Since I got seriously into wildlife in April this year, I haven’t been looking forward to the Winter much. Just the thought of not being able to see many of my favourite animals anymore, not until next Spring anyway, seemed kind of depressing. Would the Winter prove to be a hellish dystopia of no bees, like the future is going to be if humans don’t stop destroying the environment? But, today is the first day of Winter, and, while it’s a grey and not particularly nice day, I found it to be quite a lovely day for wildlife, which got me hoping that even though it’s getting colder, I’ll still be able to go out and about to see a lot of wonderful creatures.
I went to Fitzgerald’s Park first, and saw this ladybird. I don’t know what type these are, but there’s been loads of them in Fitzgerald’s Park for the last few weeks.*
Tiny Creature!
They’ve been around Fitzgerald’s Park for a while, I think a few weeks ago one even hitched a ride on my bike! But, I was surprised at the scarcity of birds in Fitzgerald’s Park. Usually it’s a haven for wood pigeons, jackdaws, hooded crows and rooks. Perhaps it was that I arrived in the park earlier than usual. Do birds sleep in? So I got on the bike and cycled to the Lee Fields.
Once at the Lee Fields, I heard a shriek that I’ve come to love the sound of. It was a buzzard! At least one buzzard lives near the area, I’ll usually hear the cry of the buzzard either in Fitzgerald’s Park or in the Lee Fields.
Buzzard!
One of my photography dreams is to get a really clear photo of one of these birds in flight. I simply love how majestic they are, truly a spectacular bird. If you want a clear picture of what they look like, here’s a picture of one I took in the Glen River Park in September.
Magnificent Creature!
When I encounter them in flight, when they’re high up above me, I recognize their call more easily than I recognize their appearance. At first I would think it’s a seagull, and then I would hear, that epic shriek! And then I’d look closer, and I’d see the beautiful brown feathers, and I’d know that it’s a buzzard!
Since I first encountered a buzzard in the Glen River Park in August, they quickly became one of my favourite birds. It brings me such joy when I hear or see them, either in the Glen River Park or the Lee Fields usually. But, I’ve written before about how it does sadden me at times how buzzards and many other animals have to go about making a living:
But unlike flies, the creature that was mainly discussed in that post, where it’s a grey area to what extent they are sentient or not, buzzards hunt other animals that most certainly are sentient, and think and feel, for example, they hunt other birds.
But, while it would sadden me to see a buzzard killing another bird for food, I know better than to intervene. By intervening, I would be sentencing the buzzard, or possibly their young, to death, because I would be depriving them of their food source.
So yeah, nature is awesome, but it also kind of sucks sometimes doesn’t it?
It’s amazing to think that, before I got seriously interested in wildlife, I must have seen a buzzard flying high up above me before, and heard its piercing cry before, but I wasn’t aware of it, because I would have been completely oblivious. It’s fascinating to think, what wonders are right in front of us, but we don’t see them, or hear them, because we haven’t taken the time to become aware of them?
As I cycled through the Lee Fields, I went looking for what has become one of my favourite things about the place over the last few weeks, the family of swans!
Swans!
I’ve encountered this family of swans many times before, there’s something so so peaceful about watching this family drift peacefully down the River Lee. But, I was a bit worried for the swan family this time, because as you can see here, there is only four cygnets, normally there is five. I started to worry that one of them fell to some harm, it made me sad. But, it turned out all was well, because soon enough I found the missing cygnet!
There you are don’t be going off and worrying me!
So the cygnet was fine, they were just about a quarter of a mile up the river. Shortly after finding the missing cygnet I encountered an extremely blurry stonechat. Not actually blurry, just blurry from my point of few due to the fellow being far away, and I couldn’t get a clear shot with the camera.
A stonechat. This was the clearest photo I could get.
And then I encountered a bird who’s feathers are just the most beautiful colours. It was, to my knowledge, my first encounter with a male bullfinch. He was moving around a lot, so I feared I wouldn’t get a photograph, but I managed to get this.
A male bullfinch. Such beautifully coloured feathers.
At this point I decided to return to Fitzgerald’s Park, to see had the bird population increased there by now. But to my surprise, the variety of birds there was far smaller than it is most days. Usually it’s full of delightful pigeons and crows!
But I did see two of my favourites, the pond was absolutely full of black headed gulls.
Black headed gulls are great this is an objective fact.
And, I saw a very common resident of Fitzgerald’s Park, a heron. I’ve never met anyone who has anything bad to say about herons. And I hope I never do.
Truly one of the best birds.
And, while Fitzgerald’s Park was relatively crowless today, I did encounter a charming rook!
A bird for the ages! I have no idea what I mean by that.
I’d been out for a few hours at this point so I thought I should head home soon and have a bit of a rest, but there was one place I wanted to visit first. Near Fitzgerald’s Park is a flowerbed, that is always full of honeybees. It’s been like this all Summer, and even into October. Though the numbers had dropped by October, but by this point, that flowerbed was pretty much the only place I know of where there were a lot of honeybees present. So I wondered, would there still be honeybees there, on the first day of Winter? And the answer was yes!
A honeybee on the first day of Winter!
Exploring the flowerbed.
A world of blue flowers.
So, a very nice start to the Winter indeed. The world is getting colder, but it’s still full of life.
I think part of my motivation in writing this, is to remind others, and to remind myself, that it’s not always a good idea to stay indoors during the Winter. Sure it’s cold, sure there’s less daylight, but there’s a still a bunch of wonderful animals to meet! Before I developed an interest in wildlife, I would have had no motivation to go outdoors on a cold grey day like today. But getting fresh air, and getting what little sunlight there is, is so important for mental health. So maybe, now that I’ve an actual motivation to leave my house, this will be the best Winter ever!
*Just learned it’s a harlequin ladybird.
Ponderings Of An Autist 