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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