2nd October 2009

In recent days, two animals which have come to my attention more often than usual are grey squirrels and brown rats. In the past two mornings, I have twice seen brown rats scuttling into undergrowth beside the cycle track. The point at which I see the rats is next to a recently-harvested field, where there must be plenty of spilt grain. I haven’t usually seen the grey squirrels but I have heard individuals several times as they have made the harsh scolding sound which they usually use when they see a predator, such as a domestic cat.

Jays have been  noisy recently and I have had many sightings of them.  The jays have sometimes flown across open space but have usually been seen disappearing into the trees. Jays are attractive but don’t like to sit still for very long, so it is usually difficult to get a good look at the plumage, especially the bright blue wing feathers. The feather pictured of this page was picked up in the Spanish Pyrenees a few years ago.  Some years before the visit to the Pyrenees, I spent four weeks cycling in Norway and kept getting fleeting glimpses of a brown bird with an orange-brown rump as it disappeared into bushes and trees. On my return to England, I found that this bird, which behaved like our native jay, was a Siberian jay.

This morning, I spotted a green woodpecker as I approached Ackworth School. At times, green woodpeckers can be very noisy in the school grounds but have not been noticeable in recent months. The green woodpeckers vandalise nesting boxes which have been fastened to trees in the school grounds. The boxes have metal plates to protect the entrance holes but the woodpeckers simply hammer through the undersides of the boxes. They steal the chicks of nesting birds in summer and they roost inside some of the boxes during the winter months.

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