Red squirrels (again)

It has been a while since I went to see the squirrels and a few weeks since I posted their photos so I hope you don't mind a few more taken at the weekend.

This female was the most confiding.

A few of them are just starting to grow their ear tufts for the winter.

I expect the tufts will look better when they are fully grown.

It is difficult to say how many individuals there were.  Judging by the variation in colours and ear tufts I reckon I saw at least four.

The squirrel that visited my garden for a week at the end of July hasn't been seen since my last post about him.  I think he moved on under pressure from the American greys but at least he knows where the food is if he wants to come back. 

Little little grebes

It seems to have been a good year for little grebes.  The young are now independent and becoming successful fishers. These youngsters were catching a fish on almost every dive.

This one has a three-spined stickleback.

And this one has a ten-spined stickleback.

The birds shake the fish vigorously to subdue them before swallowing them but occasionally lose their grip and the fish escapes.

Don't let it get you down

Have you ever seen a cheerful-looking heron?

This one at least made an effort.

September bumblebees

The solitary bee season is more or less over here but there are still plenty of bumblebees around.  Within a few minutes I found five species taking advantage of the sunshine in the garden - buff-tailed, white-tailed and red-tailed bumblebees, common carder bee and tree bumblebee.  Many are new queens feeding up before hibernation but there are also still some workers and males (mostly looking a bit old and fded, but then who isn't?).  Here are a few photos.

Brock

In the woods last night.  The camera took 13 photos so the badger obviously wasn't at all worried by the flash - it was too busy looking for peanuts.  Unusually it was facing the right way in all but two.

Bird of the week - Mute swan

Widely distributed and instantly recognisable, the mute swan (Cygnus olor) is Britain's largest waterbird.  Males and females are net always easy to tell apart.

The male is heavier with a thicker neck and a larger black knob at the base of his bill in the breeding season - he's standing on the left in the photo below.

The pair on Banks' pond this year had two cygnets but in the past two weeks I have seen only one.  Not surprisingly, there is always at least one parent on guard.

The pair in Gosforth Park have been resident for a few years and this year have seven cygnets.  Recently another pair has moved in and the resident male hasn't been able to shift them.  There is a power struggle going on with lots of displaying and chasing by the resident male.  His mate tries to keep the young out of the way.

Mute swans are never far from water and occur all across lowland areas of the British Isles.

Their numbers in the UK are increasing, thanks mainly to the banning of lead in fishermen's weights.

The mute swan is native to many parts of Europe and western Asia.  It was introduced to the USA in the 19th century and has become a pest in some areas there.

By Cephas (Own work) [GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html) or CC BY-SA 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

Thomas Bewick knew the mute swan also as the Tame Swan, as opposed to the Wild Swan which we know as the whooper swan (Cygnus cygnus).  Bewick's swan (Cygnus bewickii) was not recognised and named until 1830, by William Yarrell.  Below is Bewick's engraving for his A History of British Birds, volume II, published in 1832.

Despite their name, mute swans are not mute.  They make a variety of grunting sounds (listen here) and hiss threateningly if you venture too close.  The cygnets make a frequent squeaking call.  The most recognisable mute swan sound is the musical throbbing of their wing beats as they pass overhead.  You can listen to a mute swan taking off and flying here.  You can listen to Chris Packham's BBC Radio 4 Tweet of the Day on mute swan here.

Watership Down