Nature Diary 17th-23rd Jan 2022

17th Jan Walked down to Pallister Park with Sue just as it was getting light - Song Thrush singing vociferously from a tree just next to the main entrance. Sue has heard it there at about the same time several times over the past couple of weeks.

A bit later I was standing on the Yellow Bridge at Middle Marsh when a Kingfisher flew upstream towards me, perched briefly about 20 metres from me, flew back downstream a bit, perched again for a second before flying back and repeating the process, only this time when it flew back downstream a Sparrowhawk swooped down out of a tree, where it had been sitting unseen by me (and presumably the Kingfisher). The hawk missed the Kingfisher, which turned round again and came back up towards me and sat on the original perch, before relocating to a lower branch a few feet away, where it stayed until I walked on.

A lucky Kingfisher and her reflection
The orange on the bill shows that this is a female

A couple of hours later, after seeing a nice variety of birds in the rest of the area - including, some Goldcrests in the woods plus 3 Teal, a single vociferous Redshank and another Kingfisher on the beck further downstream. I came back the same way and the first Kingfisher was still there in the same place, along with a Little Egret fishing not far from it.

Britain's smallest bird - a Goldcrest (photo taken at Middle Marsh,
Jan 2022, by Ian Foster. Used with permission)

18th Jan After yesterday’s excitement I took my friends Jan and Keith on a walk around the reserve, hoping to get them good views of a Kingfisher. Sadly the only one I saw was a brief glimpse down by the tidal barrage and neither of my friends managed to get onto it. We did however see the Sparrowhawk sitting on a branch across the beck near the Yellow Bridge, just about where I had seen it the day before. Also interesting was a Redshank further upstream than I’ve seen them before.

19th Jan The new ponds at Middle Marsh are finished 😃😃😃. This week and last week we have had John and Dave the digger drivers excavating a series of ponds (8 small and 1 quite big) in the middle of the main reed-bed. Since I started visiting this site in 2016 I have dreamed of being able to get a pond dug, or maybe two but it is thanks to Ian and Annemarie of the Tees Valley Wildlife Trust (who planned the layout and supervised the work) and Simon and his colleagues at Middlesbrough Council (who funded it) that there are so many. The depths of the pools vary from 1m in the deepest parts of the biggest one to 30 cm in the shallowest sections. We are hoping that there will be a mixture of temporary and permanent standing water which should provide diverse habitat for a range of different species of plants, birds, insects and hopefully a few amphibians too. We have left a broad fringe of reeds around all of the ponds (except the two right at the northern end which are a bit separate from the others) and the hope is that this will prevent dogs from going in them. Aside from disturbing birds and other wildlife, dogs can be extremely harmful if they get into ponds, as the chemicals in commonly used tick and flea treatments can kill aquatic invertebrates, even when they are present in very low concentrations in the water.

One of the deep sections of the largest pond - 17th Jan 2022

One of the smaller ponds, already with some water, despite the
lack of rain recently. 19th Jan 2022

The approximate locations of the 9 ponds. Map by A. Mehl, Jan 2022

21st Jan This morning I was at Middle Marsh with one of my volunteers (from the ‘Green Shoots’ project that I work for) carrying on work on a screen which will allow people to watch birds at the feeders without disturbing them. We started during the Christmas holidays and have been doing a little bit each week since then. The design is a very old one - a line of vertical poles (2-3 inches in diameter) stuck in the ground, with thinner, more flexible branches and rods (mostly willow), going horizontally and woven in and out through the framework made by the verticals. We are going to leave slots at various heights so that people can look through.

I have put a couple of feeders there already and even while we have been working on the screen, Robins, Great Tits and several other species have been regular visitors, either to the feeders or to the leaf litter below them. A Redshank called from the beck while we were working - in almost the same spot as a few days before.

22nd Jan I spent an hour and a half today hidden in the middle of the reed-bed, sitting on a folding chair between two of the new ponds, listening to and watching the birds and reading a lovely collection of writings about nature (“Nature Tales - Encounters with Britain’s Wildlife”, compiled by Michael Allen and Sonya Patel Ellis, pub. Elliott & Thompson 2011).

Inspired by some of what I read and heard, here are some fragmentary notes that I took:

“-Jay flapping overhead as I walked in - Its outline is distinctive - reminds me of an over-sized Blackbird but with relatively broader wings. My first here for quite a while

- Constant background roar of the traffic makes it hard to hear any birds at first
- Robin tic-tic-ticking over to my right
- clear blue winter sky
- Sharp call of a Kingfisher from the beck
- Herring Gulls overhead - occasionally calling loudly - the typical ‘seagull call’ reminding me of childhood holidays to the seaside
- Angry Scolding of a Blackbird
- Bare trees skeletal against the sky - alders laden with cones making them recognisable even from a distance
- Goldfinch tinkling away as it flew over
- Feral Pigeon trying to fool me into thinking it was a Peregrine - again
- Now there’s a different constant low noise coming from the Chemoxy plant across the beck - but somehow I can still hear the wind moving the reeds
- At 11.45 two geese flew past some way away, surprisingly silent. Canada Geese I think judging by the apparently dark heads but it’s quite hard to tell”

Carrying on my walk I went over to the dock basin where two Shags were swimming around, diving frequently - these are the first I’ve seen in Middlesbrough. In the Sea-buckthorns on the rough ground beside the dock a mixed group of birds were feeding on the berries, or just sitting watching me - Blackbirds, Song Thrush, a grey-headed-black-tailed Fieldfare (which then flew away, chattering harshly), some Robins, a male Reed Bunting and several squeaky Meadow Pipits.

Crossing back into Middle Marsh via the level-crossing almost the first thing I saw was a Kestrel in a small tree. He flew away as I approached but I saw him again a couple more times. Four Teal flew off the Beck down by the barrage and a Great Spotted Woodpecker calling from the trees near the Navigation Inn was the first I have had in the nature reserve (my 69th species for the list).

On the way home I saw a Kingfisher again, flying downstream past the bird-feeders - as usual it was the sharp call that made me look up and see it

23rd Jan Back to my hiding place in the reeds this morning - earlier than yesterday. The first two birds of the day (and in my new notebook) were a graceful, all white Little Egret in the beck and a male Kestrel flying low from the meadow to the trees carrying a freshly caught mouse or vole - so freshly caught that it was still trailing a couple of pieces of long grass that it had caught along with its intended prey - I watched the grass fall to the ground as it adjusted its grip.

The road was much quieter this morning (8.45 on a Sunday morning) and I could hear at least two Robins and a Great Tit singing - quite early in the year but spring has already started for some creatures - among them a Magpie carrying nesting material (many people’s ‘love-to-hate bird’ but I think they are beautiful even if their call is raucous).