March 11th

Today I left the house at 6.45 a.m.  ...! That's a bit better, but needs more work still.

After a clear night it was again a cold morning, with ground frost but no wind. The sunrise was soft and undramatic - it is lovely to see the same rose-grey both in the East and the West. 

The songbirds had been singing for a good hour ebfore I left the house, and there had been one soft, sleepy raven call as well.

Getting into the big field I saw one raven on the ground, pecking at some food bag. I didn't recognise that raven, and he took no notice of me. 

I saw no other raven, and there were no calls until I reached the top of the big field. Then, the quarry pair called. They had meanwhile swooped onto the top of the rugby goal posts and were watching. On their call, the bold pair answered from the ravens field, then another call came from the toddlers' playground.

The quarry pair arrived first, flying to sit on the top of the fence posts of the enclosure, and cawed. Then, the same cawing came from behind my back: the bold pair had come to the ground, followed immediately by the young pair. They also cawed as soon as they came to the ground.

Interestingly, I have now heard them all give the same call when they come to meet me. It is a cawing, a bit higher than the calls I can hear as I get into Llandaff Fields, and is repeated four times precisely.

 The ravens have quite a range of sounds, from a soft, deep quorking, to a slow loud caw and a fast squawk.

The feeding was interrupted when Otis and Bart turned up, highly interested in the ravens and the scraps - which had already vanished into the ravens at that point! Then Cally also came bounding up to me, jumping up, tail wagging. After the dogs left, the ravens, who had flown into the trees at the spinney (bold pair), or into the enclosure (quarry pair), or gone away (young pair), came back and I distributed the last of the scraps, finishing just before Bas turned up.

Walking back, I noticed again that the black headed gulls are now becoming definitely black headed, prior to their breeding season. Bas likes chasing them - what will he do once they've all gone into the countryside?

More cold and dry weather tomorrow ...