Frogs and Sparrow Hawks

I was up and out very early this morning. I went down to the river to see if I could see and film the otters. Even though it was very cold, with all my layers I reasonably comfortable. This was important as I wanted and needed to stay fairly still. I have realised that part of the reason why my attempts to film the otters have not been successful is that I have been too easily distracted by other wildlife and my reacting to that and trying to film or focus on the other wildlife has alerted the otters to my presence.

The other factor has been the fact that my old video camera took seven or eight seconds to power up. With the Sony it is about two and half seconds, also I can start recording the moment I switch on. All be it with the chance that the exposure and the focus will be incorrect at the start. Anyway I was sitting quite still when a big black Labrador came and sat next to me, she (as I later discovered) looked at me as if she was saying “I can see you”. I remained still as did the dog and she looked out on to the river as though she was keeping vigil as well. It would have made an interesting picture.

We were like that for about ten to fifteen minutes, all the while I was wondering where the dogs owner was. I did not want to move to look around as this would break my cover, and while the dawn light was growing, I was still getting some good data from the Infra Red spectrum, and to move myself I would have to move the tripod. Then there was a splash off to my right, the dog stood up and was all but pointing in the right direction. As I swung the camera around I had to move a little, this brought a shriek from the bank behind me and over my head. As I turned round the woman whose dog it was quickly apologised and told me that she just had not seen me there. Even though I was only ten feet from her, so my cover was reasonably good. We both turned our attention to the river, just in time to see one otter dive and then another four feet from the diving otter entered the water and disappear. While I was pleased to see the otters, I was disappointed to miss filming them. However it would have been a very short clip.

I talked with the dogs owner for a while and it turns out she lives very close to me and has seen me wandering about. She to had come down in the hope of seeing the otters, but had just been deeply surprised by what she had thought was a pile of leaves moving like that. Well half the fun is watching and trying to get close to the wildlife. After she and her dog left, I continued there but no further sightings were made.

I had to get back home as I had left before the milkman had delivered and my milk would be sitting by my back gate. When I got back I had only time to switch on the kettle and open the back door before I was grabbing my camera again. Just yesterday I had bought a large plastic dog bowl to use as a bird bath. What I had spotted was the Common Frog that has taken up residence in my yard, it was making for the dog bowl bird bath. I got some film of it too. I would have filmed it further but the post woman arrived and by the time I had signed for my package the frog had disappeared.

Later I had to go out shopping in Consett so I was getting ready to go out when I spotted a column of birds down the hill. I grabbed the binoculars and it was mainly Jackdaws and lesser black backed gulls, who come inland in winter, but something was causing them to rise like this. I continued to observe and spotted that they were harrying a sparrow hawk. It was to far to film this and I would miss the bus if I went down to film it.

As I finally left I had missed that bus so I could have gone out with the camera. I know I missed the bus as it went by the end of my road as I was trying to lock my door. Therefore I had an hour to await another. When I went down for that bus, I was standing listening to the sparrows squabbling in a privet hedge where they nest and roost. When all of a sudden they went silent. I looked across to see a sparrow hawk, probably the same one I had seen earlier, glide out at the level of the roof tops, it had a sparrow in its talons. With only a few beats of its wings it flew overhead and off into the distance. None of the other adults had noticed but a little boy of about three was watching wide eyed in awe. When he realised I was looking at him he beamed a grin. Once the bus came he was sitting in the seat in front of me and was chatting away to me all the while going in to town. The grandmother was sorry that she had not seen the bird, but was pleased her grandson had seen it.