FORESTRY MACHINERY
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Brown Hare - Lepus europaeus
Norfolk
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The brown hare is known for its long, black-tipped ears and fast running - it can reach speeds of 45mph when evading predators. It prefers a mosaic of farmland and woodland habitats and can often be spotted in fields.
Thought to have been introduced into the UK in Roman Times (or even earlier), the brown hare is now considered naturalised. It is most common in grassland habitats and at woodland edges, favouring a mosaic of arable fields, grasses and hedgerows. It grazes on vegetation and the bark of young trees and bushes. Brown hares do not dig burrows, but shelter in 'forms', which are shallow depressions in the ground or grass; when disturbed, they can be seen bounding across the fields, using their powerful hind legs to propel them forwards, often in a zigzag pattern. Brown hares are at their most visible in early spring when the breeding season encourages fighting or 'boxing'. Females can produce three to four litters of two to four young (known as leverets) a year.
Widespread, but absent from northern Scotland and the Scottish islands, except Islay, I'm reliably informed.
Pied Flycatcher (M) - Ficedula hypoleuca
The European pied flycatcher (Ficedula hypoleuca) is a small passerine bird in the Old World flycatcher family. One of the four species of Western Palearctic black-and-white flycatchers, it hybridizes to a limited extent with the collared flycatcher. It breeds in most of Europe and western Asia.
It is migratory, wintering mainly in tropical Africa.
It usually builds its nests in holes on oak trees. This species practices polygyny, usually bigamy, with the male travelling large distances to acquire a second mate. The male will mate with the secondary female and then return to the primary female in order to help with aspects of child rearing, such as feeding.
The European pied flycatcher is mainly insectivorous, although its diet also includes other arthropods. This species commonly feeds on spiders, ants, bees and similar prey.
The European pied flycatcher predominately practices a mixed mating system of monogamy and polygyny. Their mating system has also been described as successive polygyny. Within the latter system, the males leave their home territory once their primary mates lays their first eggs. Males then create a second territory, presumably in order to attract a secondary female to breed. Even when they succeed at acquiring a second mate, the males typically return to the first female to exclusively provide for her and her offspring.
Males will sometimes care for both mates if the nests of the primary and secondary female are close together. The male may also care for both mates once the offspring of the primary female have fledged. The male bird usually does not exceed two mates, practicing bigamy. Only two cases of trigyny had been observed.
Population:
UK breeding:
17,000-20,000 pairs
Common Whitethroat - Sylvia communis
The common whitethroat (Sylvia communis) is a common and widespread typical warbler which breeds throughout Europe and across much of temperate western Asia. This small passerine bird is strongly migratory, and winters in tropical Africa, Arabia, and Pakistan.
This is one of several Sylvia species that has distinct male and female plumages. Both sexes are mainly brown above and buff below, with chestnut fringes to the secondary remiges. The adult male has a grey head and a white throat. The female lacks the grey head, and the throat is duller.
This species may appear to be closely related to the lesser whitethroat, the species having evolved only during the end of the last ice age similar to the willow warbler and chiffchaffs. However, researchers found the presence of a white throat is an unreliable morphological marker for relationships in Sylvia, and the greater and lesser whitethroats are not closely related.
This is a bird of open country and cultivation, with bushes for nesting. The nest is built in low shrub or brambles, and 3–7 eggs are laid. Like most warblers, it is insectivorous, but will also eat berries and other soft fruit.
Population:
UK breeding:
1,100,000 territories
Alberta Provincial Highway No. 734, commonly referred to as Highway 734, [leading to Luscar-Cadomin Coal Mining area] is a highway in western Alberta, Canada that travels through the forested foothills of the Rocky Mountains. It used to be part of Forestry Trunk Road and is still colloquially referred to as such. Wikipedia
Stonechat - Saxicola Torquata
The stonechat is 11.5–13 cm long and weighs 13–17 g, slightly smaller than the European robin. Both sexes have distinctively short wings, shorter than those of the more migratory whinchat and Siberian stonechat.
The summer male has black upperparts, a black head, an orange throat and breast, and a white belly and vent. It also has a white half-collar on the sides of its neck, a small white scapular patch on the wings, and a very small white patch on the rump often streaked with black. The female has brown upperparts and head, and no white neck patches, rump or belly, these areas being streaked dark brown on paler brown, the only white being the scapular patch on the wings and even this often being buffy-white.
European stonechats breed in heathland, coastal dunes and rough grassland with scattered small shrubs and bramble, open gorse, tussocks or heather. They are short-distance migrants or non-migratory, with part of the population (particularly from northeastern parts of the range, where winters are colder) moving south to winter further south in Europe and more widely in north Africa.
Population:
UK breeding:
59,000 pairs
This is National Tree Week here in Ireland {5th of March onwards} where we celebrate
our trees. We havent got many but thankfully since 2000 they have started planting more of our native hardwood species and less of those horrid Norway Spruce that block out light from the forest floor and prevent all the wonderful undergrowth, fungii and wild flowers from growing. Of course they are a commercial crop and vital for the economy. Indeed, Coilte, the forestry people here do great work as they allow access through there land and plantations to access the trails and mountain tracks which I love so much.
I dont think theres is anything more wonderful than Oak trees.
This tree which is an Irish Oak [Quercus Petraea] is reckoned to be over 400 years old and is growing in the Powerscourt Valley, near the waterfall here in Co. Wicklow. The ground and the humidity seems to suit them better than the more common English Oak [Quercus Robur] which are also magnificent trees.
I would really love to see more of your tree photos here on Flickr as the truly are such beautiful things.
Do hope you like it! Catch up with you later,
P@t. x.
Waldwirtschaft
February 2023 - Ferenberg-Bantigen BE, Schweiz
Mamiya 7II, 4/80 mm, Kodak Tri-X 400, D-76 (1+1)
Print auf Fomatone 132 mit Moersch ECO 4812
Selentonung MT1 1+9, 1:30 min
What's left over from the Forestry Commission plantings of pine trees all over the landscape here! Usually the trees were planted too close together to be able to walk in among them, and were dark and forbidding places. I loved the old Scots pines much more, but these trees were commercial, and made economic sense at the time. But finally I can enjoy wandering through the remains of this forest ;o)
HTMT and HTT ;o)
My Tree set is here: Here
My Textural Tuesday set here: Here
Trees and leaves: Here
Another from my run up a local hill to try the new lens.
It was a strange end to the day as a large bank of cloud from the East gradually swept over the Bowland Hills leaving this curve of cloud over the Lancashire Plain. This bench, on a recently cleared piece of forestry, on the summit of Beacon Fell provided a bit of foreground interest and I liked the way the setting suns light picked out the grain in the wooden seating.
First impressions of the Nikon 16-35 are pretty good.
Mountain homeland
Neukirchen bei Altmünster, Oberösterreich
1999
Noblex Pro 6/150 UX, Kodak CN 400
Lithprint auf Kodabrome II RC
SE5 1+15, +3 f-stops, 5 min
Catechol/NH4Cl 8+10+800, 1 min
Marsh Tit - Poecile palustris
Globally, the marsh tit is classified as Least Concern, although there is evidence of a decline in numbers (in the UK, numbers have dropped by more than 50% since the 1970s, for example). It can be found throughout temperate Europe and northern Asia and, despite its name, it occurs in a range of habitats including dry woodland. The marsh tit is omnivorous; its food includes caterpillars, spiders and seeds. It nests in tree holes, choosing existing hollows to enlarge, rather than excavating its own. A clutch of 5–9 eggs is laid.
Marsh and willow tits are difficult to identify on appearance alone; the races occurring in the UK and are especially hard to separate. When caught for ringing, the pale 'cutting edge' of the marsh tit's bill is a reliable criterion; otherwise, the best way to tell apart the two species is by voice. Plumage characteristics include the lack of a pale wing panel (formed by pale edges to the secondary feathers in the willow tit), the marsh tit's glossier black cap and smaller black 'bib', although none of these is 'completely reliable'; for example, juvenile marsh tits can show a pale wing panel. The marsh tit has a noticeably smaller and shorter head than the willow tit and overall the markings are crisp and neat, with the head in proportion to the rest of the bird (willow tit gives the impression of being 'bull-necked').
A measure of the difficulty in identification is given by the fact that, in the UK, the willow tit was not identified as distinct from marsh tit until 1897. Two German ornithologists, Ernst Hartert and Otto Kleinschmidt, were studying marsh tit skins at the British Museum and found two wrongly-labelled willow tits amongst them (two willow tit specimens were then collected at Coalfall Wood in Finchley, north London, and that species was added to the British list in 1900).
A larger view of the log piles in the previous post (see below) to put it in context.
We were on a walking trail in the Symonds Yat area.
HTT!
Not mist but a controlled burn by forestry workers from a nearby conifer plantation that had been felled. An area that I'd visited numerous times over the years and from which I'd managed some lovely pictures, but nothing stays the same and I'd always known it was plantation and would be felled at some stage. Poignant all the same and although "my area" was closed due to the works this adjacent area had smoke drifting through which was backlit creating this mist-like effect and seemed to be a fitting finale.
A reworking of an earlier image. Sadly, I suspect this lovely historical relic was damaged or lost some months after the shot was taken, in the bushfires of December 2019.
As I walk through the forest, I hear that sweet song that can’t be mistaken by non other than the white-throated sparrow. It takes a break from foraging and I snap its photo…