With the first prolonged spell of cold wintry weather upon us, the birds and mammals start to change their habits to adapt to the conditions. Birds which have been finding food naturally may now start using garden feeders to at least supplement their diet and get a quick easy meal. Our feeding station is no different with many birds looking for that easy meal of seed, peanut or fat to increase their fat reserves.
How many blue tits can you fit on one feeder?
Birds such as coal tit, nuthatch and jay may now start to look for their stash of seed, nuts or acorns which they will have hidden over the last few months. They seem to remember where they put them all, though no doubt some of the food will have already been discovered by other hungry birds or squirrels.
Some birds are even more resourceful and will come into the RSPB shop for food!
Given temperatures drop even more through the night, birds must find a way to survive sub-zero temperatures. It is known that wrens will often roost communally, whether in a nest box, a hole in roof or tree or other crevice. Long-tailed tits stay in large flocks throughout the day and at night will flock together into a thick bush and cosy up to each other on the branch. Starlings have a similar habit but are far better known for their dramatic aerial displays, murmurations, before dropping down into a reedbed, woodland or pier to roost.
You would have thought a snowy mountain top would be the last place a bird would like to be. However while out surveying habitat this week in the occasional snow blizzard we had a meadow pipit and a pair of red grouse on the tops near Gadfa and most surprisingly a coal tit moving along the ridge top into the biting wind and fox moth caterpillars still out and about. The grouse are non-migratory and therefore remain on the moorland throughout the year whatever the weather, though will drop lower down the hill in the harshest conditions.
Wintery Vyrnwy
Other sightings around the reserve have included teal and little grebe at the top end of the lake, goshawk over the purple trail (though they will always be very elusive), vocal flock of crossbill in larch trees behind the RSPB shop, woodcock along road sides, and our peahen remains resident around the Coed y Capel hide and RSPB shop. Two short-eared owls over the moors to the south of Gadfa was a nice surprise this week.
Gavin Chambers, Assistant Warden
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