How to feed yourself - lesson two

I nearly changed my yesterday's Blip late last night, as I didn't have a good blipping day yesterday. However I was pleased that a couple of fellow B.s seemed to like dear Bomble. The reason for the possible change was that Helena had persuaded me to get up off my butt and go with her to see a local beacon being lit up as part of the national network celebrations.

Her suggested beacon was near Slad, but I wasn't impressed with that idea, so checked and found a much nearer and potentially more interesting site. So with only minutes to spare we drove up to Selsley Common, which separates the Nailsworth stream (one of the five valleys which all converge and join the River Frome at Stroud) and the escarpment running along the eastern side of the Severn Vale. It is a very ancient and open site, also looking north across the Frome valley to the next section of the escarpment running northwards towards Cheltenham and Stow-on-the-Wold. There are neolithic remain, barrows and earthworks and that is where we found several hundred fellow voyeurs at 10pm, as the light was finally setting in the west and the full moon rising in the east.

A beacon on a pole (rather disconcertingly, as I had imagined a huge bonfire would have been prepared) was eventually lit on the second time of asking, with much audience disdain after the first countdown failed. I could see another beacon alight across the Frome Valley at Haresfield Beacon, as it is formally called. But I didn't see any others up the Severn Vale, even though we could see as far north as the Malvern Hills and across to the Forest of Dean directly to the west.

An added bonus was the firework display marking the completion of the Stroud on Water canal Festival, which was sited far down below us amidst the twinkling lights of Stroud and its various villages. I was pleased with my first attempts at near dark photography with intermittent fireworks illuminating the darkness. But in the end I thought Bomble should stay as my Blip.

Today was another matter as I took forever to wake up and then had to drive Helena to her work place, before coming back to finish the dreaded work I have on my plate. I had just heard back from colleagues with their approval for my written reports, so before producing a final draft, I went downstairs to have some toast and hummus.

Helena was back by then and busy with her apothercarial hat on, making smelly potions for clients. She told me that the two woodpeckers were back near the feeders in the rhus tree, which we have both been seeing more frequently day by day. I'd thought that they were a pair of Great Spotted Woodpeckers preparing for mating, but Helena put her fabled research cap on, dived into the books we have, got out the binoculars and quite rightly established that it was a mother and her young. She recognised that a young bird has a red spot on the crown of its head and by its behaviour we knew that it was being fed by the adult bird.

The two birds had been regularly coming down together from the big sycamore and ash trees, and now it seemed that the mother was showing the young one how to climb onto the two different bird feeders, to take the suet into its beak and then jump onto the tree trunk to bash the food against the trunk, and then to eat it. The in-house researcher has also found out that this is quite a rare sight, as the juvenile accompanies the parent and is fed by it for about a week after fledging only.

I went upstairs with my toast and a drink and then hearing that distinct sound of the woodies again, which I now recognise instantly, I grabbed my camera and took some pictures. Sadly the dark clouds, the rain and the shadowy area they were in haven't produced great pictures, but you can get the idea, after a severe crop.

Here you can see the back of the mother nearest the camera, shoving the suet right down the throat of the young one, who has the red coloured nape just visible on the top of its head. I spotted that, from some angles, the red spot on its crown cannot be differentiated, so it must be something to do with light catching a certain angle on the bird's feathers which produces the red colour. They were feeding together and perched on the trunk for about ten minutes, and it is delightful to feel they are so comfortable when close to human habitation.

I should say that earlier this morning the ginger cat from next door was sitting in a branch no more than three feet from this spot. But as soon as it went, because the rain had driven it back home, Helena commented that 'I can hear the woodie is back!' I don't think the birds have too much to worry about, although Bomble is a vicious hunter when he wants (thankfully rarely, as we keep him full), and he was climbing up that same tree yesterday just before I blipped him.

A couple of years ago, our neighbour found a baby woodpecker in the garden, alive, but unable to contemplate moving. We put him in a box and I drove him to the local vet which is only a few hundred yards away, and they declared he was fit and looked after him for a short while till they released him back into the wild. We are so lucky to live here!

I once blipped a picture I love of a mother swift feeding its infants in mid air here.