Otter Walk, Bingley - Saturday 9th March

It was cold, wet and the forecast was for snow. The weather prompted a late change of meeting point, so we met in the Bingley Market car park close to the river and Myrtle Park. Our aim was a tall order - to find evidence of an elusive, nocturnal animal – our namesake the Otter!

Throstle's Nest stone - River Aire, Bingley

We descended the steps to Throstle’s nest and started to scan for exposed boulders in and at the edge of the river. Otters scent-mark their territory with spraint (poo!) in much the same way as other mammals like cats and foxes do. This might warn travelling otters that there is a resident on that stretch, either to attract a potential mate, or warn off competition.  It may also serve as a “calling card” for otters moving through an area to advertise their presence.

The spraint is thought to inform otters about age, sex, health and diet of the marking animal. It is black, 3 to 10 cm and flecked with bones and scales from the otter’s lunch!

Our first bird sighting was a grey wagtail, then another.  Next was a Wren (whose scientific name is Troglodytes troglodytes, which means "cave dweller" in Latin), scouting around the under-cut river bank. A short distance on, and only a stone’s throw from the town centre, we found some Otter spraint on a boulder in the water.

 

Cam prepares to get the spraint from the boulder

 

The Otter spraint - you can see the fish bones we found in it on the foil

The only way to experience the distinctive scent of an Otter spraint is to give it a sniff!

We found more 50m on and then crossed the river to check a sand bar for prints.  No otter, but a smaller 5-fingered print, probably a mink.  We also saw a single Fallow deer print (did it hop?!).

Mink tracks - Myrtle Park, Bingley

Our walk then took us up into Mouse Wood above the river, heralded by two woodpeckers, calling from the tree tops and startling a colourful Jay.  A deviation up Harden Beck revealed more otter sign, though Cam nearly had an ‘early bath’ collecting it.  So we know they travel up the smaller water courses feeding the river Aire.

Apart from a flock of Siskins high in the birch trees and a quick team photo on the Beckfoot Bridge, that was our lot.  We were all surprised at how much evidence of our otters we had found. Otter has made an incredible recovery from hunting, pollution and habitat loss and I have looked forward to their return since I was a child, so this was a warming event, on a cold day!

The Airdeale Otters at the end of a successful Otter spraint search!

Thank you to everyone who braved the weather and we hope you enjoyed it as much as we did.

RSPB Big Garden Birdwatch at St Ives, Bingley - Sunday 27th January

Thanks to everyone who turned up on Sunday 27th January to help out with the Big Garden Birdwatch survey. It is a really important survey, which helps the RSPB understand how well the birds are doing and gives us a ‘snapshot’ of bird numbers across the UK.

 Team talk

The snow had completely disappeared by the time we arrived at St Ives on Sunday morning but it was still a bitterly cold morning in the bird hide! But the excitement of seeing lots of different birds landing on the feeders and on the ground was enough to help take the hardy Otters’ minds off the cold.  The Otters leaders had been out on the Saturday and earlier on Sunday morning, putting out lots of tempting treats on the feeders and the ground for the birds. The birds could choose from peanuts, a variety of seeds, meal worm, fat balls and some of the feeders made at the Otters Christmas event – a real feast!  

And it was worth it. It is difficult to say precisely how many birds we saw because you have to try not to count the same bird over and over again but, in the hour we were there, we saw 14 different species, for a total of about 32 birds. The Otters all came armed with notebooks, pencils, bird identification books and binoculars to help us to be as accurate as possible.

The Nutchatches were the first to take advantage of all the food on offer and many of the Otters will now be expert at recognising this plump little bird with blue-grey feathers on its back, orange breast, and long black pointed bill, as at least four of them were constantly flying in and out to the feeders the whole time we were there. We saw three species of tit  – the smaller greyish Coal Tit, recognisable by the way it flits in, snatches a seed and flies out again, the larger Great Tit, with its distinctive glossy black head, and the familiar Blue Tit with its colourful mix of blue, yellow, white and green. 

 Nuthatch (photo Stephen Lilley)

The stars of the show, however, were the beautiful Jays. We recorded three of these striking birds, the most colourful members of the crow family. Normally they are quite difficult to see and it is usually their screaming call, which lets you know there is one about. But on Sunday, they put on a real show for us, as they couldn’t get enough of the peanuts that had been scattered all over the ground for their enjoyment! 

Jay (photo Stephen Lilley)

We saw five Blackbirds – including males and females and all the Otters should now be able to explain the difference! Right at the end of the hour, Nick spotted a Treecreeper and no prizes for guessing what it was doing – yes you’ve got it – it was creeping up a tree, looking for insects. This behaviour and its long curved bill make the Treecreeper easy to recognise once you’ve spotted it!

The list of birds

Other visitors to the hide area that morning were Robins, Chaffinch, Magpie, Dunnock, Wren and Song Thrush. The full list of birds recorded by the Airedale Otters is below - click on a link to learn more about the bird:

• Nutchatch 4
• Robin 3
• Blackbird 5
• Chaffinch 1
• Jay 3
• Magpie 2
• Coal Tit 2
• Woodpigeon 3
• Great Tit 2
• Dunnock 2
• Wren 1
• Blue Tit 2
• Treecreeper  1
• Song Thrush 1

The total of 14 species was not as high as the number of species we identified in our bird race last spring, as it was too early in the year for the summer visitors.  But all in all, a good day’s work for a cold January day, so well done Otters! The RSPB will publish the Big Garden Birdwatch results later in the year.

Christmas Event, St Ives, Bingley - Sunday 2nd December

Thank you to everyone who came to the Airedale Otters Christmas event at St Ives and made it such fun occasion.

The weather was great - it was a beautiful bright, sunny day, but quite chilly. We started with a walk around Coppice Pond and a visit to the bird feeders. It was a quiet morning for wildlife, so we soon headed back to the warmth of the St Ives visitor centre with its lovely roaring fire. The rooms were beautifully prepared for us by the Friends of St Ives - many thanks to them. So many Otters turned up it was a tight squeeze!

We had hot dogs cooked on the range, and mince pies, buns and juice. The mulled wine for the grown-ups went very quickly!

Everyone had the chance to make felt bird decorations of Robin, Blue Tit, Coal Tit, Chaffinch, Goldfinch, or House Sparrow – and to learn to identify these birds as we made them.

A Goldfinch and Blue Tit hanging from our Christmas tree!

 

This year’s bird song quiz was about the more unusual, weird and funny noises some British birds make.  We heard the Booming Bittern, the yaffling Green Woodpecker, the screaming Swift, and the churring Nightjar – not to forget the Corncrake, which rhymes with corn flake! We also learnt that some birds say their name: Cuckoo, Chiffchaff, and Jackdaw.

Click on the name of a bird above to learn more about the bird and listen to its song again. The quiz prize was a bird feeder and bird ID book, which the winners donated to their local school. Well done!

Finally, Cam got his hands dirty and mushed up a big pile of lard, mealworms and seeds to make some bird feeders. Here are two we made, hanging in an Otter’s garden. 

By feeding the birds in your garden you’ll be helping them survive periods of severe winter weather. This will help them be in the best condition at the start of the breeding season in the spring. Let us know what birds you seen on your feeders this winter.

Thanks again to everyone who came and made it such fun event. We will soon be posting a full list of events for 2013 - along with details of our next event, which coincides with the RSPB Big Garden Birdwatch on the weekend of 26/27th January.

The leaders of the Airedale Otters would like to thank all our members and parents for their continued attendance this year. We hope to see you all again in January.

Have a fantastic Christmas and a Happy New Year!

Checking Nest Boxes at Deep Cliff Wood, Harden - Sunday 18th November

Thank you to everyone who came to the fascinating and fun event at Deep Cliff Wood in Harden on Sunday 18th November. We cleaned out the nest boxes we made in January, getting them ready for next Spring.

 Deep Cliff Wood, Sunday 18th November

It was always a mystery when cleaning out nest boxes – who knows what you might find?! Well, out of the 14 next boxes, at least ten of them had been used. 

 Checking the first nest box

Nest boxes 1 and 5 contained only bird poo, which suggests that birds have been using them at night to roost.  Smaller birds, such as Blue Tits and Wrens, often use nest boxes to sleep in during winter nights (up to 60 Wrens were recorded in a nest box once!).

There were two half–built nests, in nest boxes 4 and DJM. Birds stop building nests for several reasons: maybe one of the parents were injured or killed (possibly by a predator like a Sparrowhawk), or maybe they were struggling in the bad weather. If, the birds were struggling to find food or keep themselves warm in all the rain, they may have decided to stop and try again later when the weather improved. Building a nest, laying eggs, and then raising a family is very hard work for a small bird. They will only carry on if they have a realistic chance of raising at least one chick.

 Blue Tit nest from nest box 3

 Blue Tit nest from nest box 12

In nest boxes 3, 10, and 12 we found complete Blue Tit nests. It is likely the birds in these nest boxes successfully raised families!

Checking nest box 6

It was a mixed story for nest boxes 6 and 23. Both had Blue Tit nests, with two eggs in Number 6 and three in Number 23. Hopefully, these Blue Tit families successfully raised chicks from other eggs, but like the half-built nests we found, these nests may have been abandoned before the mother had finished laying all her eggs.

Blue Tit nest from nest box 6

Blue Tit nest from nest box 23

Nest boxes 2, 8, 9, and 11 were all empty and clean. Hopefully these will be used next year.

Here’s a full list of the nest boxes:

Box number	What we found
1	Bird poo!
2	Empty and clean
3	Complete Blue Tit nest (no eggs found)
4	Partially-built nest
5	Bird poo!
6	Blue Tit nest with two eggs
7	Partially-built Blue Tit nest. Box chewed by squirrel
8	Empty and clean
9	Empty and clean
10	Successful nest
11	Empty and clean
12	Blue Tit nest and bird poo
23	Blue Tit nest with three eggs (one hatched)
DJM	Partially-built nest

We also brought some old birds’ nests we had collected, so we could have a closer look at how nests are made and how to tell the nest of one species from another. And there’s no better way of telling how a nest is made than pulling them apart!

 Looking at an old Great Tit nest

The three Blackbird nests were all made of a mud cup, lined inside and out with grass. The Song Thrush nest was similar, but with more twigs and leaves. The larger Woodpigeon nest was made of small sticks woven together. It looked quite flimsy, but was in fact quite strong. 

The Great Tit nest was similar to the Blue Tit nests we found in the boxes: a soft cup of moss, grass, feathers and bits of other things like string. We had one other nest, again similar to the Blue and Great Tit nests, but this time covered over with roof! It had a small hole in the top for the birds to come in and out. This nest was found in roof, under the eaves, so it was probably made by a House Sparrow.

We also had a brilliant game of Wildlife Bingo. I thought the Otters might struggle to find some of the things on the bingo cards, but almost everyone found everything! Well done!

While looking around we found a Common Earthball fungus, which often grows near birch and oak and there are plenty of those in Deep Cliff Wood.

Common Earthball in Deep Cliff Wood

Another lovely day in out in our wood, and the weather stayed mostly sunny too.

Bat Walk at St Ives, Bingley - Saturday 8th September

We had a great evening walk around St Ives estate looking – and listening – for bats.

We met at 7pm and joined up with the Friends of St Ives group, squeezing into the new visitor centre. Bat expert Ian Butterfield told us some amazing bat facts and explained how bats can be identified by their calls, and how we can tell what they are doing by the sounds they make. The bats calls are so high-pitched that people can’t normally hear them. The best way to find bats is with a bat detector, which converts the bats’ calls into sounds that people can hear. So Ian told us what to look and listen out for, and we all piled outside to go looking for bats.

The weather was perfect – the sun had been shining for most of the day and that meant we had a warm and still evening. First, we went searching along the tree-lined paths behind the golf course (see the map of St Ives here). It wasn’t until reached White Cote Barn that our bat detectors started to crackle.  Somewhere above was a bat… Then out of the blue, we saw our first bat – a Pipistelle! At least two of these small bats flew right over our heads along the path. We really needed the bat detectors to keep track of them – they’re so fast – and even then we could hardly keep track.

We walked down towards Coppice Pond, finding more Pipistelles on the way. It was quite dark by now, but not too dark for one Airedale Otter to find this spider running across the road almost under our feet. Someone’s been eating all their carrots!

Spider, St Ives, Bingley - 8th September 2012

It didn’t take long to find more bats hunting for insects over the pond. These were Daubenton’s bats, and they sounded slightly different to the Pipistelles we’d heard earlier. Using our bat detectors we could hear them as they approached, then we could shine our torches on them as they flew low over the water.

 Bat-watching at Coppice Pond, St Ives, Bingley - 8th September 2012

Standing on the little jetty watching bats over Coppice Pond was an atmospheric and enjoyable end to a great evening. Thank you to everyone who came along. You can read more about the Pipistrelle, Daubenton’s and other bats, and even listen to their calls, by clicking on this link.

One of our members brought a dragonfly to show us to the bat walk. She had found it on holiday in Stirling, Scotland, over the summer.

 Common Hawker Dragonfly

We think it’s a Common Hawker dragonfly. If there are any dragonfly experts out there who may be able to tell us a bit more, please get in touch!

Thank you for bring it to the meeting. If any of you have found anything interesting (such as insects, feathers, leaves, spraints, anything!), or have taken any nature photos you'd like to share with the group, then please bring them to the next meeting.

Denso Marston Nature Reserve - Sunday 8th July

This was our second visit to this hidden gem of a nature reserve in our two-year history. We had a pretty good turnout, considering Andy Murray was playing in the Men's Final at Wimbledon at the same time! Thanks to everyone who joined us – we had a great time bug hunting and pond dipping, and the weather was great too!

After a welcome from our host, reserve warden Steve Warrillow, we set out on a ladybird survey. We found lots of ladybirds, like the Two-spot and Seven-spot; but the most abundant was the recent invasive species the Harlequin ladybird.

 Harlequin Ladybirds at Denso Marston Nature Reserve
(photos Angie Wilson)

We even found a Harlequin larva, which will eventually turn into a fully-grown ladybird. This larva this is the stage in the ladybird lifecycle between egg and adult (a bit like a caterpillar is the stage between egg and butterfly).

 Harlequin Ladybird larva (photo Jane Cameron)

The Harlequin is a native of eastern Asia and was introduced into North America in 1988 to control aphids It has since become the most widespread species there. The Harlequin was also introduced on to mainland Europe and arrived in the UK in 2004 and is spreading rapidly. Harlequins have the potential to wipe out some of our 46 resident species of ladybird. If you see any Harlequin ladybirds while you are out and about why not report them here and help monitor the spread of this species, which will help us to understand their effect on our native ladybirds.

We also caught a variety of other bugs in our nets. We found three different types of butterfly: the dark Ringlet, the brown and yellow Speckled Wood, and the brown and orange Meadow Brown; and three types of damselfly: a Blue-tailed, an Azure, and a fantastic Banded Demoiselle.

 Blue-tailed Damselfly

There were lots of other small bugs too, like the Straw Dot Moth, Capsid Grass Bugs, bright green Aphid, and the red Soldier Beetle.

 Peacock Butterfly caterpillars

While we were searching for ladybirds we came across these magnificent caterpillars of the Peacock butterfly. Each one of these caterpillars will soon transform into a chrysalis and turn into a butterfly!

 Peacock Butterfly

During our walk through the reserve we found some patches of carpet, which have been left by Steve to provide shelter for minibeasts. Under these we found lots of young amphibians, like this fantastic Common Toad and Smooth (Common) Newt!

  

Common Toad

 

Smooth Newt

Under many of the leaves of the plants on the riverbank were lots of Banded Snails, including the White-lipped Banded Snail. They had all kinds of stripy patterns on their beautiful shells.

Banded Snails

After lots of bug hunting we swapped our bug nets for pond nets. After a good sweep of the pond we captured some very interesting creatures and put them into our jars for closer inspection. These included: Lesser and Greater Water Boatman, Water Hoglouse, Water Flea, Water Snail, and a Leech.

Pond Dippers!

We found some large tadpoles, probably young Toads, and lots of young Smooth Newts with feather-like external gills. We also found two scary-looking dragonfly larvae!

 Brown Hawker Dragonfly larva

This larva was huge and is probably very nearly ready for its transformation into a dragonfly - we think this one will turn into a Brown Hawker Dragonfly (we also saw one of the adults fly over the pond).

These larvae (or nymphs) are formed after a pair of dragonflies mate, the female will then lay her eggs in a pond or lake, either on a plant or just straight into the water. The dragonfly nymph hatches from the egg. They look very strange, almost alien, and don’t have any wings. After about four years in the pond the nymph will crawl up a reed stem and an adult dragonfly will break out from the outer casing. The dragonfly will wait for an hour or so for its wings to dry and will eventually take to the skies. This dragonfly will eventually mate with another and the process begins all over again!

Did you know adult dragonflies only live up to two months? But don’t forget it has lived for up to 4 years as a nymph before this! Take a look at The British Dragonfly Society website to learn more fun facts about dragonflies!

Thanks again to everyone who came to this event, and special thanks to Steve from Denso Marston Nature Reserve for showing us the wildlife on this great reserve.

Peregrines at Malham Cove - Sunday 17th June

On Sunday 17th June we joined up with the Craven Curlews Wildlife Explorers group for their annual Peregrine watch event at the beautiful Malham Cove.

Juvenile Peregrines at Malham Cove

Beginning at the Yorkshire Dales visitor centre in Malham, we all did a fun activity to learn about different birds of prey, what they eat and how they hunt. Everyone did well in the quiz and got lots of stickers for getting the answers right! We walked the short trip up to Malham Cove, passing an unusual Blue Tit nest site on the side of a pub!

Blue Tit nest in Malham village!

We spotted many different birds along the way and record them on our ticksheets.  As soon as we arrived at the cove we could see two Peregrines flying high above us - what brilliant luck!

 Adult Peregrine in flight at Malham Cove

The stunning Malham Cove

The RSPB volunteers gave us a very interesting talk about peregrines and told us how to tell the difference between the males and females - the females have a much bigger wingspan, this helps them when they are brooding lots of chicks! The two adult birds spent most of the time in the air above us, putting on a great show.

The two juveniles eventually landed at the nest site high on the cliff and we got some great views of them through the scopes. These young birds are more brown coloured to camouflage them until they can look after themselves - eventually this will moult and their adult plumage will grow through. When one of the adults landed we got the chance to see the difference between an adult and a juvenile Peregrine.

 Juvenile Peregrines

Adult Peregrine

At one point a Common Buzzard flew over the Cove, but was soon seen off by the two adult Peregrines! We also saw lots of birds on the nearby feeders, including Greenfinch, Goldfinch, Blue Tit, Great Tit, Coal Tit, and this fantastic male Great Spotted Woodpecker!

Male Great Spotted Woodpecker at Malham Cove

There were plenty of other birds around in the fields including a female Redstart, a recently fledged Pied Wagtail, Jackdaw, Swallow, Swift and Robin.

A big thanks to everyone that came - we had a fantastic time watching one of the most incredible birds in the country. If you have any pictures, stories or drawings, please send them in to airedaleotters@gmail.com - they may even be featured in our summer newsletter - keep your eyes peeled!