Wings in the Wild Lee Byrne

Lovely morning

Lovely morning out walking

This place has to be one of the most Beautiful places for walks and wildlife.

1. The treecreeper has many regional names: the Somerset name, tree mouse, is perhaps most appropriate, as this bird does creep up trees in a mouse-like manner.

2. Treecreepers always go up trees, never down. When they get to the top they fly to the bottom of the next tree.

3. Though they favour woodland, they will often wander into orchards and gardens.

4. They are almost entirely insectivorous, with spiders and other small insects forming the bulk of their diet. In winter they make take some small seeds.

5. In the UK they have rarely been recorded visiting feeding stations. However, the American treecreeper (a very close relation of our bird) will visit feeders for suet.

6. The beak is ideally adapted for finding insects in the crevices of tree bark: it is very slender, slightly decurved and sharply pointed.

7. The tail is an invaluable aid to the bird’s tree climbing. The 12 tail feathers are stiffened with robust shafts that project at the tip.

8. Widely distributed throughout the British Isles, they are only absent from areas where there are no trees, such as the Fens, the Outer Hebrides and tops of mountains.

9. A second species of treecreeper, the short-toed, replaces our bird throughout much of lowland Europe. It has been recorded in southern England on a number of occasions, but is very rare here.

10. Visually very similar to our treecreeper, the short-toed is best identified by its distinctive song, which is louder and more tit-like.

11. The only treecreeper to occur in the Channel Islands is the short-toed, where it is common on Jersey and Guernsey.

12. In total there are nine similar species of treecreepers found in the world. Our bird, Certhia familiaris, is the most widely distributed and can be found as far east as Japan.

13. The treecreeper with the smallest range is the Sichuan, restricted to the west Sichuan mountains in China.

14. Nests are usually built between the trunk of a tree and a piece of loose bark, but these birds will readily adopt suitable nestboxes.

15. The nest itself is an untidy collection of twigs, pine needles, moss and wood chips, lined with feathers, hair and even spiders’ webs.

16. The usual clutch is five or six white eggs with fine red spotting. Only the female incubates the eggs.

17. Both sexes feed the young, which leave the nest between 14 and 21 days after hatching. They remain dependent on their parents for another 11 to 17 days.

18. In the British Isles most pairs only attempt to raise one brood, but a second brood is not unusual.

19. After breeding treecreepers often join tit flocks, with which they will remain throughout the winter.

20. Our birds seldom move far from where they hatched, but northern populations migrate south in the winter.

21. The treecreeper is one bird that has apparently increased in the British Isles in recent years.

Red kite found in Carmarthenshire is Britain's oldest

The gadwall is a very grey-coloured dabbling duck, a little smaller than the mallard, and with an obvious black rear end. It shows a white wing patch in flight. When seen close up the grey colour is made up of exquisitely fine barring and speckling. It nests in low numbers in the UK and is an Amber List species.

Flame Bowerbird-This 10-inch long bird of the New Guinea rainforest comes by its name honestly, for it resembles a torchlight. Its head down to its neck plumes and shoulders is brilliant red-orange, cooling down to orange then bright flame yellow on its back and wings. The tail and wings are tipped with black. Like other bowerbirds, it builds a structure, or bower made out of sticks and decorates it with all kinds of bright and shiny objects such as stones, shells, bits of glass, and even lost coins and jewelry. The bowerbird’s eyes are also golden, and he can expand and contract his pupils during his courtship dance, which is crazy.

The oystercatchers are a group of waders forming the family Haematopodidae, which has a single genus, Haematopus. They are found on coasts worldwide apart from the polar regions and some tropical regions of Africa and South East Asia.

The Lesser White-fronted Goose (Anser erythropus) is a rare species that has captivated the attention of ornithologists worldwide. Unfortunately, throughout the 20th century, the Fennoscandian population has plummeted from over 10,000 birds to less than 100. The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) has designated the status of the species as globally ’Vulnerable’. These small, grey, geese with distinctive yellow eye-rings, are the most endangered breeding goose species in all of Europe.