Tipton's Croft

A field in Shropshire, England

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    And now it’s time for the toads: unlike frogs they’re quite happy to be out on dry land.

    Dry warty skin, crawling instead of hopping and out on dry land = toad!

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    A long way from home* but these three oystercatchers seem happy enough rootling around the edge of the pond.

    *Shropshire isn’t renowned for its coast, or oysters!

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    Filmed over two nights on the same camera at a busy crossroads: a hare, a cat, a fox and a badger.

    And here’s a composition of all four to show their relative sizes (the hare is closer to the camera so it looks bigger than it is).

    Hare, fox, badger and cat

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    WARNING. Do not watch if you have a nervous disposition. It’s not pretty and there’s not much romance involved but it’s what barn owls do in spring!

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    And now we have a pair of barn owls in the nest box, busy attending to each other and waiting the day out until they get get back out in the dark to hunt.

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    We spotted this brown hare a few days ago running at full pelt into the distance but this morning filmed it on the trail cam undisturbed in the early morning sun. It is coming into the field (we hope looking for a nesting site) through the holes in the hedge that the badgers make. Unfortunately badgers and hares don’t mix well together but there’s not way we can let one in but not the other: we’ll have to leave nature to do its thing.

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    It’s the first time one of the owls has stayed the day. It’s a bit early to be too optimistic but a good sign that they might be getting ready to nest. We hope!

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    Just as the winds die down, the first frogs and toads have started to gather in the shallows around the pond edge: one of the first signs that spring is not far away.

    A common frog

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    Not a great quality photo but you can clearly see the forked tail

    The unmistakable silhouette of a red kite over Tipton’s Croft. They’re not an unusual site around Shrewsbury but we don’t usually see them overhead here. The resident buzzard wasn’t impressed.

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    Our new sticklebacks
    Our new perch

    Today we had a delivery of some more native English fish to join the roach already resident in the pond: some three-spined stickleback and perch. Hopefully the pond will be big enough for them all to avoid each other as much as possible, as the perch are rather partial to eating small fish.

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    A brief visit to the owl box last night by a new pair of love-struck barn owls. We’re not sure where they are from but they both have identification rings on their legs so they’re definitely not the adults from last year. One of them could be one of the youngsters from last year’s clutch, but owls don’t normally stay where they were raised. Wherever they’re from, it’s good to see that the owl box has potential tenants.

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    These freshwater shrimp are having fun wriggling around upside down on the underside of the ice in the old pond.

    We know: they’re not actually shrimp and probably not the native Gammarus pulex but rather the interloper Crangonyx pseudogracilis.