Category Archives: Out and About

Wonderful Waxwings at Weston-super-Mare, Somerset

This morning while I sat huddled under the duvet, drinking my tea in bed, contemplating the incredibly thrilling prospects for the day I saw a tweet by Paul Bowerman, a local birding expert, that made my little heart jump and I leapt out of bed, flung on many layers of clothes and begged Brian to come with me to Winterstoke Road to see 24 waxwings in a tree at Easy Fit. Brian found one of his big cameras and off we went. Winterstoke Road is in Bristol, about twenty minutes drive from where we live.

When we got there we drove up and down and there was no Easy Fit. I got my phone out and googled and found there was an Easy Fit in Winterstoke Road in Weston Super Mare, about 12 miles away.

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I looked again at the tweet and realised that the birder’s home patch was in fact Weston Super Mare and even though he comes up to Bristol, well you see which way my thoughts went. LIttle tears of hopelessness came to my eyes. I have been waiting and hoping for another waxwing sighting since I missed seeing the ones in West Shrubbery before Christmas. They have been all over the country but none near enough to get to in a sensible time span.

“Oh, come on then!” he said, and we were off, speeding down the road to Weston Super Mare. We drove behind this lovely AA vehicle part of the way, great number plate!

First Glimpse Of the Waxwings

We found the Easy Fit garage and we found the waxwings just where they had said they were! Brian and I have a thing about birds, we don’t do much birding these days on account of the excitable poodles who have a tendency to bark and chase things, so our birding is more or less on hold, but I do miss it and I do love the excitement of seeing something just a little bit different from time to time.

Suspen… se !!

We last saw waxwings in Bristol a long long time ago, when Brian still took photos on film. They appear every so many years in large numbers in the UK. They come from Scandinavia and delight many people with their presence and their oh so pretty plumage. To find out more about them click on the link in this paragraph which will take you to the RSPB site.

Feeding Waxwings

Today was grey and overcast but as we got near the garage we could see them sitting in a tall tree. I squeaked and bounced on my seat! There were 24 beautiful, red wingtipped, quiffed little birds, unspooked by the traffic rumbling past and perfectly content with their current home near an excellent food supply. They were flying from their tall tree to the other side of the parking lot where there were berry filled bushes, picking a couple and then flying back to the tall tree to sit, rock in the breeze, digest and poo from a great height.

While we were there we met a great guy called James O’Connell, ornithologist, freelance film maker and passionate birder, making a film for the local news for tonight. He recognised Brian from when Brian used to go birding much more often down on the Somerset Levels. He has also been filming at Steart on the coast near Hinkley Point, where they are making a huge new saltmarsh reserve for wild birds. Here is a link to his new film Steart ‘The Flood’ on You Tube and we will be heading out to Steart again soon one of these days to see how it is all progressing.

Waxwings eating berries

Here are some of Brian’s photos of the ‘Easy Fit’ Waxwings. Aren’t they lovely? Brian is one of the kindest people I know, he put his morning on hold to go out there with me. I could have driven there, but I wouldn’t have managed the photos as you need a decent lens and a good camera to capture these speedy little birds in such poor light. Thank you darling!

Fabulous Flying Waxwings

(James O’Connell was taking some footage for the local early evening BBC news on 22nd Feb, if you switch on you might see the waxwings, if they run the story) and if you are near Weston Super Mare, the waxwings might still be there this weekend, so dust off your binoculars and go and see….

Battery Point, Portishead

Bristol is not famous for its big sky views. We live in a town of hills and narrow streets and it’s fairly hard to find a good place to watch the sun go down. Yesterday on a very cold afternoon, we drove out of the city to Portishead, where the Severn opens out beyond the Second Severn Crossing, the excuse being that we were going to see if we could see a pair of Purple Sandpipers which are usually present on the rocks below Battery Point at high tide. Here is a link to Paul’s birding blog which has some great photos of them.

We didn’t see them, we were a bit late for high tide which is when they would have been closest into the shore, but we stayed a while as there was hardly any wind and watched the sky…

Then we came home and made a big pot of red Ezo the Bride soup, which has a base of onion, roasted red peppers, chillis and garlic, seasoned with cumin and paprika, and contains a mix of red lentils, bulgar wheat and rice. We followed this up with Cumberland Sausage from Cockermouth and Yorkshire Puddings which stuck to the tin but were still fabulous. Cold weather is a great excuse to eat hearty food.

Looking towards the Second Severn Crossing

Battery Point Light, marks the rocks

You know who

Zeb waits in the winter sun

Sunset 15.57

Where Zeb Walks in Badock’s Woods

Where we walk a lot of the time is a piece of old woodland ten minutes away from home. I am not good at reading landscape and seeing the past and using my imagination to see what was and how it looked. I don’t usually see ghosts. This place however has a curious quality to it. It isn’t very big at all but it has steep sides and trees and the River Trym runs through from Filton to where it meets the Avon at Sea Mills. (So named as there used to be tidal mills there). It is another place worth visiting if you haven’t been there and only know Bristol as a busy city.

In the middle of the woods the Trym meets an unnamed stream which comes in under the road and is often full of something nasty from somewhere higher up.

This summer the Trym was almost dry and we wondered why it was so much lower than any previous year. Two evenings ago we were walking through and there were men in big helmets and yellow jackets, clambering about in the water and up the slopes and I wondered what they were doing. Fortunately I met Mark yesterday; he is the wonderful hard working park keeper who looks after the Woods on behalf of Bristol City Council – the man who knows everyone and everything that is going on.

The riverbed has a leak, a large hole in its side and it’s running into the sewers. It’s going to cost lots of money to fix and it’s all a bit of a worry. It’s very unusual for a river to run into a sewer, usually it’s the other way round. When it rains heavily the river rises right up the banks and rushes along in a mad frenzy, it’s very variable.

I was told a bit of the history of the river by Mark and how it has been altered over time. There is more to be read on the Friends of Badocks Wood site; how it used to be four feet deep but got filled in when some boys drowned in it and how there used to be a pond down from the weirs. Someone else told me there used to be a little tea place by the side of the rocks.

There is a nice pdf here which shows you the layout of the woods, as you can see it really isn’t very big but it feels big because of the mature trees and the hill slopes and you feel a mile away from the city when in fact you are surrounded by it. These images have been put on boards around the woods to help people orientate themselves when they are there.

Dog walkers are a wonderful disparate group of people, the one thing we have in common are our animals and their needs and as we go round and about we love to share our stories and our bits of gossip. I have met people who came here as children, people who remember the Wildlife Park, now closed, people who remember shimmying up the fences round the Lake and swimming late at night when the Club was closed. In the war there were allotments on the field by Doncaster gate, then pre-fabs which were demolished in 1979. I heard about how it was almost a no-go area full of burnt-out cars at one time before we moved here and now it is a much loved and well used place. Last winter I saw the spotted woodpeckers most days and there are nearly always grey wagtails down by the stream. Wild garlic grows here in abundance in the Spring and there is lovely mixed woodland to wander through. The Council make changes and not everyone likes them, but that is always the way with spaces with different groups of users. From a dog walker’s point of view it is almost perfect. It is safe, enclosed and peaceful; there are streams to jump in and a mix of woodland and open spaces to run in off lead.

Here is an experiment with WordPress’s Gallery Format, I think you should be able to see all the photos full size in a sort of carousel if you click on one of them (let me know it it works and if you like it).

Getting ready to jump in... (the other dog is my other poodle)

Photos from my phone yesterday, not an iphone, so they are a bit blurry… Zeb saw a ball in the water so decided he had to rescue it. Poodles like going in water if there’s a bit of a challenge involved.

I looked for photos and old maps today, I wanted to find a picture or a drawing of the rivers and the pond that Mark was talking about but I ended up getting completely distracted by these acoustic pieces by Jono Gilmurray based on recordings of the water rushing through Badock’s Wood. Not only dog walkers are inspired by this lovely place….

Badock’s Wood 11 by Jono Gilmurray