Corbie Country

On Tuesday I was undertaking one of the regular surveys that I do for a client on the wetland section on one of his farms. This particular farm is in Bowland, and is very much 'Corbie country' or it certainly was this morning.

A Corbie is a local name in the north of England for the Raven. Other names include Corbie Crow (Scotland), Croupy Crow (northern England), Fiach (Ireland), Marburan (Cornwall) and Ralph!

 Distant Raven - honest!

On my walk along the 'wetland corridor', under 4 oktas cloud cover with a light northwesterly wind, I recorded seven Ravens, or perhaps I should say made seven sightings as one or two sightings could have been of the same birds. I watched one particular individual flying along, calling away, and every few seconds it would do a complete roll, and keep on repeating the process until out of sight! My gut extinct was +that it was doing this out of sheer exuberance, but I suppose it might have been displaying to a bird that I couldn't see.

It is now Friday as I write this, and as usual I am behind with the Blog, but I have just had to run outside from my office because I could hear a Raven calling! I looked up and there it was heading south and trying to shake off a Carrion Crow that was mobbing it. There were two other Carrion Crows too, but they were leaving the Raven alone. An addition to the house list, I think! I say I think because I don't actually keep a house list, and perhaps I should, but I certainly can't remember having Raven from the house before. 

I was intrigued as to how many species of birds I have recorded from my house and I have just added up and the Raven was number 65. I don't think that is too bad, although I am not sure what I am basing that on, and I am fairly certain that I have missed one or two.

Anyway, back to my 'wetland corridor' survey in Bowland. The only vis that I could detect were a few Meadow Pipits and Alba Wags heading north into the wind.

I had a few Brown Hares this morning, and it was a few, being just three. On this farm in the Spring I can easily see 20-30 over a relatively small section of it.

 Brown Hare

The wetland corridor that I survey consists of about a dozen ponds, of varying size, all forming a line through the centre of the farm. And I suppose they from the boundary between the higher unimproved area of the farm and the lower more improved section. The ponds are surrounded by different vegetation/habitat types at different successional stages, and some are relatively easy to view over and others very difficult.

Over all the wetland area I recorded four Moorhens, two Teal, 47 Mallards, three Mute Swans, a Cormorant and Little Grebe.

Best of the rest were a single Siskin over, a Chiffchaff, two Goldcrests, a Buzzard and a Roe Deer.

It was certainly a very slow morning, but a pleasure to be out as always!