have been stitched over by nature: limestone quarries becoming bird baths, nesting grounds and grassland. Dark, satanic remains of old quarries and kilns, alongside the green and pleasant land of Shropshire’s hedges and fields - it’s what makes Wenlock so interesting.

The Court of King Caractacus

Caer Caradoc was the legendary safe haven for the Celts and their leader Caractacus two thousand years ago. Even nowadays, looking out just as imposingly over the town of Church Stretton, with its crown of battlement-like rocks, this hill fort is far from empty.

            As I walk down the track I disturb a flock of around 100 fieldfares catching the warm February rays from their roost in the tangled branches of some hawthorns. Their grey underwings flash as they fly, like airborne mackerel. This is one of my favourite walks and I have visited this track in all seasons discovering everything from fossils to drinker moths. I leave the path and cross a field disturbing ravens picking the last off a sheep’s carcass.

            The ascent is breathtaking and so too is the view. I stand on the rocks at the height of 350m and look from Wrekin to Wenlock and Clee to Carding Mill. My first wasp of the year buzzes past alongside stubborn mounds of snow that still haven’t melted from three weeks ago. It is strangely still and warm on the leeward slopes and only as you mount the crest does the chill rush of wind hit you. The grass up here is as short as the square at Lords’ thanks to the sheep that nibble it down year in year out; the ground dry. As the sun begins to dip below the creases and folds of the Long Mynd I begin my descent back to Earth.

Deer Diary

Between the catkins and silver birch trees I see it. An eye, a face and then it melts away I continue to wait on the gate as intently as the buzzard above me. Probably a dog I think, but then I see it again, its warm brown coat clearly visible in the morning sun. An eye, a face then the body and I realise my dog has transformed into a deer. Anyone who regularly travels through Farley Dingle will have seen deer: a warning road sign, a brief glimpse through the trees, or a heart stopping flash as they cross the path of the car. But this is different: eye to eye and personal. We all have that subconscious Bambi-born love of deer, but I’m not thinking ‘cute’, I’m looking at something big and wild, and wonderful because of it.  I move closer for a better look but no sooner have I taken a few steps than the deer vanishes into the undergrowth, the shaking catkins and bent grass the only sign that it was there.

Homer Odyssey

Braving a gale, I took the Homer Head walk the other day. At first there’s little to see - a field at first appearing bare but filled with the tentative beginnings of a crop – or hear - great tits’ familiar calls are just audible above the booming wind.

Then the great spine of the Wrekin rises up dark and menacing under a blackened sky.

                It’s the woods that steal the show, though. By all definitions they’re ‘species rich’ with blackthorn, hawthorn, hazel, oak, holly, pine. Gnarled beauties worthy of Tolkien’s ‘Ents’, a great lightning-struck beech, ivy filled ash perfect for roosting birds, and yew that have refused to fall onto Homer since before Homer was built. I’m rewarded by the glimpse of a deer, so slight and silent that I almost doubt my eyes as it disappears back into the trees with a single effortless leap.

                Beyond, a stunning view shows why the Shropshire Hills are an AONB. The prehistoric coral sea of Wenlock Edge guards the Celtic hill fort of Caer Caradoc, and, in the foreground, the month-old Buildwas flooding and island-like villages Harley, Sheinton and Cressage. A 180 degree panorama showing 20 million years.

Bits, bobs and buzzards

Firstly, a bird box update. After constructing them during the Christmas holidays I didn’t know what to expect. They did provide a welcome, temporary shelter for some wrens during the recent cold snap. And so far the blue tits seem to be taking a great interest in them, perching on the threshold, going in and out. Fingers crossed for more drama over the forthcoming weeks.

            Now plants. Last year the drive was covered in tiny self set primrose plants. Using a fork in autumn, I painstakingly put them into a seed tray and despite the snow and ice around 50 have survived. Last weekend I began to plant them out into the spinney where they’ll hopefully flourish. On a good year we have great, pale buttery mounds erupting through the ivy groundcover there, and by adding more I’m just giving nature a helping hand. Primroses and cowslips seem to like my heavy clay soil and both of them are favourite spring flowers. Whilst on my hands and knees I looked up to see the return of the waxwings – a bonus which I hadn’t thought I'd see again this winter.

            Finally – and this is breaking news as I write - the pine plantation opposite me is alive with buzzards that are being mobbed by crows and crows that are being mobbed back by buzzards. As dramatic as a First World War dogfight and every bit as noisy. Never mind the Rolling Stones, Boomtown Rats or Fleetwood Mac, birds are the great comeback artists. Every winter no matter how harsh, bitter or persistent the pigeons return to coo, the ravens to cackle and buzzards to mew.  And the great thing is that their concerts are free!

Who's afraid of the big, bad coot.

The start of February. Gone is the oppressive slate coloured sky of January ready to cover us in blanket of snow, and in its place a vast blue mass that seems to have lifted itself and our spirits. Calm, gentle, but shattered by the croaking, honking and hooting of the coot. We often think of these as kind, family birds, slightly comical with their oversized feet, but how we’ve misread them.

            The winter pond has been the home of the mallards, almost twice the size and weight of the coot, but come spring, David seems to scare Goliath into submission. When a coot wants the pond, it gets the pond: even if the ducks are forced onto the grass, over the hedge or down the road, they’ll be kicked off sooner or later. And my, can coots kick! Their gargantuan feet allow them to power through the water, getting nest material or food for hungry chicks. And those feet are weapons as well: they keep most rivals at bay and I’ve even watched them drown mallard chicks by forcing them underwater.

            From February, when they arrive, to October, when they leave, the coots rule to roost. Nature is all about interactions between organisms- a specie, a pair, a family, an ecosystem, a biome. These interactions can be productive or destructive, as in the case of the coot and mallard, but both types are interesting and worth a look at.    

Oh my darling Celandine

Without ‘Gardener’s World’ on TV it may seem that all things horticultural are dormant at this time of year until Monty Don revives them all again in spring. However a walk down the road led me to discover three very different flowering plants. The first was the lesser celandine, despite the fact it was just a single flowering and rather tatty individual the intense yellow stood out from the brown and green hedgerow backdrop. The melt water from the ‘mini ice age’ of last week must have re-invigorated it as with the stinking hellebore I found on the banks of the village stream.    

            The stinking hellebore is a fairly rare plant but due to its liking for Wenlock Edge’s calcareous soils it thrives on the edge of our rivers, streams and roads. What the plant doesn’t have in looks - even the flowers are green - it makes up for in interesting facts. All parts are poisonous and if consumed will lead to violent vomiting and delirium; it uses yeasts to colonise the plant and raise its overall temperature in order to make it more attractive to pollinators; and when crushed it releases a foul smell leading to its other name Dungwort.

            Finally on the path up to the village church the snowdrops that were nervously poking through the snow last week, are now all out. The great survivors of any winter, neither snow nor ice nor flooding can prevent them from flowering year in year out, despite their apparent fragility. And as the afternoon sun shone over the great humpback of the Clee and melted the final slushy ice, I thought: ‘Is that the end of winter?’    

Snow on snow

The snow lived up to the hype on Friday, creating misery on the roads as usual. But if you can take the time to enjoy it, the snowy landscape is intensely beautiful. I walked up a traffic free lane, enjoying the muffled peacefulness, admiring the elegant curves of wind sculpted drifts.

After the infamous ‘ice age’ of two years ago which decimated Britain’s birds I was overjoyed to see a huge flock of finches. Just down the road is a small pond, frozen over, naturally, and surrounded by silver birch trees. In these was a mixed flock of goldfinches, greenfinches and siskin. Huddled together for warmth as the flakes continued to fall, they ate catkins and chirped merrily at the sight of me, hands frozen to my binocular and shivering as more snow came down my neck.

Finally, what could be more perfect than budding snowdrops pushing their fragile green stems through the white blanket?

The lonesome pine

Just a walk. The late morning light shone through the hedges, illuminating the emerald, new growth of hemlock, buttercup and celandine, a colour not usually associated with winter. Here and there great and long-tailed tits flew from one holly bush to the other, stocking up on high energy berries like they knew a cold snap was approaching.  The path then opened out into fields with a spectacular view of Shropshire’s highest hill - the Clee - towering above the Corve Dale. To the south-east the woods of the Apley Estate, nestling on the banks of the Severn, were visible, all painted in the cold, blue mist that softens any winter view. We are lucky in Shropshire to have trees in our fields, usually oak, however it was a lonely pine in which I saw my favourite bird, the buzzard, standing sentinel in the upper branches. Just a walk, but it held many of the things that make this part of Shropshire special: hedgerows, buzzards and the Clee. It also let me truly appreciate the view of the Corve Dale, and that’s coming from someone who drives past it twice a day.     

Boxing Day

‘Make do and mend’ as my Yorkshire father likes to say and determined to reduce, reuse, recycle after the excesses of Christmas, I’ve ventured into a spot of DIY. There always seem to be offcuts of wood cluttering up the shed and although ever since school DT projects my construction abilities have been the butt of family jokes, I managed to produce three new nest boxes for different areas of the garden. They might not be perfect or pretty but I’m hoping that won’t put their potential owners off. The fun part was deciding where to put them. One is positioned in a willow on the banks of the pond – there were reed buntings there last spring and I live in hope. Another sits in a hawthorn which is always alive with house sparrows. The last is hidden away in what we grandly call ‘the spinney’ and targets woodland birds.

            Nest boxes are of course just one of the many ways you can encourage wildlife into your garden. Bird baths from old sink bowls, bee houses from bamboo canes and of course, best of all, not doing anything. Leaving an area of your garden, no matter how small, to nature, is often overlooked for more ‘hard engineering’ methods, but it’s a lot easier than sweating over a saw.

Visiting the Canaries

It is a strange feeling to go on a winter’s walk and come back thinking of canaries, but this is what happened on Sunday. Yellowhammers are the closest thing South Shropshire has to canaries and when a small flock bursts out of the hedgerow like dashes of sunlight, they look wonderfully exotic. In the wake of a recent report that many farmland birds are declining due to more intensive agricultural methods, we’re lucky that Shropshire’s fields, which still have many hedges and oak trees, are still a safe haven for these little buntings.

            The Yellowhammer’s plumage is brighter in winter than in summer. They often catch your eye as you drive along country lanes: a splash of yellow in a bare winter hedge. Like with many birds, however, there is a difference between seeing them and watching them. On a winter walk you may see them picking up seeds missed by the farmer. And as they’re incredibly social birds you’re equally likely to see a group. Through binoculars you can pick out their long, black tail and rufous, streaky back as well as their dazzling yellow head as they turn to the late afternoon sun to sing.

Mellow Yellow

Moths. Always intriguing – both for scientists, who know little about their ways, even today, and in popular culture with everyone from Gandalf to Hannibal Lector associated with them. Ever since starting to trap and record them aged ten, I’ve been interested in their beauty but also in their darker qualities which their butterfly cousins lack. They are similar to bats- nocturnal, shy, mysterious-but unlike bats they haven't been reduced to cartoon caricartures. Their markings are less showy and often intricate and subtle. And they are endlessly varied.

            Shropshire is great place to see moths with its range of habitats from the chalky grassland of Wenlock Edge, to the moorland of the Long Mynd and the reed beds of the Severn, but late winter is not the best time to see them on the wing. And yet yesterday, rummaging in the shed, I came across a Large Yellow Underwing, slumbering its way through the winter. It is a big, dull, brown moth, and you may never notice it’s there. But at the first warming rays of spring it flips up its forewing to reveal a hindwing filled with bright yellow, a flash that brings to mind the petal of the daffodil, a Brimstone’s wings or the gentle warmth of a spring day. I left him to sleep, knowing that soon the first spring sunshine will coax his great wings back into life and reveal his secret beauty.

Waxwing Lyrical

A dreary day but a joyous first for our garden - the waxwing. It arrived last week and from its perch in a willow tree ate rosehips and drank greedily from the pond. Nor was it alone - but part of an extremely sociable group of ten. Looking at it gobbling berries, you might think it would struggle to get off the ground but every October it flies hundreds of miles from the breeding grounds in the far east of Europe to its winter feeding grounds in the far west. These birds may have been driven far west to Shropshire due to lack of food further east.

            Once you see a waxwing, they’re unmistakable. Their body is pinkish-brown and rather fat, with a large crest and dashes of red just above the bill. This is contrasted by the jet black of the bill, eyes and the surrounding feathers, and by the wings’ white, black and yellow colouration and the red waxy deposit, which is how the bird gets its name. So if you are lucky enough to see a flock of waxwings feel privileged that they have come a thousand miles to say hello and let them strip down your berry filled bushes. And best of all, if you do see some, chances are that they’ll return to the same spot once again next year – they’ve got a great memory for the best eateries in town.

All isn't quiet on New Year's Day

My New Year wasn’t brought in by fireworks, the popping of corks or Auld Lang Syne, but by the incessant quacking of the mallards on our pond. All this wet weather may have spoiled the traditional White Christmas but there’s no doubt that it’s been great weather for ducks. Usually we struggle to attract them to our pond and in summer a pair of territorial coots keeps them at bay. But this autumn, as the water increased so did the numbers of mallards and last night we had a raucous party of 11 welcoming in 2013.

            Yes, there are rarer birds and more unusual species but part of being a naturalist is the enjoyment of the ordinary as well as the extraordinary and although mallards are common, they’re never boring. ‘Ducks’ are one of the first birds we learn to identify as children but standing chucking mouldy bread in the park doesn’t really give you an insight into their habits. I never knew they were so nocturnal until they started keeping me awake. And winter is the best time to see the males' velvety green head and blue speculum. A great way to get through your January blues is to monitor your local flock for the first brood of ducklings. But be warned - they may end up the same way as Jemima’s, as female ducks seem to be fairly casual mothers.