Stone Griffins

I read an interesting story in the Birmingham Evening Mail last week about a group of 6 stone Griffin statues. Local residents are apparently taking steps to apply for a Heritage Lottery Bid to pay for the restoration of the statues.

When I gave my son a lift home from his office at Fort Dunlop on Easter Monday we made a detour on the way home to have a look at the statues.



At the beginning of the twentieth century the statues stood along the roof of the original Lewis's Department Store in Birmingham City Centre. When the building was demolished the statues were moved to Yorks Wood where 6 Griffins formed a line near the entrance to the wood. Each statue is about 8 to 10 feet high and each is slightly different from its companions.



I must admit I don't remember ever having seen the statues before but my husband knew all about them as he used to regularly attend scout camps in Yorks Wood when he was young.



In 1972 the Scout camp closed and much of the wood was lost (only a small remnant remains today) when a housing estate called Shard End was built but the Griffin statues remain to the present day.



Griffins are mythical Greek creatures with the body of a lion and the head and wings of an eagle. They were powerful and majestic legendary creatures that often guarded treasures.



There is a rumour, although no evidence has been found to support it, that the statues were given to the City of Birmingham by a Tsar of Russia.

It is interesting to read in a book called "Castle Bromwich in the Past - Part 2" by J. Dutton and C. Green that originally there were nine statues on the Lewis's building so where are the other 3? If anyone has seen any of the missing 3 Griffin statues in or around Birmingham I would love to hear from them.

A Trip to the Theatre

Last night my son and I went to the newly renovated Royal Shakespeare Theatre in Stratford as he had tickets for the play which has just opened.

The new theatre is great - I was worried it would be too large - but its a similar size and layout to the atmospheric Courtyard Theatre the Royal Shakespeare Company has been using whilst work was done on the main theatre. The new theatre is small and intimate and with seats surrounding 3 sides of the stage you feel part of the action. The location of the theatre is superb right on the banks of the River Avon.

We went to see Macbeth - the first major play to be performed in the newly opened theatre. It was a superb, although chilling, performance with great visual imagery and was set during Reformation times with a brilliant set. Its a play I have always wanted to see and it certainly lived up to expectations.

As some light relief from the horrors and evils of the play, there was a piece of comedy in one of the scenes with some action that made the audience jump out of their skins. The only part I wasn't sure about was the decision to portray the weird sisters as children which meant leaving out the usual atmospheric opening scene of the play. The appearance of the children suspended in mid-air as though hanging was a scene to make you shudder and the decision to use children to make the prophecies became clear later in the play. I won't say too much more in case anyone who visits this blog is planning a trip to see the play.

First blue tit egg, Waved Umber and Common Newts

When we checked the pictures from the nestbox camera this morning we were thrilled to see that the female blue tit had laid the first egg. This is 3 days earlier than last year when the first egg was laid on the 28th April. She has covered the egg with feathers and hasn't visited the nestbox much today but, going by last year's experience, she will lay an egg a day and only start incubating when she has finished laying and the clutch of eggs is complete.

I am still trying to identify two moths from Saturday night's mothing session - one is a carpet and the other either a large micro or a small macro and a definite LBJ of the moth world i.e. hard to identify! I trapped another two Shuttle-shaped Darts and a Waved Umber - see record shot below. Its a beautiful looking moth and I was hoping to get it to pose on some silver birch bark while I took a photo to show off the brilliant camouflage. As usual, it flew off almost immediately I opened the box so I was fortunate to get a photo at all!!!

Waved Umber




I spent half an hour or so at lunchtime trying to get some photos of the common/smooth newts (Lissotriton vulgaris) in the garden pond. Using the standard 14-42 mm lens was a waste of time so I tried the 70-300mm telephoto zoom lens with varying degrees of success. Some photos were taken with the camera handheld and some with me, camera and tripod leaning precariously over the water. The photos aren't brilliant as the water is not that clear and the sunlight on the water was making things even more difficult but the newts regularly come up to gulp air or take an insect and I was also able to watch the interaction between males and females (the males have their crests now) in the shallower water at the edge of the pond. There were at least six individual newts to be seen.

Where are the Moths?

It was mild last night and when I put out the moth trap is was still 17.9 degrees centigrade and the overnight minimum was 7.7 degrees so I hoped I might catch more moths than usual especially as so many species are appearing early due to the hot weather.

However, when I opened the trap this morning I found the grand total of two macros and two micros! One of the macros was a shuttle-shaped dart (see photo below), my first of the year and the other macro was one of the "nightmare to identify" pugs which promptly flew off as I tried to take a photo! It was well worn though and my chances of identifying it were probably zero anyway! Must admit I don't normally bother trying to id the micros (I find the macros enough of a challenge) unless they have particularly distinctive markings. This year, however, I will try and id the ones on the Garden Moth Scheme list but the two I caught last night didn't look like any on the list.

Shuttle-shaped Dart



Summary of Moths Trapped Friday 22nd April

8.30 p.m. until dawn. Minimum Temperature 7.7 degrees centigrade

15w Actinic Skinner Trap

1 x Shuttle-shaped Dart (NFY)

Total Number of species for 2011 = 12

It looks like another mild dry night so I've decided to run the trap again tonight in the hope there might be a few more moths about.


There might not be many moths around but there were quite a few butterflies in the garden again today - speckled wood, holly blue and the first Large White of the year bringing the list of butterflies seen in the garden this year to seven.

The blue tit nest in the nestbox now looks complete with feathers being added over the last few days and the female has been roosting overnight in the box. Looking back at the events of last year I think the first egg will be laid any day now.

Mrs. Blackbird has started to build a new nest but I have seen one young fledgling in the garden being fed by the male so it looks as though at least one of the first brood has survived so far.



Enjoy the rest of the Easter break!

A Busy Brandon Marsh

I finally managed to fit in a quick visit to Brandon Marsh NR (Warwickshire Wildlife Trust's flagship reserve) this afternoon. It was very busy there today both with birds and people. Luckily, its a big reserve and its easy to get away from the crowds once you leave the main paths.




Highlights of the visit were 5 year ticks. I was really pleased to get a brief view of a kingfisher whirring low over the water and the common terns are back perched on poles near the tern nesting raft. There were several common whitethroats and a willow warbler seen as I walked around the back of Grebe Pool and I heard my first cuckoo.

I spent a lot of time taking photographs from the John Baldwin Hide which overlooks East Marsh Pool - I've found this the best hide over the last few visits for photography as the birds tend to come quite close.

As I opened the hide window I "surprised" a pair of Canada Geese who were on the bank right under the hide window. They may have been prospecting for a nest site as I remember them nesting on the bank at the side of this hide before.




One of the birds was less than impressed with my intrusion



and turned round to give me a dirty look!



He later returned to see if I had left!



Here's a poor record shot of a common tern - well it is heavily cropped and they were quite a long way away!



A pair of mallard were upending for food and preening just in front of the hide





Mallard may be common and familiar birds but I just love the colours of the drake



The pair of Great Crested Grebes were still around although there was no sign of any young or even a nest



Greylag Goose





There were a lot of spring flowers - marsh marigold, cowslip, bluebell, red campion, cuckoo flower/lady's smock, dandelions, violets, primroses, forget me nots and white dead nettle.

Primrose bank is now full of flowering plants



Bluebells in new Hare Covert





There were plenty of swallows about although I failed to see any sand martins. Here's a photo of one of the artificial nesting banks created by volunteers for the martins



There were lots of butterflies on the wing - brimstone, peacock, orange tip and speckled wood and several "whites" that were just too far away to positively identify.

A lovely walk around a beautiful reserve in the sunshine. The only downside were the number of dead road kill animals I saw during the journey - badger, fox, hedgehog, rabbit. This year I seem to have seen more dead mammals on my travels than live ones.

Nesting News

I was hoping to go out birding on Monday or Tuesday but a flashing brake warning light in the car and a pool of what looked like brake fluid on the drive necessitated a trip to the local Vauxhall dealers leading to 2 carless days and a rather expensive repair bill! I had the car back today but you might know the day was taken up with family commitments and I didn't have the time to fit in a birding trip - oh well there is always tomorrow!

I've spent a lot of time, therefore, garden birdwatching!

The pair of blue tits are still in and out of the nestbox and one of the birds is still taking in nest material and removing it again. Sorry, still no video. My son is having problems converting it from a disk to a format that blogger will accept. It is "doable" as he's done it before using a certain well known software editing package but its that long ago he's forgotten how he did it! Hopefully, he will have a flash of inspiration or remember so that when something more interesting happens in the nestbox I can put a video on the blog.

Not a lot of activity wrenwise since the nest was built in the ivy but she could be sitting on eggs.

A male robin has been courtship feeding the female and I suspect they have built a nest in one of the holly bushes.

I am not sure of the outcome of the blackbirds' nesting attempt. The young were due to fledge sometime this weekend but on Monday when my daughter was feeding the rabbit outside she heard the blackbirds' alarm calls accompanied by very agitated behaviour and she saw a magpie consuming a young blackbird on the lawn. So we are not sure if the magpies robbed the nest or if the birds had fledged and the magpie took one of the young after they had left the nest. There were still signs that the blackbirds were collecting food so I am hoping it was the latter and that some of the fledglings have survived.

There are plenty of speckled wood and holly blue butterflies in the garden but no chance of photographs as they never seem to alight anywhere for long.

I took a few photos of birds in the garden yesterday (all cropped images)

Wood Pigeon - I've decided I really quite like this species as its relatively easy to photograph being quite tame and as its large it fills the frame!



Dunnock or Hedge Sparrow



Male blackbird -



Male house sparrow

Garden - Moth, Butterfly and Bird Update

There were a couple of great surprises in the moth trap this morning. Firstly, a Brindled Beauty (Lycia hirtaria), a large geometrid with beautiful markings and secondly, a very pretty micro moth called a Twenty-plume moth. Its scientific name Alucita hexadactyla refers to the fact that each wing is divided into six plumes ( and not twenty as suggested by the common name!). Despite a fairly warm minimum temperature of 8.9 degrees centigrade, the only other moths were a Hebrew Character, a Common Quaker and a mystery pug.

Brindled Beauty - aren't the large feathery antennae wonderful!



Twenty-plume Moth



I am still working on the identity of this dark browny/grey pug. The markings don't show at all well on the photo but the moth has a small central black spot on each wing and an intermittent white cross line at the base of the forewing. Forewing measurement is about 10 millimetre. I initially thought it might be an early Common Pug in view of the mild weather recently but am now leaning towards a melanic version of Brindled Pug.



Summary of Moths Trapped Friday, 16th April

8.00 p.m. until dawn. Temperature range 12.6 - 8.9 degrees centigrade

15w Actinic Skinner Trap

1 x Hebrew Character
1 x Common Quaker
1x Twenty-plume moth (NFY)
1 x Brindled Beauty (NFG) (NFY)
1 x Pug (Brindled??)

There were also six Black Sexton Beetles lurking amongst the egg boxes.

2011 Total Species Trapped in Garden = 11


There were 3 speckled wood butterflies in the garden today demonstrating their spiral territorial flight display when males seem to cartwheel and spiral around each other. I saw my first holly blues in the garden today.

2011 Garden Butterfly species = 6

The garden bird list for 2011 now stands at 25 species as I saw a Stock Dove feeding last week - actually this is not just a year tick but a complete garden tick. I really had ought to spend more time studying the wood and feral pigeons that constantly visit.

The wren is still taking nest material into the ivy and the blackbirds are still feeding young - I think they will fledge between the middle and end of next week. The blue tits are still taking nest material in and out of the nest box. The female (?) collects lots of moss and takes it in and then takes most of it out again only to restart the process the following day! This happened last year until one day I saw the pair mating and then over two days she made a proper nest of moss and lined it with feathers followed by egg laying a few days later.

I'm still hoping to put some of the nest box camera video on the blog. The problem is I am not at all technically minded so am persuading/bribing son to convert it into a format that Blogger might accept but he just refuses to be rushed!

One of the azaleas at the side of the pond is starting to flower





and the first red campions are just starting to bloom in the mini wildflower meadow