October 2021- River and fields diary

 

 

Stuck inside with a cold currently and really missing my patch, so let's do October 2021

As I mentioned in the September post, autumn at my regular walk along the river can be a little quiet when it comes to birds, so I tend to venture out to the fields behind more often. The birds there increase during autumn, attracted to the fields where the farmer is turning the soil (not that I really know what's being done on the farm at any given time!), as the disturbed earth brings up invertebrates. It reminds me of a patch I had where I used to live which was all farm, it was frustratingly low in biodiversity at times but got a bit more interest from certain bird species in autumn. (This is all monoculture farming, and nothing like what farmland in this country would once have been like: I wrote a bit about that in the Knepp post here .) The birds I record in numbers are woodpigeon; black headed, herring and lesser black backed gulls; jackdaws and rooks, and the odd magpie, carrion crow, stock dove and feral pigeon alongside them. Pied wagtails and meadow pipits join the larger birds on the fields, and often feed alongside each other, while starlings line up on the telegraph wires and sometimes join the fray. I usually see a few linnets, stonechats and corn buntings on the margins too. It's hardly a wonderland of birds in either numbers or species diversity, but considering the climate of intensive agriculture we live in, I consider it a win. Especially the corn buntings, which have declined greatly in the UK and which my previous patch didn't have. I never saw them at all before I moved here.

There is one bird which I always feel incredibly lucky to see on my trips to the fields, as it's normally shy and can be elusive: the grey partridge. This is another bird that used to be very common in the UK and is now scarce due to changes in farming methods. In the pictures in field guides they look beautifully marked in orange, grey, russet and chocolate brown, but the name is more accurate to when you see them in real life- they appear as small, round, grey birds creeping over the fields. I first became aware that my patch had a covey of these lovely partridges in I believe 2020, and I was genuinely shocked- I thought for sure that if they were around, I would have seen them before. But that's the nature of these shy gamebirds. I'm lucky if I see them a couple of times a year.

On the 7th of the month, I had an incredibly good sighting of the partridges. There was a covey of five on the field alongside the usual flocks of corvids and gulls, and of the five a couple were smaller and were clearly youngsters from that year, so presumably grey partridges are breeding here too! The young birds were almost full sized but the male clearly hadn't calmed down yet from the breeding season and he was acting extremely territorially to other birds around. He puffed his feathers all the way up his neck and stood at his full height, showing off the large horseshoe marking on his belly, and ran around agitatedly. A couple of young rooks were feeding nearby, and he chased them off fiercely. They allowed themselves to be shooed away, but then when he wasn't looking they would creep closer again as if to annoy him. Corvids can be incredibly cheeky! I'd never seen anything like it, and never would have thought shy little grey partridges could be so confrontational!

 

 Pheasants on the other hand, I sort of knew were quite territorial but hadn't witnessed it myself until I saw some having a fight on the 25th that month. Two males squared up, mimicking each other's movements, and then began leaping up at each other threateningly. (Interesting, another adult male was nearby but completely ignored them, and they it.) It was like a dance, but potentially more dangerous given that each bird has a sharp spur just above the back of its foot. If you ever see a dead pheasant hanging up at a market, it's a good opportunity to take a look at these spurs.

October is a transitional time. It's when I start to notice that the numbers of swallows and house martins are dropping, though some will linger into November. (The swifts are long gone.) The dragonflies are dwindling in October too- I recorded my last dragonfly on 12th October in 2021, which is relatively early for the last one, but I wasn't very good at dragonflies that year. By the end of the month the first of the winter redwings start to arrive, so you get a crossover of summer and winter species. My favourite autumn thing, though, isn't a summer or winter species but an irruption, the word for when unusually large numbers of a certain species of bird are seen around the country. Websites like Birdtrack keep updates on interesting trends like this and compare them to numbers for the previous year. Examples of irruptive species are waxwings and hawfinches (a particular impressive winter for hawfinches was 2017-2018). The much more common jay can also be an irruptive species and it's one of my favourites, and the only one I'm ever likely to see on my patch! Sadly a jay irruption didn't happen for me this autumn (2022), but in October '21 I started recording jays almost every day all of a sudden, when they are rarely seen on my patch at any other time of year. Best of all was on the 7th where I counted a maxima of 10 jays, flying one after the other! I think it was the first time I'd ever seen so many together.

The leaves are changing, and colder months are ahead. (As I write this, we just came out of a fierce cold snap in December 2022!) The numbers of blooming flowers are dropping off fast, but despite this I did add a few more to my flower sketchbook in October '21: black/green nightshade, common poppy, dove's foot cranesbill, and the beautiful orange dandelion known as fox and cubs. So called not just because of its colour, but because on each cluster of flowers one tends to bloom while the others are still buds at its base (the 'cubs' waiting behind the 'fox'.)

September 2021- River diary

 

I put off writing this one for so long- maybe because autumn isn't a very notable or interesting season on my river. The frantic migration of the small birds often seems to pass it by, and with the breeding season properly over the number of species I see on each visit drops.

At the start of the month of September summer wasn't quite yet over, and I saw a large moorhen chick that was still a little downy (10th) and the last of the banded demoiselles on the 3rd- some dragonflies go on throughout autumn but not these beautiful, jewel like beasts. Every year I miss them when they are gone. Five buzzards were in the air together on the 24th enjoying thermals on a warm autumn day, and from their slightly antagonistic interactions and their numbers it seemed likely they were a pair with grown up juveniles. Young buzzards can be very noisy and demanding, and take a while to get good at hunting, so I wondered if the talon swiping I was seeing was the parents trying to get them to go away and hunt for themselves!

 

 

On the 7th I went for an evening visit, presumbly hoping to spot the barn owl, but had no luck. There were many bats though, who hunt over the rivers where the insects gather- still don't know what kind they are. Also, of an autumn and winter dusk around here you might look up and see dozens of gulls passing over, all in the same direction (I think it's south), in a series of loose, sprawling v-formations. I saw about 60 on that one evening visit, they are lesser black backed gulls and presumably are going to a roost. I wish I knew where it was.

I did manage to catch a glimpse of the barn owl in an evening visit on the 20th of the month, but just as a pale shape flying in the distance. I had some early rising barn owls on my patch in the autumn and winter period of 2018-19, who would regularly fly from mid-afternoon onwards, basically in broad daylight at times. Then for the next couple of years I continued to have regular prolonged sightings of hunting birds, including an incredible three at once in January 2020. But since then sightings have dropped off and my sighting of the preening bird in February 2021 was the last I saw really well, with only a few glimpses in the dark after that. I hope at some point I get early rising owls again! As of now (Nov 2022) I'm not even sure there's a barn owl on the territory at all.

The best thing about September at my patch is the return of the kingfisher. There's no suitable breeding sites on my river- they need a sandy bank for their burrow- so the kingfisher disappears every spring to find a good site and pair off. Then in September I'll hear that familiar whistle and see the little blue streak of this magnificent river bird whizzing past, back on its winter quarters. This stretch of river is clearly a territory for one kingfisher only (though of course it's likely to not be the same one each year), as I've seen the territory holder loudly and viciously chase off rival birds!

And that's all for September- not much to say! I haven't even talked about most of my dragonfly records, I saw a lot but my IDs are probably all wrong. I'm still not great at dragonfly ID but I was much worse last year! I will say that September can be a good time to watch fish on my river, as the sun is still shining on the water enough to see them and the river isn't fast and swollen enough to hide them. This month there were some sizeable spotted brown trout, a beautiful grayling male showing off his long rainbow back fin, and a small group of roach, including one with a fair sized sore on its back. I think I saw a documentary once about fish in the UK spending time in clean, running water to ease healing of sores and wounds, so I hoped my river was clean enough to help this roach heal.  

Flower drawings this month include some from a lovely trip to South Devon, so include some coastal ones: fleabane, lady's bedstraw, broad-leaved willowherb, red bartsia, redshank, thrift, sea campion, common catsear, scentless mayweed, greater knapweed, betony, toadflax, wall lettuce, hedge bindweed, creeping thistle, nipplewort, and a mystery hawkweed (mouse-ear hawkweed??).

 

August 2021- River diary

 

September's over and I'm still thinking about August! So much for doing these river retrospectives roughly on the month in question, a year later. Oh well, with the weather turning so wet and horrible, can you blame me for thinking of August right now?

August is changeover time, as some species are still finishing with their last brood while others will be thinking about leaving on their migration, and still more migrants popping in or flying over. Some young birds, especially birds of prey, will still be relying on their parents for food, or at least begging them frantically for it! As raptors tend to not be very vocal, late summer is one of the best times to hear the weird noises some of them can make- while adult buzzards make a mewing sound that's quite nice to hear, young buzzards make a horrible wailing sound which can come from the air or a tree, and sounds like something being tortured! Young peregrines make a continuous series of yells as they fly around which really carry- if there's a juvenile peregrine in the air above you, you will know. Both these noisy youngsters visited my patch in August 2021. At least one buzzard pair breeds here but the peregrines breed on my city's cathedral- their visits to my patch are unusual so it was great to see. 

 

Much quieter, and a little sadder, was a lone cygnet that came to my stretch of river mid-August. I hadn't seen a breeding swan pair in 2021, but all the rivers are connected so it could have come in from elsewhere. When I saw it on the 12th it was medium sized, downy and with no other swans in sight. I could hear it peeping softly, with no one but me to hear, which was a little heartbreaking. I wondered if it was recently separated from its family and was calling hoping to find them. I hoped it would too, with all my heart, but having also seen a family of goosanders raise themselves that year I knew it had a chance to go it alone. It would have had no problem feeding itself, and when a rain shower started I saw it sensibly take shelter and wait it out. Having parent swans around and safety in numbers with the rest of the family would have helped a lot, but I didn't count it out. I saw it a few more times that month, and it seemed to adapt to being alone. I do wonder how it got separated, and whether it survived winter 2021 and is now (October 2022) preparing to face its next one. I hope so, and I hope it makes its own nest in Spring 2023.

I wrote last time about the spotted flycatcher pair's second brood, which appeared at the end of July. Surprisingly they were gone pretty soon after that and I only had one more glimpse of a flycatcher, on 3rd August, and that was it for 2021. What had happened, had something terrible befallen the young family? Well, I don't think so and this is a theory I have- I reckon that once my spotted flycatchers had fledged the 2nd brood, they moved the whole family to a new place to enjoy a new feeding ground and also to start slowly moving south to prepare for migration. (I'm already pretty far south, but we aren't talking a big move here with the babies so small.) I'm basing this on the anedotal evidence of a surprising thing that happened on my old patch- I visited regularly for a year and had never seen a spotted flycatcher once, then suddenly in late summer there was a whole family one day, a pair of adults and young, streaky babies. I swear there is no way a flycatcher pair was nesting there the whole time and I didn't notice- as I mentioned before they are great about being noticable. And the family was gone the next visit, so it really seemed that they had just dropped in briefly. I've seen what seemed to be a suddenly appearing flycatcher family at a 3rd site as well. So that is my theory- they stick around with the first brood because they will be using the nest again, but after 2nd brood is out of the nest there's no need to stay, and they hit the road. Has anyone else seen this?

In late August and September, all these spotted flycatchers turn up in flocks with other migratory species such as warblers and redstarts. And round here the birdwatchers check the flocks carefully to try and spot a pied flycatcher, who in this season is not pied either, and sigh if they don't find one...but to me a spotted flycatcher is always a joy. I don't get these kinds of autumn flocks on my patch, and a pied flycatcher seems extremely farfetched. Large mixed tit flocks are regular (will get to that!), and I do get the odd special visitor like the willow warbler that dropped by on 3rd August. The most special visitor of all, though, was seen on the 19th. I had gone for a walk after work, and saw a large bird winging its way south. It had the long wings of one of the larger gull species, but a glance through binoculars showed a dark back, pale head, large hooked beak and a dark line above its eye- it was an osprey! They are great wanderers at this time of year, and could fly over anywhere, but it was very lucky I happened to be out walking at that time. I normally go on my lunch break but deciding to go after work instead that day made me cross paths with this wonderful bird. 

Non (wild) bird sightings of note: a racing pigeon spent the morning of the 15th resting by my river. You can always tell them by the large, brightly coloured ring on their leg. I wonder how long this one took to get home? I had a lovely visit from a water vole on the 3rd, I don't see them often here. And on the 18th I was surprised by a bright green, fairly small frog that leapt across the path in front of me. It was the first amphibian record at my patch and I haven't seen another since!

Let's check in with a certain little bugger. If you read the last one, I wrote about the marsh/willow tit that I recorded in July, and rather over excitedly decided had to be a willow tit, because it made a 'nasal, 3 note call' (my notes). This was partially based on what actually happened when I saw it, and partly on a BTO identification video I watched. The call is the best way to tell the two species apart, and the video started with a simplified version of a call comparison. The trouble is that each species has a large variety of different calls, and the marsh tit also sometimes makes a nasal, 3 note call. Its most distinctive call is often written in bird books as 'ptiou' or as sounding like a sneeze. On 12th August I saw a marsh/willow tit again and this time it was giving the distinctive call...of a marsh tit. At this point I was still pretty sure of my diagnosis of willow tit for the July sighting, so I was faced with the possibility that either I had been wrong, or there were now two birds in the marsh/willow tit vein on my patch. Given that previously there had been none, this would have been one hell of a coincidence! I think then I knew the truth, but I went back the next day after work to try and find the bird (or birds?) again. I did indeed find it again on the 13th, I had lovely views and watched the bird feed all up and down opposite bank of the river. I watched it for minutes on end, and during that time not a single call was heard!! And that is why I nicknamed it little bugger. A bird that is best told apart from its very similar cousin by its call has no business being silent that long. It is from a family of birds that normally calls pretty much constantly (even the BTO video said this!), and mine decided to be really annoying on what turned out to be the final day I would ever see it! I checked the tit flocks carefully from then on, but never caught up with it again.

The verdict- I think I got over excited, there was one bird, and it was a marsh tit the whole time.

Anyway, the flowers I drew in August 2021 for my flower sketchbook project: sticky mouse-ear, scarlet pimpernell, St John's wort sp., red clover, tansy, ragwort, woody nightshade, common mouse-ear, tufted vetch, agrimony, enchanter's nightshade.

And finally, late summer sees the start of the gradual return of one of the winter spectacles around here, the corvid roost. On autumn and winter evenings thousands upon thousands of jackdaws flock to a particular line of trees on my patch to roost, along with hundreds of rooks. (Note: my count is very rough, and the idea that there are less rooks than jackdaws mainly comes from how much noisier the jackdaws are. However the jackdaws' call is higher and more carrying so there may actually be equivalent or higher numbers of rooks.) In the breeding season these corvids disband, the rooks into rookeries and the jackdaws into pairs, and who knows how far afield they go. With the number of jackdaws my winter corvid roost holds, and the way they compete fiercely for nest sites, some of them may have to go a long way! But in August 2021 on one of my evening visits (fruitless attempt to see the barn owl), I saw the roost starting again. There were only a few hundred birds by the time it was dark, so not full numbers yet, but more and more must return each day. On a winter afternoon from about 3pm the sky around here is full of jackdaws constantly going over, masses of them, and all going to that small line of trees.

July 2021- River diary

An extremely delayed look back on July 2021! I'm getting behind on these retrospective posts but I still think they are worth writing so am going to continue, at least for now. I think this is sort of how I cope with the climate crisis, by focusing on the small and local. Because even as our world grows dangerously warmer, for now the swallows still come back in the spring. There's something comforting about that.

First, let's check in with our regular denizens of the river. Summer is the best time to watch insects, and the banded demoiselles were still zooming around throughout the month every sunny day, males chasing females up and down the patches of waterweed. In summer the butterflies at my patch are joined by a beautifully bright day flying moth called the scarlet tiger. In flight it appears to be a bright red butterfly, though no butterfly in the UK is that particular vivid scarlet so you can soon learn to tell them apart. If it lands you will see it has a series of creamy white spots on a 'black' background, that is actually a very dark green. Later in the month, the delicate damselflies are joined by one or two dragonflies, and wow is there a huge difference! Damselflies float daintily while dragonflies zoom up and down the river like they own the place, and the larger species are some of the biggest insects you'll see flying in the UK.

 

Though I didn't know it at the time, July would be the time I said goodbye to the three grown up goosander ducklings. Birds sadly won't tell you when they are leaving, but reviewing my notes from the future I can tell, and that's the advantage of looking back at records the next year. My last record of the little sibling group was on July 6th. They were young ducks by this point, fully feathered and sporting the handsome 'redhead' plumage worn by female and immature goosanders, complete with little punky crests on the backs of their heads. I assume they left because my part of the river becomes much shallower during the summer, and they wanted somewhere they could dive freely. I'm sure they found it, plenty of great spots around here. My admiration goes to these three little survivors, who raised themselves from tiny ducklings without a mother, and I feel I was incredibly lucky to have been able to watch even a snippet of their story. I may never know where the nest was, what happened to the mother, or where they went next, but I'm ok with that. Nature's stories are full of so many things we will never know. But I really hope the three survived the winter and perhaps spent this spring and summer with their own nests.

I tend to visit my patch less often in July because things naturally quiten down- the mid to late summer lull is well known in birdwatching. Songbirds are finished with raising their young and spend their days silently skulking around in the thickly leaved trees while they moult, leaving you realising how much you rely on sound to find them! I was still seeing the odd fledged baby being fed, and the occasional parent still busily catching flies. Watching young birds around their parents can be quite funny at this time of year because they may not realise the adult has decided to slow down or stop feedings altogether (it has to happen at some point!). I watched an adult grey wagtail catch a banded demoiselle and whack it on the ground to kill it, all the time bothered for its meal by two begging juveniles which it eventually chased away. That same visit, July 12th, an adult spotted flycatcher was seen completely ignoring two patiently waiting juveniles. The youngsters were about two weeks out of the nest at that point and were starting to look more like the adults, i.e. not spotted at all. Their parents clearly had other things on their minds now- on July 30th, I was greeted with the lovely sight of another set of streaky, furiously begging juvenile flycatchers! The second brood was here. They always have two broods, and the eggs only take a couple of weeks to hatch, but as one of the latest arriving migrants they start breeding later and are therefore one of the few birds still fledging nestlings in late July.

Now for a slightly confused story- July 22nd was the first appearance at my patch of the bird affectionately known by me as 'little bugger'. This bird was a marsh or willow tit, which are two species that are very difficult to separate by their appearance, and both resemable an American chickadee much more than they do our familiar blue and great tit. Older books will tell you the willow tit has a larger black bib and this is how you should tell them apart, but it has now been found that both species can have variably sized bibs. Little buggers, the lot of them! 'My' bird showed up in one of the mobile, roving tit flocks that form in late summer, and it was the first time I'd seen a marsh/willow tit type bird on my patch at all, so quite special no matter which it was. However, I should tell you that at this point the willow tit is quite a bit scarcer in the UK than the marsh tit. At one point I might have assumed that my visitor was a marsh tit, on the grounds of it being the commoner species, and left it at that, but this time that wasn't enough for me. For you see, I record all sighting lists I make on this site on Birdtrack, and that meant I really needed to identify my bird correctly as people would see my report. 

I knew that the only reliable way to tell a marsh and willow tit apart is by their call, but not what it was exactly about the call that was distinctive. This didn't matter though, as I told myself, because I would go home right away and listen to call recordings and species comparisons. So I heard the bird calling, or at least thought I did- it was with a number of other birds and it can be hard to tell calls apart in a flock. I certainly heard something that I didn't think was a blue or great tit call. (My notes say 'a nasal, 3 note call', but they were written after I had looked up the calls, so that could have influenced how I described it.) Satisfied I had heard the bird's call, off I went home to do a comparison check. A helpful comparison video from the BTO gave the call a marsh tit makes, which wasn't at all like the sound my bird (supposedly) made. Excitedly, I waited for them to play the willow tit call. It was....a nasal, 3 note call, which the video explained was distinctive to the species. Case closed! Surely 'my' bird was a willow tit, improbable though it may seem. Stranger things have happened though- experienced birdwatchers know that really anything can turn up anywhere. But there was more to the story than that unfortunately, and I will get to that next month....

This month's flower drawings: hedge mustard, brooklime, water figwort, fragrant orchid, smooth hawk-beard, ribwort plantain, marsh woundwort, bird's-foot-trefoil, and heartsease.

June 2021 bonus- Knepp rewilding project

Just over a year ago, a friend and I took a trip to the Knepp rewilding project in West Sussex. The day we had planned it turned out to be a wet one but we packed waterproofs and set out anyway, hoping the weather would improve on the drive. It didn't and we were perpetually doing that thing where every time it slowed to a drizzle we would say hopefully 'oh, it's clearing up!' (This was wishful thinking, but we did get a couple of dry hours towards the end of our time at Knepp.) As if to capture the wild energy of a rewilding project we listened to Heilung on repeat the whole way. 

 

Knepp isn't a tourist attraction and doesn't really have amenities, though you can walk the footpaths freely. Upon arrival we started one of the trails, as the grey rain fell. At the time I had only just started reading Isabella Tree's wonderful book Wilding, so I didn't know much of the science of the project while I was actually there, but I will say that on our rainy visit we saw more birds more easily than I have on nice dry days in some nature reserves. Birdwatching can sometimes feel like hard work, even in 'busy' times like migration season, because there are simply fewer birds than there should be for the size of our land. Birds that few non birdwatchers have heard of now would have been daily sightings for someone living in the countryside a couple of centuries ago, though they might have called them by a different name. Industrialisation of farming has been going on for so long now that few in living memory could tell us about the biodiversity we have lost, and if you transplanted someone from the 18^th century countryside into a modern field, they would be horrified at how quiet it was. The lack of insects everywhere and the complete absence of familiar bird species, and tiny numbers of the ones that have stayed- to them the land would feel dead.

On the scrub that presumably used to be arable fields we watched a whitethroat songflighting from a telegraph wire, two male yellowhammers coming to blows in a territory dispute, a linnet pair and a family of garden warblers. Many times we heard cuckoos sing their sinister song, and suddenly one floated past, its long tail and slim wings making it look like a falcon. In Southern England it's now very difficult to hear a cuckoo without making a special trip, and even then you might not be lucky enough, so nowadays most people don't know how beautiful and strangely graceful this famous nest parasite is when you see it on the move.

Best of all, as we entered a sparsley wooded area, we heard the beautiful purring call of a turtle dove, hidden in a thicket. Knepp is famous for its success with turtle doves, which seems to have been quite unexpected even for the managers of the land. For me the loss of the turtle dove feels very near and dear, as it's the only bird species I can point to as having declined significantly in just my adult years. I'm 32 and about 10 years ago I would have been able to take you to a reliable turtle dove site not far from my home, but records have declined to the point that only a single singing bird was reported there in 2017, and since then there have been none. Maybe a few still come and go unspotted and unheard, but it's also entirely possible that there really are none left returning there, and that breaks my heart. Hearing the turtle dove again after all those years made me tear up.

The people who manage Knepp have spoken frankly and realistically about their doves- while they are doing well now, they may not be there forever. It is possible that, for a number of reasons, the turtle dove will become extinct as a breeding species in Britain in my lifetime and become a scarce passage migrant only, like the red backed shrike before it. It will live on in other countries (not that countries mean much to this beautiful migratory being), but not in ours. This is one reason Knepp has resisted being designated as a nature reserve or taking on any specific targets, and funding, related to turtle doves- they suspect the slow but steady decline of the turtle dove in Britain may be inevitable, and if they became locked into an agreement to conserve a certain number of breeding pairs at Knepp, managing the land for the doves would have to become their main goal. Rewilding is about an entire web of organisms, from the earthworms to the dung beetles to the fungi that only lives on oaks over a certain age, and the beautiful birds from cuckoo to turtle dove are the happy consequence of that.

Thinking of those near silent fields again, it's common for birdwatchers in this country to visit poorer countries in Eastern Europe and then write about the incredible diversity and abundance of bird life in the countryside, similarity in the species there making it feel so familiar and yet so alien, an ancestral memory of fields of crop before full industralisation in the UK. I try not to travel abroad for environmental reasons so I don't think I will ever see this for myself, but I can't help but think if the richer countries of Europe have enjoyed the convenience and availability of food that comes with industralised farming, poorer countries deserve it too. So who knows what the future holds for other countries, but for us here, books like Wilding create an image of hope- things don't have to be hopeless for our wildlife, and wild cycles tend to sort themselves out if left alone for long enough. Livestock at Knepp are thriving, the animals raising their young untouched by human hands for the majority of their lives, fulfilling their natural function as managers of the land. They instinctively avoid the ragwort for its bad smell and eat around it- the problem is when the poisonous plant is unwittingly disguised in human-made hay. Their number is controlled by careful culling- as an island where all our native top predators have been exterminated, the only alternative is to let animals slowly starve in lean years, which is something that received considerable bad press a few years ago in Dutch rewilding project Oostvaardersplassen. Now rewilding projects seem to agree that culling is best, and at Knepp they sell the meat.

That's just some of the impressions I took from the book Wilding by Isabella Tree, which I highly recommend, and from my visit last year. I hope to visit Knepp again this year, to try and see their purple emporers, a beautiful and hard to see butterfly whose season peaks in early July. Wish us luck for better weather!!

June 2021- River Diary

It's time to return to last year's river (for you know you can never step in the same river twice!). June 2021 was often cloudy according to my notes, but when it was sunny, then it was insect time. A particularly noticeable visitor to any river in the Wiltshire and Hampshire area is the banded demoiselle, a lovely damselfly (the name given to the smaller, more delicate relatives of the dragonflies), and round here their numbers peak in June. In 2021 I recorded the first one on 25th May, a bit later than usual but it hadn't been the best weather, and they prefer to fly in the sun. By mid June you could see 20+ on one area of waterweed. The males range in colour from a deep metallic blue to dark green, and each has a large dark patch on each forewing, which looks black when they fly past quickly but is actually very dark blue. The female is shiny and green, even her wings are green tinged, but she doesn't have the dark wing patch. The noticeable males are pleasingly easy to identify in flight because of their wing patches, and can only be confused in the UK with the beautiful demoiselle, which has fully dark wings and doesn't seem to be as tied to rivers.

Fun fact: my blog title comes from the name for the flying form of the dragonfly, damselfly, butterfly and moth- this final phase in their lives is the imago. I was especially thinking of the banded demoiselle when I chose it, that special and beautiful insect that reminds me of my home rivers. So when the imagos emerge from their larval form, which doesn't need to spin a cocoon but just pulls itself out of the water when it feel the time is right, they will soon be looking for a mate. When it comes to the actual mating act it can be quite noticeable to humans, as it's normal for dragonflies and damselflies to remain connected afterwards like in my picture. The male escorts the female to their species's preferred type of water for egg laying, and is still holding on as she lays their eggs- if you ever see two dragonflies joined while one dips the end of its tail in the water over and over again, that's an egg laying female. They can and do fly around while connected, and each species seems to make a different shape- as you can see the banded demoiselle's shape is almost like a heart. I got to see this interesting situation on 15th June, but every time I visited on a sunny day there would be damselflies busily flying all over the place.

Now for the update on the intrepid goosander ducklings- June saw the number I was seeing at one time drop to four, and then three by mid-month. It might have been predation, but possibly they were just starting to drift apart and be more independent from each other, I'll never know for sure. I feel a little guilty for downplaying how much they might need their mother, after watching little families of ducks and geese this year and how they huddle around their parents. Also I've seen photos of goosander mothers giving their babies a ride on their back when they are still small enough to do so, one of the most adorable things in the world and not something you'd see a mallard do. My goosanders had no choice but to make their way in the world alone, but despite this setback they were thriving and growing large. They were starting to get little feathers and approach full size. Every time I saw them I was delighted, and so pleased they happened to be in my river- it's certainly not an every year thing. (No goosanders are currently on my area of the river as of late spring 2022.)

June is not really a time for migrating birds passing through, but it can be a time when birds you don't normally see arrive looking for a good food source to feed their young, so unexpected records are still very possible. On June 13th on a gorgeous sunny day I saw a hobby over the industrial estate, catching insects with the swallows and martins. My partner was staying at the time and he was there when we saw it, I was so excited that I failed to explain what a hobby was for a good while! Better late than never- it's a small insect eating falcon that looks like a slim and agile peregrine, with long tapered wings like a swift's. A very delightful first for my patch! 

Towards the end of the month one of the patches of mature trees was full of agitated calling, mostly the cackle of magpies but then the unmistakeable sound of a jay. Jays are quite unusual visitors to my patch, despite it apparently having all the right habitats (that's the weird thing about patch watching), so it was great to hear one. I caught a few glimpses through the trees, but unless flying in the open their soft muted colours are surprisingly hard to see. I suspect it was attempting to raid some nests in the trees but got seen off by the magpie pair, who of course are known for their nest robbing but the jay shouldn't be overlooked in this regard! Most corvid species in the UK will rob a nest, and so will many other birds at this time of year that you would not expect- it's a normal part of nature.

I was away for a week towards the end of this month, and it's amazing how much things move on in the breeding season while you're gone. I wrote about my spotted flycatcher pair and their courtship in the May post, but on my first visit back after my time away, 28th June, I was delighted to see a little flycatcher family. complete with very new fledglings! The babies are speckled all over, living up to the spotted name, and I saw the adults bringing them freshly caught flies.

 

I didn't take my flower sketchbook on my week away in case it got rained on and ruined, but this month managed to add to it: white helleborine (a wild orchid species my mum had found near where she lived and proudly showed me!), white clover, herb bennet, herb robert, wild strawberry, smooth (?) sow thistle, spotted medick, cut-leaved cranesbill, water crowsfoot sp, water forget-me-not and hop trefoil.

Will leave you for the month on a funny note- on June 16th while walking by the river I heard a loud splash near where the trees overhang- at first thinking it might be an otter or a water rat, or even just a plain old regular rat, but I was not expecting to see an extremely bedraggled and unhappy squirrel swimming frantically for the bank! It must have fallen from a branch, though I don't think it fell far and I watched it safely climb out with nothing but its dignity injured.

May 2021- River diary

 

Dear friends. let's once again return to the archives and talk about last spring. I thnk my last post got a bit data-y so I'm trying to focus again on the incredible sights and experiences of nature, and share with you some of my favourite birds from my riverside local patch.

So, in my last post about April 2021, we had ten tiny goosander ducklings floating downriver, apparently unsupervised by an adult, but keeping themselves sensibly together. I didn't know when I would next see them, but knew better than to think they would be a daily sighting. I also knew their number would decrease- this is normal and expected, and ducks lay a lot of eggs for this reason. Predation happens, but it is sad.

I saw them again on the 19th of May. There were five now. They sat together on the bank, at first quite quiet and sensible but then a small scuffle broke out and three slipped down the bank and into the water. They were quickly joined by the others and they swam and dived for a while. No one has to show them how to dive and feed themselves. Which is good, because there was still no mother with them. I realised then that she probably would not come back. Who knows what happened to her- I wondered if maybe the ducklings got swept downriver and she couldn't find them again. But surely a duck built for swimming and diving in rivers wouldn't let this happen so easily, in a slow southern England river no less. And if the mother and ducklings were together, then surely a predator would take the ducklings before the mother, not take her and leave the 10 behind. I wondered if perhaps the mother was caught by a predator while away from the nest, but her eggs were very close to hatching, so close that they could hatch even without any more of her body heat. Such a strange thing to happen, ducklings erupting from eggs all alone, like lizards from a buried nest. They know what to do by instinct- swim, feed, keep together. And they did it wonderfully.

I think some people would have wanted to 'save' them, upon realising that they had no mother. But there's a limit to what an adult duck can do to fend off predators of her ducklings, which can come from below the water, from above, from anywhere. Ducklings can already do everything for themselves, and they were clearly coping very well. Plus, I think interventionalists in nature tend to underestimate the stress and harm caused to birds by being taken into captivity, and overestimate the benefits of potentially keeping them in captivity for the rest of their lives, which is always a possibility depending on what the shelter decides. I couldn't imagine trying to scoop them into a box, scaring them and potentially separating them if some had gone off downriver.

I got a closer look at the five on the 21st, and wrote in my notes 'they are about the size of a little grebe, maybe a bit bigger'. If you've ever seen a little grebe you know they are pretty small but not tiny duckling small. The tiny goosander's little beaks were growing long and thin, not flat like a mallard's, as an adult bird would use it to grip fish and hold them still using the tiny hooks along its surface. This is why this family of ducks are called sawbills. A few days later I only saw three ducklings, only to find the other two further downriver, having joined a mallard family for a bit of a rest! It was funny seeing their black and white shapes next to the warm yellow and brown of the mallard ducklings. I hoped that all the goosander ducklings would join up again, and sure enough the five were all together again on the 28th.

My patch of river is very popular with Canada geese, large numbers can be seen around but only a few pairs breed. Pairs won't tolerate other pairs during this time and will chase other individuals off and make their nests as far apart as possible! The nest I was watching the closest, the riverbank nest, wasn't the first to have eggs hatch, because the first goslings appeared on the 13th while the riverbank bird was still sitting tight. Five little bundles of yellow fluff grazing with their parents, who hissed anrgily at any other goose that came near. The riverside nest had to wait a little longer but by 19th May, I arrived at the site to see the nest empty, and the babies hatched and gone. The only trouble with watching goose nests is unless you are lucky enough to see the goslings actually leaving the nest, you won't ever know how many they had if you have more than one pair about.

I love the late spring season because the house sparrows come down to the river and I get to see them much more. The males hold territories in the gardens, so they don't nest by the river, but by late May there are babies in the nest and both parents need constant beakfuls of insects to keep them happy. So the sparrows come down to the river and become skilled flycatchers, swooping insects out of the air and taking their quarry back to their chicks. So many birds take from the river's insect bounty- wagtails, finches, robins, and of course the swallows, house martins and swifts. It's amazing to watch all these beautiful birds catching food for their chicks, but from the point of view of the flies it's a massacre of the herd by dozens of skilled predators!

 

Best of all of the flycatchers is the one so skilled it has it right in the name: spotted flycatcher. One of my favourite birds that lives on my patch, there was at least one breeding pair in 2020 and 2021. They are one of the latest migrants to arrive, finally turning up in May. In 2021 I first recorded one on 10th May, and by the 14th there were two and one clearly already had mating on its mind. I was fascinated to watch pass between them what was clearly a flycatcher display: one bird puffed out its throat, wagged its tail and fluttered its wings...then tried to jump on top of the other and mate! But she was not quite ready it appeared, and shook off his advances.

 

The spotted flycatcher is nothing special to look at: it is brown and white, mostly featureless in its plumage and doesn't even really have spots. It's not a beautiful singer, or even a good one, the 'song' is barely more than a call. But what it lacks in those things, it makes up for in charisma. It has a distinctive upright posture on its perch (I tried to capture it in the sketch), waiting till it sees a fly, and then it makes a quick short flight to grab it and returns to its perch, likely in almost the same place, like it was on elastic. If the flycatcher you are watching flies away you can be sure it won't have gone far- it will reappear pretty soon, perching helpfully out in the open, no skulking or shyness. This makes them a birdwatcher's dream, and they are very approachable too. One of mine had a little tree growing on the riverbank by the path that was a favoured spot, and I would pass within metres with it apparently not caring at all. I could even take photos of it with just my rubbish phone camera. Sadly that little tree was a casualty of storm Eunice this winter so the flycatcher will have to find a different spot when it returns this year, to do its flycatching and its tail wagging flirty displays.

My flower sketchbook grew in size as more and more flowers were bursting out: the May additions were hedgerow cranesbill, creeping/meadow buttercup, Jack-by-the-hedge, black medick, bluebell, wood sorrel, charlock, bugle, yellow flag iris, comfrey, pineapple mayweed, common vetch, ragged robin, heath speedwell, thyme leaved speedwell, wood spurge, tormentil, yellow pimpernell *takes deep breath* and finally, some sort of odd garden escape that grows round here and I thought was wild but now can't find in a book anywhere. But other than that, my list shows a little more habitat variety like woodland and open grassland, so I was finally able to get around to a few more places.

I'll close this month by saying how lucky I was that on 11th May while walking my river, in the distance, I heard the cuckoo's song. How precious that is to hear now. I've heard it in a few of the further afield locations I went to in spring and early summer 2021, but those were places managed especially for wildlife. It felt incredibly special to hear one just on my ordinary river walk.

April 2021- Back in the world again

In April 2021 we were finally allowed to do a few things again after the long lockdown, and my first trip back out as a roving birdwatcher was to Langford Lakes a few miles down the road. That was where I saw my first swallow of 2021, a single bird, and as it always does the sight filled me with joy. There are spring migrants that appear in March but they are all birds I would be unlikely to see at my local patch, like sand martin and little ringed plover, so April was when I started to see real migration happening. Still, the first swallow of spring will always be special, and every birdwatcher looks out for it and notes is carefully; mine was on April 17th in 2021. The visit to Langford Lakes also gave me my first sedge warbler of the year, a male tuning up his song in a bush and then suddenly bursting out onto the wing, as if he was so overjoyed to be back that he couldn't sit still. And it was a lovely sunny day so I also got to see that lovely harbinger of spring, the first orange tip butterfly. Butterflies you see earlier in the year on sunny winter days, peacocks and red admirals, are briefly waking from hibernation, but the orange tip is one of the first butterflies out of the egg in the spring.

 

Back on my patch, while the spring warblers arrived gradually throughout the month to fill the thickets and reedbeds, some more unexpected visitors dropped by. April can be a good month for this but I'd never really noticed it as much on a local patch as I did in 2021. One visit I saw a common sandpiper sitting on one of the logs in the river- these are birds that love the waterside but you'd normally expect them by a lake or an estuary. These cute little wading birds bob up and down constantly, and I could see it catching little insects off the water in its beak. It was gone the next day, clearly on its way to a breeding site. I also had a bit of a surprise visit from a white goose that joined the Canada goose flock one day, the first time I'd seen one in that flock. I expect it was what is normally known as a 'farmyard' goose even though it was probably born in the wild and didn't belong to anyone, but an ancestor somewhere down the line will have escaped from somewhere!

Best of all, mid-month when I was walking the footpath in a shower of rain, with an urgent sounding call two small ducks flew past me. Luckily I got a good clear view of the male, who had a bright white stripe across his otherwise dark head making him unmistakeable. They were garganey, one of our smallest ducks and one of the only ones to migrate to the UK for the summer rather than the winter. In spring you often see them in pairs like this, as if they are already ready to breed, but they are very scarce breeders in the UK and most birds you will see are probably passing through on their way to another country to nest. I'm sure that's what 'my' pair did. I found them again later that visit, accidentally flushing them off a quiet little pond where they had been sheltering as I went up to it, I hadn't noticed they were there and felt so bad about bothering them! They were gone a couple of days later when I looked for them again, no doubt in a hurry to get to nesting. Birds rarely hang around on their spring migrations. This was a very special visit and unlikely to be ever repeated, but I'm delighted to add them to my patch list and to see what I think is only my 4th(?) ever garganey my whole life. I'm just lucky I was there when they were!

The breeding season kicks up a gear in April for all the birds that were here all winter, and there was plenty of nest activity going on, much easier to see while the leaves are still thin on the trees. Every spring it feels like I watch carrion crows nest building (or as is more normal for them patching up an old nest), and spending lots of time on and around it as a pair, and then one of the birds can be seen sitting on the nest...but then the leaves grow too thick and I lose track of them! Once fledged the babies look just the same as the adults too. There's a row of old crow's nests in the trees along my footpath and I always wonder which one they will choose, and love seeing them working diligently to build up their chosen nest. In 2021 there was even a pair that took over a large, flat nest at the top of a tall tree, I wouldn't be surprised if it was an old buzzard nest. But the same thing happened with them as well, I lost track of what was going on and have no idea if their breeding attempt succeeded or failed. I doubt anything will be different this year, but I live in hope!


Much easier to keep track of are the rooks. The rookery is right down at the other end of my patch so I don't go there that often, but when I do it's always interesting to see how the dozen or so nests are getting on. On the 11th of April was when I first heard the high pitched squawks coming from the nests, easily heard among the deeper sounds of their parents- at least one nest had babies, and soon the rest would surely follow.

At least one pair of blackbirds at my patch had mouths to feed by mid-month, as I saw one picking up food to take back to the nest on the 16th. (Blackbirds can get a lot earlier than this of course- in the very mild winter-early spring period we are in right now, blackbird fledglings have already been reported.) Some birds were not quite as far along, with a pair of buzzards seen mating mid-month, always a lucky thing to see birds doing as it's a very quick process! My rarely sighted and much admired grey partridges were paired up from mid-month, but they are too shy for me ever to hope to see much of their breeding process. Meanwhile the much more boisterous cock pheasants were seen displaying, flaring their feathers and wattle to impress the hens. A long tailed tit excitingly seemed to be starting a nest in a tree that was quite visible from the path- their nests are incredible woven balls held together with spiderweb and I've never seen one at all much less one being built, I would have loved to have watched all afternoon but my lunch break was ending as usual. Unfortunately I don't know if the nest was ever continued, it's possible the pair changed their mind about the location as I didn't see any activity in that tree on future visits.

 

Every year a few pairs of Canada geese breed on my patch, but in 2021 there was a very visible goose nest, with the chosen location being on the opposite bank of the river where no one could interfere with it but in full view of the footpath. That meant I was able to see exactly how long it takes to hatch a nest of goose eggs- much longer than a smaller bird's brood, as I first recorded the incubating goose on the nest on 4th April and she was still sitting at the end of the month. On every visit I would see her there, sitting patiently and grazing from plants she could reach while still on the nest. Sometimes she would get up for a break but always with the thick goose down nest lining pulled over the eggs, so I never saw them. One day towards the end of the month she was rudely attacked by another pair of geese and had to fend them off, which she successfully did and without having to get up from her eggs. Who knows what the aggressive pair were after, but maybe they were hoping to steal the nest for themselves so they didn't have to build their own. Nest interlopers are quite common in many species and are always interesting to see.

 

The herring gull pair continued to be weird, and a very odd display was seen early in the month- they both swam in the river, which was unusual in itself, and each fished a small piece of bark out of the water and dropped it again, apparently the same piece being grabbed by both of them. It seemed to be some sort of courtship display, perhaps related to finding nesting material, but I have no idea if it was getting anywhere as there was no direct activity between the pair. That was the last time I recorded any pairing activities from herring gulls for the year, so they either gave up or went elsewhere to breed, but this year I'm holding out hope that a pair might try to nest on a roof on the industrial estate. Fingers crossed!

The first fledgling birds I saw in the flesh were two extremely cute speckly baby robins, hunched up and keeping a low profile on a log by the river while an adult kept an eye on them. That was the 29th of April, but it wasn't the most exciting thing I saw that day. It was dramatically upstaged by a moment that I have attempted to illustrate above. As I arrived at the river I heard a loud, unfamiliar peeping sound, and suddenly realised it was coming from a single, unaccompanied goosander duckling. The tiny black and white ball of fluff was surprisingly loud! Before I really had time to wonder where the mother was I saw what it was calling to: a tightly clumped together group of nine more ducklings, floating on the river. Luckily the single duckling was able to rejoin the group quickly. There was no mother duck in sight but I thought she might have been out of sight somewhere, maybe worried about my presence, so I quickly walked on and let them be. (Their story will continue in future month posts.) I wrote last month that at the end of March I had been seeing only male goosanders rather than the usual pair- looking back now it seems likely that the female had been sitting on eggs all that time. I couldn't even begin to guess where the nest might have been though.


The month finished off with finally my first house martin of the year, also on the 29th, and on the very last day of April the growing flock of swallows and a few martins were joined by a couple of swifts, who are among the last and most carefree of our migrant birds. For a few glorious months they join us, and before we know it and just when we've gotten used to having them around, they are gone again. Till next year!


And before I forget, flower drawings added for the month were: coltsfoot, hairy bittercress, wild carrot, common field speedwell (having a 2nd go at this one!), cowslip, lesser periwinkle, common dog violet, ivy-leaved toadflax, marsh marigold, rue-leaved saxifrage, corn salad, sun spurge, pink water speedwell, cuckoo flower, germander speedwell, red campion, and a mystery flower that grows everywhere round here that I think (!) is corn marigold.

March 2021- Wildlife Diary

 

As I write this it's February 1st, and feeling very springlike. There's even lambs in the fields near me. But March is what I think of as spring proper. Maybe in our changing climate one day February will be thought of as spring proper too, which is a bit scary. (However birds tell a lot about seasons changing from day length rather than just weather and temperature, and that stays reassuringly the same- and it's a lot lighter in the afternoons now.)

In March 2021, the breeding season continued for the resident birds, with pairs of sparrows in the gardens and a beautiful grey wagtail in full breeding plumage seen. Other birds were starting to check out nest sites- a robin was seen diving into a stack of pallets on the industrial estate, while a great tit had a look in a nest box that someone had attached to the wall next to the feeding station.,where it was quickly chased off by a blue tit. The feeding station I think belongs to someone who works in one of the offices on the industrial estate overlooking it, and sometimes is filled up with fat blocks and peanuts, though it is usually empty. The nest box was never actually occupied because not long after the great tit was checking it out, the whole front fell off! This was never fixed which was a shame, but I'm sure both tit species have plenty of natural tree holes to use around here.

In mammal news, more badger footprints were found and this time near a thicket that could well have had a sett entrance in it. I continued to find occasional footprints there throughout the year when the conditions were right (mud not too hard and dry, or too wet), but the sett entrance location is still a mystery to me. It's probably right in a bramble bush! And I will probably never see the badger in person, of course. The equally invisible moles were pushing up hills with diligence, and early in March I heard a loud splash into the river that could (??) have been another visit from my sweet Splash. If it was, then that really was my last 'sighting' to this day- if the otters have been by since, it was likely at night. And good for them, remembering they are supposed to be nocternal! All in all a very invisible month for mammals.

The herons continued to be fascinating, as I watched one sitting in the 'fishing hole' who seemed to be moulting into breeding plumage, meaning it was now through its 2nd winter as they don't breed in their first year. Its beak was turning a much brighter orange and it was seen scratching at the feathers on its chest, where it appeared that the plume feathers worn by adult birds were coming in. It looked itchy! They don't breed on my patch so this bird will have likely left not long after this for the heronry to show off its new breeding atire.

Some trends in your sightings can't be noticed at the time you are making the notes but can be upon revisiting later, which is one reason why I'm doing this recap. For example, I can tell that throughout March the redwings were doing more gathering in trees and calling together than they would in winter proper, and I can pinpoint that the last time I recorded them on my patch before they left for their breeding grounds in Scandinavia was March 22nd. I also noticed I recorded the goosander pair together a few times at the start of the month, but by the end of the month I have a few records of just the female. This didn't seem significant at the time, but looking back it might be- we will get to that in April. But the poor birds were being hassled off their favourite sitting around spot by the extremely loud Canada geese taking it over, whose courtship seems to consist of standing opposite each other and honking! It's usuaully hard to tell if they are flirting or are annoyed at a rival, as it all seems pretty aggressive.

A few exciting things were seen this month- most of all, 2 ravens unexpectedly came flying over one sunny day later in the month. They were quietly calling to each other with that unmistakeable raven croak, and I at first thought they might be a pair, but then they separated and went in opposite directions and I wondered if it was actually one raven seeing off another from its breeding area- if that was the case, who knows how far they had flown. I only have a couple of records of raven overall since I moved to this area several years ago. One of the ravens also decided to bother a soaring sparrowhawk that it was considerably bigger than- it seemed a bit mean considering, but it's normal for birds of prey to be mobbed by everyone around! You can't let them get too comfortable, it's the principle of the thing. And to illustrate why, on a separate visit I saw a buzzard flapping away with a bird in its talons, something with long legs so likely a gamebird or water bird. Birds aren't the most common buzzard prey so it was very interesting to see and I wondered if the bird might be a hatchling, though couldn't confirm if it was downy. The buzzard was driven off with its prey by a pair of crows who were chasing it and calling, but that doesn't mean it had to be a baby crow, they could have just wanted some of the prey themselves.

Finally, the flower drawing continued with March's additions: snowdrop, sweet violet, lesser celandine, dandelion, white dead nettle, ground ivy, primrose, early forget-me-not, and shepherd's purse. Incidentally a lot of shepherd's purse is flowering at the time of writing!

February 2021- Wildlife Diary

February 2021 continued to be mostly mild, and I continued to not go far afield in lockdown. The flock of siskins on my patch must have been at least 30 birds, who would silently arrive like drifting leaves in the wind to feed on the alder cones, then move on as quickly as they had come. One weekend morning I was delighted to find a perfect set of badger footprints in the mud by the entrance to my patch, proving to me for the first time. Mid-month I had my final proper sighting of Splash (same disclaimer as before- I don't actually know it's the same otter, but I like to think it is!)- as I approached a shallower area of the river I saw a long shape partly submerged in the water, still as a floating log. Then when I went closer it suddenly flipped its tail and dived into the water, revealing itself to be my otter, who by this point was apparently getting better at hiding from humans. I think it swam around a bit under the water, I could see bubbles rising from its fur, but it remained hidden from then on and that was the last time I've properly seen an otter to date. It's a good thing really, much as I would love to see an otter again it's really best if they remain nocternal for their own safety!

 

From my notes I think the waters were pretty high throughout the month, it may have been a wetter winter than 2021-22, though I suppose there's time for that yet this winter. The lovely, smart goosander pair who visited my stretch of river that winter were seen several times in February and were always a joy to see, and I'm sad that they have not returned this winter. (I may have gotten summer goosanders instead, but we'll get to that!)

Early breeding signs continued, with the song thrushes singing their hearts out (which is normal for them to do in late winter), and over at the crop fields the corn buntings were singing their jangling songs from their favourite perches on the telegraph wires. I feel so lucky to have them locally as they have declined so much across the country, but I think there is a very healthy population on Salisbury Plain that spreads to the surrounding area. A pair of herring gulls in smart breeding plumage took to hanging around on a particular roof on the industrial estate and could sometimes be seen seeing off other gull intruders, which made me hopeful for a breeding attempt. (As far as I know they didn't that year, but maybe one day.) Finally to my amusement the young grey heron (born 2020) was seen one day squatting in the adult heron's favourite fishing/hiding from youngsters spot! I'm sure the adult was very annoyed that its spot had been discovered, though by this point it was probably thinking of leaving for the breeding site, which is not on my patch or anywhere near it as far as I know. 

Winter is always a good time to catch birds that come out in dusk at the end of an afternoon walk. That said, the site's barn owls are certainly not a sure thing or even a super likely thing, you still have to be lucky. I have spent far more time standing around looking at an empty field than I have watching the owl hunting, let's put it that way! But I did get lucky once in February, when I noticed a pale shape in the trees in the gathering darkness. It was a barn owl preening its feathers, making sure it was in top condition for a night's hunting, and seemed in no hurry to get moving. I think since then I've only had glimpses of barn owls that got swallowed up in the dark. Here's hoping that I get lucky with the owls again soon.

In February 2021 I started a project that took over my life a bit for the rest of the year. I had a notebook with a lovely design on the front and unlined pages, so decided to do something special with it and start a drawing project. The project was going to be sketching flowers, from life and in the field (well mostly but we'll get to that), using drawing pens and pencils. The in the field aspect meant no fussing about little details but just focusing on the important things- flower shape, leaf shape, flower structure. The idea was that in going through the book in order you would see the change of the seasons in the species I drew. I had some rules which despite being completely pointless seemed important to me, I'm sure a few readers can relate to that! The rules were: 1. No blossoming bushes (too big and annoying); 2. Drawing the same species twice is allowed if I wasn't happy with the first one; and 3. I'm allowed to ignore any flowers that seemed like they would either be really boring, or a pain to draw, or both (this was mostly white flowers with a tonne of complicated bits like hogweed and fennel). A few flowers were starting to come out at the end of February, so I started the project off that month with: groundsel (which helpfully grew right out of my doorstep!), daisy, lesser celandine, red dead nettle and common field speedwell.

I've put a few of these drawings online but also keep being held back by the usual things: bothered that probably they wouldn't get much attention on instagram (nothing I do does), and then the fact that I had so many that scanning and cropping them would take ages, even if I didn't edit them properly. Plus there's the fact that a lot of the individual pictures don't really look that good alone, and were really meant to be seen alongside all the rest when you flip through the book. I'll probably continue just keeping the finished book as an object, safe in my bookshelf (turns out the paper was not waterproof At All and the media I used in it are all water based, so an accidental splash could mess any of the drawings up...!), and show it to anyone who shows interest. And maybe one day I'll finally scan it, who knows, but for now I'm a very shy artist with little to no social media presence and not enough drive or skills to maintain one.

January 2021- Wildlife Diary

January feels like a time of new beginning for humans, but for wildlife it's a time of stasis and survival. In midwinter all the birds on my patch on the river Nadder in Salisbury are in place, with very little passage in or out for the next couple of months until spring is here. The goosanders are on the river, the siskins in the alder cones. The family of swans, 2 parents and 2 full size cygnets, were still being seen regularly grazing and swimming together.

The year began as lockdown was being brought in, first in tiers and then all over. Just before it descended completely I went out to Decoy Pond Wood in the New Forest, remembering that one amazing summer years ago when I saw hawfinches feeding in the leaf litter. But the heathland seemed quiet as the grave in the cold of winter, and the wood was quiet too. It was if the birds knew what was coming and were locking down too. I consoled myself by looking at the fungi growing on the old wood and the weird lichens, like the green and red 'devil's matchstick'. On many of the piles of manure from the New Forest ponies I was happy to see tiny flat, white mushrooms growing, the nail fungus, an uncommon species in the UK due to only growing on horse manure. There's not so much of that about these days but always plenty in the New Forest. Just after that trip full lockdown was confirmed, and that was the last entry in my further afield wildlife notebook for over 3 months.

 

Back home on the patch, my weather notes for January 2021 show a mostly mild winter with only the odd frosty day and a single dusting of snow. (This current winter seems to be shaping up the same way, and it's as scary as ever.)  Some of the birds already seemed amorous, with the dunnocks pursuing each other, great tits singing and stock doves cooing. This may now be the new way of things for winters in the south of England. Meanwhile a heron was still dealing with the products of 2020's breeding season, and was seen pursued by a couple of juveniles who flew after it, yelling their heads off for food despite being long old enough to fish for themselves. The adult heron had to resort to hiding in its 'fishing hole', a secret spot on the river with some tree cover, to hope not to be spotted by harrassing youngsters from above.

There was plenty of rain, and while it was nowhere near as bad as the winter before when the fields became lakes, the rivers rose to cover the paths regularly and the waters were churned and murky. During one of these times the adult heron took to pacing the fields instead, and one lunchtime I watched it stare intently into a bush for a while, then suddenly strike like a snake, grabbing a medium sized vole in its beak, which it proceeded to dunk a couple of times into the floodwaters. This didn't seem to be to drown the vole but instead perhaps to make it go down more easily, as it barely held it in the water for a second before tossing the unfortunate animal alive down its throat! Nature is as ever brutal.

The winter's resident kingfisher was seen having slightly less of a smooth time, as I saw it on one occasion whacking a very large (compared with its body size) fish on a branch, then eventually trying to swallow it. This didn't work and the bird was forced to bring the fish up again, but it continued hitting it determinedly as if killing the fish more would help it go down easier. I sadly don't know whether it swallowed it or had to give up in the end, as my lunch break was ending. And speaking of fish eaters....

In January 2021 I had wonderful views of an otter on 3 different occasions, as it seemed to have taken a liking to my particular stretch of river. More worryingly, it seemed keen on being out in the daytime, which isn't especially safe for an animal that still has a large amount of hatred and stigma against it from anglers. (I've had passers by on that river tell me unprompted about the terrible problem of too many otters, which was weird at the time as I'd never seen one there but now made a little more sense.) Mostly it splashed in the river and caught little fish which it ate on the spot, nothing terribly useful to an angler, though a magpie was seen watching it intently as if hoping for leftovers! It was like a little sea serpent, somersaulting and twirling around in the deep water, its head like a little dog but its tail more like an eel. But the third time I saw it, I accidentally startled it while entering the site, where it was sitting under a tree no more than 10 metres from me. I got such a good view that I could see a fair sized patch of paler fur under its chin, as you can see in my drawing. Because of this (and its splashy behaviour) I decided to name the otter Splash. This was the only sighting where I had a good enough view to see the mark, so I don't actually know for sure that the sightings were all of the same animal. You get kind of a feel for this through an animal or bird's behaviour though (at least that's what I tell myself!).

 

Happy New Year for 2022! I'll hopefully be back soon to write about February 2021, while also taking down notes about January 2022 as it plays out, ready perhaps for another wildlife diary next year.

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