Veteran

Beech tree, Dallam Park, Milnthorpe.

A day that started drizzly and finished with rain, but in the afternoon the cloud cover broke for a while and we saw the sun for the first time since Sunday. An opportunity to get out of the house for the day's walk.

Dallam has a deer park with scattered trees and copses. Some trees, like this beech, are of considerable age and massive dimensions. There is also a huge oak that has lost its crown - a future blip perhaps. Dallam Estate are looking after their trees, there is a good range of age classes with some recent plantings.

The Park is on low rolling hills, and the ground has a light ridge and furrow pattern across much of it - perhaps a remnant of mediaeval ploughing.

New birds today: blackcap, tree sparrow and rook. Total for 2011: 68 species.

The blackcap is a type of warbler, the male has the black cap, and the female a brown one. Our bird today was a male. We have had them wintering in the garden for a few years now. Most warblers migrate south for the winter, and our breeding blackcaps winter around the Mediterranean. The British wintering population is a fraction of the breeding one, and the wintering birds are from northern and eastern Europe. The winter birds tend to appear in gardens from December onwards, and are thought to depend on food provided at bird tables.

Thanks for the comments yesterday on the experiment with the coot photograph, the response was generally favourable. You never quite know how such departures from usual practice may be received.