Saturday gave us fantastic aerial displays of the Peregrines with both the male and the female going into some breathtaking stoops. There was also some dramatic tumbling and fighting between Ravens and the Peregrines above the ridge along from Dove Stone rocks.
Interestingly the Ravens were checking out a previous nesting site in the same area as the Peregrine’s site last year. We’ll see what happens and whether the Ravens nest further down in the lower quarry as they did last year.
‘ Nuts about Nest Boxes ’ day was a success with lots of people stopping to have a go at making their own nestbox. If you missed us on Saturday don’t worry as you can find a plan for making a nestbox here: http://www.rspb.org.uk/advice/helpingbirds/nestboxes/ smallbirds/making.aspx . There’s also plenty of info on these pages such as where best to put your nest box and how to look after both it and, hopefully, its residents ! They really are very simple and quick to make and such a valuable thing to do for the birds visiting your garden – be quick though as now really is the time to get them up. Important conservation work at Dove Stone in recent months has been the planting of native broadleaf trees as part of developing Dove Stone’s woodland vision. These will provide good nesting habitat in the future for a range of species. For the more immediate future we’ll also be installing some nest boxes in various locations around Dove Stone.
Elsewhere around Dove Stone there have been recent sightings of Kestrel seen from the Chew access road, Dipper along Chew Brook and Skylark up near Chew Reservoir with Golden plover on the peat bog. Curlew and Meadow pippit have also been both heard and seen recently. Curlew will be returning to upland areas after having moved south and west for the winter. In the UK this would be to areas such as the Ribble. This winter there is a possibility that Curlew and Golden Plover might have moved even further due to it being particularly cold. In comparison, movements of birds such as Dunlin wouldn’t have been affected by the severity of the winter as Dunlin moves as far as Africa whilst Golden plover and Curlew won’t travel as far as this, typically going only as far as areas such as Iberia.
Our feeding station at Binn Green continues to attract Siskin, Treecreeper, Nuthatch and Goldfinch amongst other regulars such as Coal, Great and Blue tit. Mistle thrushes are also around.
Also worth mentioning at this time of the year are Mountain hares. Still being in their white winter coat for now means that they’re highly visible. By the end of March they’ll largely been in their brown summer coat and a little harder to spot. On a walk up the Chew access road up to Chew Reservoir earlier in the week we counted at least fourteen Mountain hare either side of the path and got some quite close up views of hares amongst the rocks.
Many thanks to those who came along to Dove Stone’s first Mountain hare talk and walk and thank you to Sam Bolton from The Brown Hare Project. If you’re interested in hares then it’s worth checking out Sam’s site on www.merseysidebiobank.org.uk/BrownHare/default.aspx?content=home.xml. The Brown Hare Project’s site also gives info about how to report any sightings of Brown hares and how you can get involved in surveying either Brown or Mountain hare. We will be having another Mountain hare walk later in the year when these lovely animals are back in their white winter coat. Another link for more info is http://www.hare-preservation-trust.co.uk/mountain.html.
More soon…