n'o jays

 

13/11/22
If anything I find 13s lucky, rather than unlucky. I had a notion to try my luck at Cammo and the 13th seemed a reasonable forecast. Back in February I had had a couple of fab encounters with Jays there. (Blog here.) A local woman photographer had been putting out food for them off the beaten track on the other side of the curling pond, and gained their trust. I hoped to repeat the experience, but had no idea if mid-November would produce the goods.

The cycle there was not as arduous as I remembered. I reckoned an hour but it was about 45mins in reality. All things considered I had arrived a bit on the early side (10am-ish as I entered Cammo estate) and the sun hadn't climbed high enough to properly light the places I planned to photograph. I parked my bike at the feeding trees - a spot popular with some folk who regularly bait a couple of places by the curling pond, which attracts a good selection of garden birds. I waited. Nada. After about 10 minutes a robin and maybe a great tit had shown only a passing interest, and the arena (a tree stump and horizontal bough) were mostly in shade. 

I tried not to let this dismal start to the day colour my outlook. It was mild for November, but cold for standing about doing nothing. I had changed from damp cycling gear into a dry top, warm jumper and duvet jacket, but there wasn't much going down here and I decided to have a slow cycle round other parts of the estate (mainly where the sun was actually shining) and see if there were distractions until the sun rose a bit higher. Not being a regular to the Cammo estate it is impossible to know if the locals are still turning up and feeding the birds, and in what areas. It did not bode well. I didn't even see any nuthatches. They have always been visible in Cammo on previous trips and I had them as a next best if there were no jays. I mean there's always been nuthatches there. 

venue 1: pair of great tits watching the skies

much beauty, fewer birds

I knew from previous visits there was a birdfeeder hung at the blunt summit of the field to the North. I took a long way round to see what gave. Nothing gave. I parked my bike beside a bench that acted as a memorial for teenager Lewis, whose life ended tragically age 13. The birdfeeder was filled with seeds and was being attended by blue tits, a robin and, when I arrived, a nuthatch. It bobbed in and out of the sunlight. I stayed a while. The nuthatch did not return, and there wasn't much to keep me there but I enjoyed actually taking photos of the birds, even if they were fairly commonplace species.

After a while I returned to venue 1 next to the curling pond. The tree stump was in partial sunlight with shadows crossing the feeding area. I put out some bread and seeds and waited. A bit more lively a response with a variety of species including nuthatches. Better, but still a bit gloomy. I looked across the pond to the Jay area. No sign of jays (occasional cackles that could be jays or magpies) and mostly still in shade. I would do a while on this side then wander over.

nuthatches in shadow

treecreeper

I eventually pushed my bike through the undergrowth on the other side of the curling pond. (I still have remnants of oily grass wound round my chainrings.) It is visited less by passing dogwalkers. I had seen the woman bait the low horizontal tree trunks here to attract jays, back in February. I hoped she had continued to do this but had no way of knowing. I also didn't know if Jays are an all year round bird; maybe they migrate? Maybe they only come out to be photographed in the harshest of Winter weather and shun human handouts in November. Maybe they had moved on from this area? I baited all the branches I recalled being popular last Feb and prepared myself for a long, cold stand.

Crows and squirrels were the first to pick up on the free handouts. They were not particularly welcome as they demolished the Jay-food. But they might well encourage other birds to appear. Slowly, as I could feel the cold creep into my bones (gloves on, blowing on hands) a few birds started to appear. A robin, great tits, blue tits and an occasional nuthatch. A treecreeper was a very welcome exotic, not drawn to my bait but landing on a tree just a few feet away. Its perfectly coloured feathers making it all but disappear on the mottled bark.

A squirrel ran past, surprised to see me, freezing for a second, what was that in its mouth? An extra squirrel tail somehow? On reflection and examining the only half decent photo I got, it looks to have been mum squirrel transporting a kit to a new place. It neither explained nor hung about for more pics. 

unexpected treat, a goldcrest

The goldcrest, tiny and twitchy as fuck, hopped around very close to where I was but never for long enough to get anything more than one gloomy image. There wasn't an abundance of light. The camera was suggesting I was taking pretty decent images but I knew from the surrounding murk, that when I put them up on the monitor later they would be grainy, poorly focussed and a bit shite*. Nevertheless I continued, squinting into the trees for a glimpse of the bizarre warm beige colour of a jay. Several times I thought I saw or heard distant jays but I am fairly sure it was just magpies. As the title of this blog admits, it was not a very jay day.

*My usual hit rate of about one in ten - for every ten photos taken, one will make the blog - was reduced horribly. I took over 1000 images and under 40 less-than-glorious images made the grade. 😥

1/320th at 3200 ISO, f4.5

To accomodate the lack of decent light I cranked the ISO up to the max 3200 (somehow the FZ2000 tolerates this without too much degradation of image,) which gave me a shooting speed of 1/320th of a second which is (with luck and a following wind) just enough to freeze a pondering nuthatch in the undergrowth. I cranked the saturation, contrast and sharpness in post. But it was all fighting a lost battle, and pleasant as it was to be standing in a small, cool, but mostly traffic free woodland glade with only the thrip of birds' wings for company (and the distant bark of dogs chasing squirrels up trees) it was a bit short of the treasures I had hoped for. 

coal tit

great tit

Eventually it was just me, the nuthatches and the coal tits. Pretty much everyone else had got bored and fluttered off. Even the crows got bored; after testing how close they could get or how long they could wait for me to bugger off so they could move in and hoover up the remains. The nuthatches and coal tits were prepared to last as long as I could be bothered to bait their branch with sunflower hearts. It was a good branch - someone had put this horizontal between 2 small trees and it was just broad enough to balance a small fist of seeds on. The nuthatches ate till full then continued to return, but would fly off with a full beak and poke the seeds into nooks and crannies in the bark of the surrounding trees, in much the same way as squirrels stash nuts for later. I think the coal tits were doing similar, though they disappeared further into the greenery to do so.

The branch was above head height which helped it stay bright enough for photos. I headed off around 2pm when the light was in terminal decline and I needed a brisk cycle home to warm my bones. It had been great to get up close to nuthatches - they are vibrant small birds with their huge claws, like giant crampons, and powerful beak. And that masked bandit appearance. Very charming and fairly tame here, coming close to the camera but always on the move. Just a shame there was no sign of the jays. 

Now this video was atypical for the nuthatches. They were constantly on the go and would normally only stop for a couple of seconds, then take some seeds and fly off. I'm not sure whether the buzzard call made this one hunker down for much longer than usual, or whether it was getting territorial over this main stash of seeds on its branch. But I think it was pretty much the only occasion all day when a nuthatch sat still for 30s or more.

17 miles, 5hrs