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December 2007 Archives

Kestrels busy again

Posted by Cliff Birchall on December 24, 2007 11:07 AM

TWO more kestrels were on the wing again this morning at either end of Broad Lane.
Despite the rain they were keeping an active eye on the hedgerows.
I presume that not having any frost on the ground might make hunting a little easier for them.

Out of sight (out mining)

Posted by Cliff Birchall on December 21, 2007 2:15 PM

THE cold snap has really woken up those little chaps in their velvet coats.
There were quite a few fresh molehills in evidence this morning, black little mounds against the green sward.
Relying on worms for their supper (and dinner, tea and constant snacks) the moles have to move their runs up and down according to the seasons. Wherever the worms go, the moles will follow.
Cold snaps like the recent frosty mornings keep the worms from the surface, hence the rash of fresh molehills as Mouldywarp tries to track and trap them.
Worms must be nutritional, too. I remember once trying to beat a mole burrowing at root level across a lawn. He could dig faster than I could aim a spade in front of him, that's for sure!
They are finely engineered animals if you ever get to see one up close. The velvet on their coat is incredible, thick and lush and ideal for keeping dirt away from its skin. It front paws really are powerful digging tools.
Music on the moss: just returned Seamus Ennis' Wandering Minstrel [lovely piping] to the store and replaced it with Something/Anything, the early double album by Todd Rundgren, a real mixture that includes the precursor of the "motorcycle guitar" he played on Meatloaf's Bat Out Of Hell, which he also produced.

A sweep of birds

Posted by Cliff Birchall on December 19, 2007 3:59 PM

WWT Martin Mere has seen the return of approximately 5,000 starlings at the Centre in Burscough.
And a fair few of them must be on the mosses around Formby.
Coming over the other morning, I drove through what can only be described as a liquid display of aerial activity.
Starlings were moving across in a huge throng, sweeping over the field, up over the hedge and across the road into the field on the other side.
And all the time avoiding being hit by cars!
It was not as spectacular as the displays seen at Martin Mere when the birds come in to roost but it was still a sight to see. The birds disperse during the day but return to the Mere at approximately 4pm everyday with a fantastic ten minute spectacle, creating shapes in the sky as they prepare to roost for the evening by the Chilean flamingo house.
Last year numbers rose steadily until they peaked at 10,000 in January, so the Centre can expect to see a further rise in numbers over the Christmas period.
The best views of the birds display is either from the Pond House or outside the greenwood building from 3.45pm onwards. Starlings spend a lot of the year in flocks, and a flock of 20,000 was shown on Autumnwatch this year when Simon King attempted to infiltrate a starling roost in Gloucestershire.

Starlings.jpg

Killers of a kind

Posted by Cliff Birchall on December 18, 2007 9:58 AM

THERE was a surfeit of raptors this morning.
By Sparrow Hill a kestrel sat on the phone lines, for all the world looking like a hook-nosed hunched-backed asssissin. Kestrels have this habit of perching on wires with their heads drawn into their shoulders, almost as it it would be too much of an effort to fly off and get down to the business of the day - hunting.
But it is just a sham. They are keeping their eyes wide open all the times.
Another kestrel demonstrated this in Broad Lane, hovering over the ditch at the side of the road, a majestic sight. No matter how many times I see a kestrel I cannot help but be impressed. Not for nothing it is also know as the windhover, its wings beats frantically to keep its head still so that it can scan the ground below for its prey.
By Hillhouse another kestrel sat in a tree, hunched up again. Winter is a good time for spotting them, as the absence of leaves rids them of cover.
Where Flatman's Lane joins Broad Lane a sparrowhawk ripped along the road, somewhat dangerously as headlight level but it sped off along the hedgerows. It was difficult to see what it was chasing.
And, to cap it all, further along the road there was a spotted woodpecker atop a telegraph pole!

The first touch of winter?

Posted by Cliff Birchall on December 11, 2007 9:46 AM

A VIVID red glow greeted me as the eastern sky took on colour as the sun rose.
On the ground, though, it was all silver.
The first real frost of the winter was a wake up call to what may follow. Fields were silvered over as pheasants gathered at the edges of dew ponds waiting for the thaw to bring them their first drink of the day.
Rooks were out early, feeding among sheep as they looked for insect and whatever else the sheep disturbed.
Pink-feet were flying across the moss in the direction of Ormskirk, in quite a tight formation for them. Perhaps there is warmth in numbers even in the cold air up there!
A field of winter wheat was bowed down and buckled by the weight of the frost. A couple of hours will see it spring back. It was noticeable that fields nearer the coast were not as badly affected in this way.
The Downholland Brook has subsided and is back to its normal level after the weekend storms.

What a difference a weekend makes

Posted by Cliff Birchall on December 10, 2007 9:32 AM

IT might have been raining over the weekend, too, but the sunshine this morning made a different place out of the moss.
There are still bright patches of water on the fields but at least the pheasants are out - on Friday they were afraid of getting their feet wet. Now they are dicing with death again as only they can, wandering into the road, changing direction at the last minute, they must be the kamikaze of the bird world. The best approach is always to slow down and let them pass rather than try to beat them - they always run for it when you do that - usually into your car!

A very rainy day [and night] in Formby

Posted by Cliff Birchall on December 7, 2007 11:18 AM

ONCE upon a time, and not a very long time ago either, rainfall like last night’s would have gone unnoticed on the mosslands, which would have been very wet already.
But a look at the Downholland Brook just by the Stephenson Way industrial estate showed just how much water had come down overnight.
The Brook had risen by a foot or two, not within danger of breaching the bank but certainly enough to impress.
Before the mosslands round Formby and Martin Mere in West Lancashire were drained, the land would have been a morass of bogs criss-crossed by roads and paths using what firm ground there was between the damp bits – hence the switchback corners on some of the roads nowadays.
And you only have to look at the level of the road compared to the fields around them, too. Peat shrinks when it is drained, and the fields have done just that. Add to it the metalling of the road in recent years and you can see why it is advisable to keep on the road and not veer off.
Mind you, the overnight rain has caused a large amount of lodging on the fields, as farmers term the creating of little ponds in the bumps and dips of the fields where the rainwater collects. If it drains away fairly quickly no harm is done but if it is prolonged then it drowns whatever seed is growing and farmers are left with bare patches come harvest unless they do some resowing.
On some of the black soil the lodged water sparkles silver, sometimes like shiny canals if it follows the tractor tracks into the distance. On other fields, where the soil has more clay, it can just be a brown colour. And all within a few feet of each other, too.
There was a lot of water lying in Great Altcar, particularly around the electricity substation. Luckily one current kept away from the other!
And music on the moss: America's Choice by Hot Tuna - Jorma and Jack's goodtime rocknbluze.
FMBY131207DhollandBrook-3.ctxjpg

This page contains an archive of all entries posted to Man on the Moss in the December 2007. They are listed from oldest to newest.

January 2008 is the next archive.

Many more can be found on the home page or by looking through the archives.