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Return of the Wheatears
Swallows don’t arrive on the Chayne until the end of April, so the best indicator we have of spring is the arrival of wheatears. These pretty little rude boys arrive at the end of March after a long journey from East Africa, and they stay until early in September. I saw the first one… Continue reading
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Weasel Weights
I have been trapping more and more weasels over the past few days, culminating last night with three males within half a square mile. One had clambered in to inspect the smell of rotten fish in the mink trap, and the other two had been caught as they dashed across gateways. In order to get… Continue reading
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Sleep-lekking
Having been looking into black grouse lekking behaviour over the past two months, I was surprised this morning to watch a blackcock fall fast asleep with his feathers at full lek arrangement. He had been patrolling through some marshy ground, and came to a halt after half an hour. He pulled his head into his… Continue reading
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Make Yourselves At Home
Bit by bit, the moor has come to life again. Cotton grass flowers are out, skylarks are larking and meadow pipits are parachuting out of the sky like shuttlecocks. It is a great time of year for the Chayne, made all the more special by the recent arrival of curlews. At the beginning of March… Continue reading
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The Phoenix Larch
It has been a few months since I started to fell trees in the windbreak above the farm buildings with the intention of generating some interesting new undergrowth, and I now have a pleasant reminder of one particularly massive tree felled during that process. The huge larch which had its demise documented in this blog… Continue reading
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Mink Trapping
Having spoken to the keeper on some neighbouring ground, I picked up some worrying information about a new enemy. I was told that mink appear here and there on his moor, and given that much of the low ground on the Chayne is criss-crossed with ditches and streams, it seems more than possible that there… Continue reading
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A “Big” Lek
County Durham is probably one of the best places in the entire country to see black grouse. While some estates in the highlands of Scotland may have more birds, the blackcock and greyhens of these wide open English hillsides are so conspicuous that they are reliable enough to travel long distances on a tight budget… Continue reading
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Preparing Spring Traps
The number of stoats and weasels I have been catching has risen sharply over the last fortnight, and I’m sure that it has something to do with the changing seasons. Coming into some money over the weekend, I bought a few more Mk.4 spring traps on Tuesday in an attempt to make as much of… Continue reading
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The Impostor
One of many things I have been working on as part of my project to learn more about black grouse is to find out about lekking displays. Having access to a single lekking bird has been a great opportunity to carry out some basic experiments, and I have been determined to find out what makes… Continue reading
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Missed Opportunities
The shepherd drives around the farm every day on the quad bike. She is a familiar and harmless sight to all of the wildlife on the farm, and they take the sound of the bike as part of life on the hill. By contrast, I do all my work on the hill on foot, and… Continue reading
About
“Shout on, Morgan. You’ll be nothing tomorrow”
Swn y galon fach yn torri, 1952
Also at: https://andtheyellowale.substack.com
Bog Myrtle & Peat 