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.
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