So the big trip of the year has finally arrived! I’m sitting in our hotel room at Heathrow Airport from which, far too early tomorrow morning, we will start our journey to Ecuador.
We will first fly to Madrid and then an 11 hour flight to Ecuador’s capital, Quito. We will have two nights close to the capital before heading out into the Ecuadorean wilderness.
We have a few days in the Andes followed by time in the cloud forest before journeying into the Amazon, all of which will amount to 14 nights in country.
This is a mammal-focused trip but I’m also hoping to add quite a few new birds to my life list. This is the first time I’ve been to mainland South America, so every mammal and nearly every bird will be new to me.
I might be able to add a blog post or two while I’m there but I’m looking forward to writing some longer posts when I return home.
Now, down to the bar for a drink and meal before an early night – the 3:30am alarm will arrive far too soon!
I’m so fortunate to be able to work from home several days per week as it allows me to go for walks around the village and down the country lane at lunchtime.
Today is a particularly lovely autumn one with blue sky and a little remaining warmth in the sun. There’s a bit of a chill in the breeze but I’ve come out without a jacket.
In the sunshine the autumn colours really do stand out…
As we approach the changing of the clocks and the return of Greenwich Mean Time, my post-work cycles are coming to an end for this year.
I love heading out for a cycle in the country lanes after a day at my desk but I’m not keen on cycling in the dark once the clocks have gone back. Around here in Northamptonshire, the undulating and twisty roads can hide cyclists at night and many drivers don’t give enough consideration to cyclists (or walkers, pedestrians or horse riders for that matter). I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve been close-passed by drivers this year and in the dark it is perhaps even more likely.
However, I’m not stopping cycling altogether over the darker days; I’ll try to make sure I head out at weekends and start running again to keep up my fitness.
This year has been great for exploring the off-road routes in the countryside surrounding my home and I feel closer to nature and the farming seasons because of it. Unfortunately, most of those routes are now very muddy and not really usable on a regular basis. I’m already looking forward to the drier days of spring and summer when the ground hardens and I can explore.
It still feels quite mild at the moment with daytime temperatures in the mid-teens. This is actually about average for October in Northamptonshire and the night times are in their average range too (six to eight degrees Celsius). I even had my shorts on as I went for my lunchtime wander down the lane and eventually the track if turns into.
There were more signs of the changing season and the winter to come. The leaves really are starting to put on a show, even in the drab greyness of today. There was also a small flock of roving long-tailed tits in one of the hedgerows, which will hopefully arrive on our birdfeeders on their way past. Finally, there was also the first winter thrush of the season, a fieldfare calling alarm from the top of a tree.
Some photos from earlier this week when I almost missed the sunrise but rushed out just in time to see the dawn over the misty and slightly frosty fields.
Today, very unusually, I had some hours to burn and as I was in West Sussex, I decided to head to the coast. I spent a bit of time doing something I haven’t done in ages, focusing purely and simply on taking photos and getting engrossed in it.
Standing at the station it’s an autumnal morning with a sharpness to the very fresh air and a heavy dew on the fields. In the distance is one of the high points of Northamptonshire, Borough Hill, which appears to have a slight frost on its slopes beneath the radio mast. Whilst the spring dawn chorus is long gone, there’s a collective calling of birds that I haven’t heard in quite a while. It began with a couple of robins ‘ticking’ in the bushes but they have now started to sing. They are accompanied by more distant wrens and a single blackbird startled into its alarm. Overhead there are the less tuneful calls of crows and jackdaws and the occasional wood pigeon flying by. This is the scene of an autumn morning with the hope of some sun, something we’ve been missing for days, after heavy rains caused flooding across the county. The songs of the birds seem to sign a hope that the sun may bring some brightness and rare warmth that has been lost since the equinox.
This image was taken this morning from the platform of the village station I catch my train to work from. I should be doing some work on the journey but I might have to stare out of the window instead…
After moving to Northamptonshire in early 2021 we have found and explored many of the nature reserves both nearby and a bit further away.
We fairly regularly go to the local Wildlife Trust’s nature reserves at Pitsford Water and Summer Leys, and less often go to Titchmarsh (a reflection of the distance not its loveliness). We also once a year or so head further east to the Nene Washes and Ouse Washes; we now benefit from not being very far from The Fens, so these sites, as well as others like Wicken Fen, are within easy reach.
However, we haven’t really headed very far west in search of wildlife sites. That is, before yesterday. With an unplanned Saturday on our hands, we headed to the Warwickshire Wildlife Trust site at Brandon Marsh, just south of Coventry.
We had been thinking of going to Brandon before now, particularly for the winter starlings murmuration, but hadn’t quite got round to it.
The reserve is a mix of grassland, woodland and reedbed spread over 92 hectares. There are a lot of trails through the site and plenty of hides to watch the wildlife from. This was perhaps quite a quiet time of year to go. With breeding season for the birds well past, the summer visitors drifting south, and the winter visitors yet to arrive in big numbers, the birdlife was lower than it might be at other times of year. However, there was still plenty to see and hear. Of particular note were four sightings of kingfisher at three different locations and we could hear Cetti’s warblers all around the reserve. Unfortunately we missed the double osprey of a couple of days but we did find a good selection of birdlife given the time of year.
I could imagine that the reserve is usually bouncing with life in the spring with the woodlands full of songbirds and the warblers calling endlessly from the reedbeds but we have many months to wait to find out. Beforehand, hopefully, we will go back this winter to see whether the starlings have returned in big numbers.
I should also mention the cafe does a very good sausage bap and we got in free being members of a different wildlife trust.
Daft Mumblings 