July 2007 - Posts
Writing a week in advance of publication can sometimes have its drawbacks, and in this case I have been caught off-guard by a stubborn ship.
It would seem I spoke too soon, and we will have the company of Napoli for a few more weeks now.
Never one to let negativity creep into my work, I was really pleased when the advice from East Devon District Council and the Maritime Coastguard Agency was that East Devon’s beaches were very much open as normal, asking instead for people to observe simple common sense and keep alert for small amounts of oil on the beach.
As I must have said many times before within these pages, my favourite beach pastime is rockpooling and this is an activity which you should also take a little more care with at present.
Rockpools are in many ways a window into the marine world, and this is very much the case at the moment.
As water quality reports continue to return from the Environment Agency with good results, so the life in our rockpools seems unaffected by the Napoli.
But, as well as trapping a host of interesting sea life, rockpools can also trap floating mess as the tide retreats, so parents should accompany children while rockpooling just in case.
This is hardly an onerous task – many times when leading public rockpooling events it’s the dads who drag their children over to the event, as a thinly disguised excuse to go competitive crabbing with the other fathers. Sexual stereotype perhaps, but backed up by boatloads of anecdotal evidence.
The East Devon Coastal Festival will be returning this August but, before we get to that littoral feast of fun, we are in the middle of a week of heathland celebration with East Devon Heath Week.
This is something the RSPB, Clinton Devon Estates, the East Devon AONB team and myself at the district council organise each year as a celebration of arguably our most valuable local habitat and, if you’ve not been along to one of the events before, I urge you to do so in volumes equalling those of tortoiseshell-gate.
As Exmouth locals, you should be so rightfully proud that one of the UK’s most important habitats can be found right on your doorstep, literally for some of you really lucky individuals. As with many things that we live among and around, it is all too easy to take things for granted and I fear most people look at the pebblebed heaths as a convenient place to take the dog for a good run. I am not disputing that in the slightest, but it is so much more than that, too!
Heath week events run through the week to provide expert guidance around various heathland sites at a time when they are at their very best. The bell heather is in full bloom now, casting a deep purple hue over the heath, and, on a warm dry day (if we ever get one of those this summer), the air is full of small insects busily collecting nectar from the flowers.
This amazing wealth of insect life supports many beautiful birds, such as the stonechat and the elusive Dartford warbler, a bird that in the early ’70s numbered in single figures in this country. And because the soil is acidic and very poor in nutrients, there are some very interesting plants here, too, which feed upon the insect life as ferociously as any of the birds!
The sticky beads of sundew glisten as a sinister treat for passing flies, attracted to their sweet smell and then stuck fast for digestion. The leaf of the plant curls over itself, engulfing the hapless fly, and the nitrogenous nutrients from the insect’s body are transferred to the plant.
Another plant carnivore is the pitcher plant, which can be found growing in some of the wetter flushes of the commons.
These stunning plants develop large upright leaves which hold water just like a vase. The leaf is so well developed that it even has a little lid, protecting its deadly contents from evaporation.
Again, a meaty liquid is used to entice flies which slip on a carpet of fine hairs, causing them to fall down the tube into the water below, where their bodies are again decomposed for the plant’s use.
My personal favourites, when visiting heaths, are the reptiles. Adders and common lizards can be found basking in the early morning sun if you know where to look for them.
Explore a heathland ride too boisterously, and all you will see are the disappearing tails of lizards retreating into the bushes, but take your time and wander slowly around a site, and you can hope to see much more from these charismatic little creatures.
Reptile rambles, pond dipping and hosts of other events will be running through the week, so make sure you pick up a leaflet from the tourist information centre and come along to see what all the fuss is about.
At last, six months after looming ominously into view, the MSC Napoli is afloat once again. At the time of writing it is not known if she will be able to float off to whence she came, but it is certainly a step in the right direction.
From Exmouth, the impact of the Napoli has been minimal. We had a little flotsam jettisoned onto the beach in the early days, way back in March, but there was no visual impact and fortunately no significant amount of oil came our way either. However, venture round a couple of headlands and the sinister presence of the hulk was an inescapable reminder that there are vessels afloat in our seas that shouldn't be.
There were calls for inquests, heads on sticks and explanations of why a World Heritage Site was chosen as her temporary (let’s be positive) resting place. But the truth is that way before the January storms which forced her ashore, permission should not have been granted for the Napoli to so much as leave dock. In so many ways we were incredibly fortunate.
Firstly we experienced a period of extended fine weather, anecdotally unprecedented in a 'normal' February. And secondly, once the dregs of humanity were barred from scavenging the beaches, the impact of errant cargo was dealt with extremely quickly by the ships on-shore contractors.
Some 700 volunteers put their name forward to help in the aftermath, but in reality such was the scale of the litter from Napoli, that it was the efforts of the teams of contractors which meant that East Devon's beaches remained clear of rubbish for all but the fleetest of moments. My hat goes off to them.
So she's up; hopefully there is no reason not to attempt a tow to dry dock for decommissioning, especially as she is now empty of cargo and dangerous fuel oil. As much as she has become a feature of the maritime view, I for one will not miss her for a moment, and can't wait to see only passing pelagic seabirds once again.
Speaking of marine litter, the Exmouth Local Nature Reserve got its second late spring clean of the year a couple of weeks ago, and, thanks to our unseasonal weather, this was carried out in ludicrously spring-like conditions.
You may have read about the valiant attempts by the Exmouth Guides and Friends of Exmouth Local Nature Reserve to rescue litter from the estuary sand and mud. We were thwarted by an unpredicted high tide which made our going rather dangerous.
Well, the Exe Wildfowlers Association would seem to be made from tougher stuff, and they braved not quite hell and high-water to remove an entire skip full of weird and wonderful stuff. The normal collection of tyres, traffic cones and timber was this year accompanied by bags of broken glass, a traffic barrier and a child's bicycle. As you can see from the accompanying photo, they braved a real hoolie to recover this junk, and the estuary is a better place for it.
Just in time too, as the winter* birds are already on their way back, and this week I would advise you all to go for a wander up the estuary-side and see what you can see.
Black-tailed godwits have already been seen feeding on the estuary mud, resplendent in their summer breeding plumage. It is a magnificent sight to see, a blaze of orangey-red chest and head, with bronzed wing feathers flowing across their backs. However, it is a slightly troubling sight also. The early return of birds from their breeding grounds normally suggests a poor breeding season, with the failed breeders cutting their losses and making their way home. There are no statistics yet published to bear this out, but I will be interested to see breeding figures once they are produced.
One way you can tell how well or otherwise some of our most important winter birds have done in the summer months is to count returning brent geese. They will not appear in any number (with luck) for a couple more months, but this seems as good an opportunity to tell you as any.
When the first dark-bellied brents start arriving back in a month or two, look for the individuals that lack the reverse 'dog-collar' on their necks - a pale stripe running around the back of their neck. The juvenile geese lack this marking, and it is a useful way to estimate a rough figure of breeding success. An interesting bit of local knowledge that pertains to the Northern Siberian wetlands!
As well as returning winter birds, migration is getting under way for the species that only linger for a few days in our estuary. Osprey have already been seen from Exton station, a couple (not necessarily a pair) being the peak number so far.
Many people do not appreciate that these amazing birds can be seen in our local area, but the Exe is one of the best places to see ospreys on migration. I remember the first osprey I saw in East Devon. I was amazed by how small it looked, and at distance how difficult it was to distinguish from the gulls.
Rather than scan the sky aimlessly for a long-winged silhouette, you need to look for their effects on the local birdlife. Gulls in particular will go ballistic when an osprey is moving through. Look for clouds of gulls making a racket - even more so than usual - and scan below this gaggle. With any luck your osprey will be there, trying its best to meander nonchalantly down-stream in search of a fishy meal.
It always baffles me how much of a commotion amongst birds a fish-eating bird of prey can cause but, if natural history was easy to interpret, it wouldn't be half so intoxicating!
* Still July and I've already printed the word 'winter' to depress us all.
The scene opens in a theatre; a gentleman approaches the ice cream seller, who is standing with a bird round her neck…
“Albatross!” “Urm, choc-ice please.” “Ain't got any choc-ices, just got the albatross.” “Does it come with a wafer?”
For whatever reason, this is the mental image that springs to mind when anyone mentions albatrosses, and this week that particular John Cleese and Terry Jones' dialogue has been playing constantly in my internal cinema.
The reason? Well, there's been another mega-rarity turn up in the country, not on our doorstep like the long-billed murrelet, but at Burnham on Sea. Someone reported a sea bird struggling to fly on Brean beach and, when animal welfare officers arrived to rescue the bird, they discovered it was an albatross.
[“Albatross! Get your lovely albatross!” - please be quiet John.]
The yellow nose albatross is a huge bird, which at this time of year should be somewhere in the southern ocean, swooping majestically over violent oceanic waves. The one rescued at Brean was a youngster, having left the single breeding colony on Tristan Da Cunha two or three years ago to mature on the high seas. Interestingly, on the same day, the same species of albatross was spotted off the coast of Norway - coincidence? Shouldn't think so, all logic points to these birds being connected, perhaps travelling together way, way off course. The chances of these sightings being of the same bird are slim however, as even these masters of the sky are unable to cross such vast distances so quickly.
But there is a strange coincidence, as the only two previously accepted records of this bird being seen in the whole of the Western Palearctic (an area covering North Africa, Europe, much of western Russia and Iceland) was one in 1994 in Norway, and one in 1985 off the coast of Cornwall - I should think it is just a coincidence in this case!
Both these historic birds were seen well out at sea, 30 and 80km respectively, so this was the first one to be seen from the shore. This makes the sighting even more unusual as albatrosses [“Albatross!” - sush John] are oceanic birds that seldom venture near to shore.
Albatrosses are truly ancient types of bird, with a visibly segmented beak giving them an almost prehistoric look. But they are achingly beautiful, and have a staggering life history.
If you look at the gliding profile of an albatross you will see how it is adapted to a life on the wing. Long thin wings cut through the air and give it maximum lift, especially in stormy conditions, while the body is short in comparison and it has a very short tail, doing all its turning with its wings.
An albatross will pair for life, both adults forming a strong monogamous bond that connects them even when thousands of miles of ocean separate them. The chicks take many years to fledge the nest, let alone develop into sexually mature adults, and so they are a group of animals that are very sensitive to losses.
The albatross family of birds are wandering scavengers and fish-eaters, which travel many thousands of miles each year in search of food. They have excellent eyesight and look for fish or dead food floating on or near the surface of the sea. This makes them prone to coming into fatal contact with human beings in the dolphin friendly tuna fishing industry.
Unlike trawling for tuna, which is shown potentially to cause the death of hundreds of dolphin per trawl, dolphin-friendly methods of fishing use a long line of hooks baited with squid.
When I say long, I mean long, really, really long, much longer than you are thinking. Lines of baited hooks range in length from a few kilometres to up to 100 kilometres in length, that's over 60 miles! Imagine a fishing line stretching from Exmouth, right the way up to the stranded albatross up there in Burnham on Sea. Every few metres a baited hook floats offering its squid bait equally to the tuna below and the albatross above, and many tens of thousands of albatrosses are being caught on the hooks each year and drowning.
Yes, this isn't a species that we have cause to get excited about locally very often at all, but that doesn't mean it’s not something that we should be looking to help protect.
Global conservation is making leaps forward, especially with the realisation that, wherever you are in the world, money talks. When once we might have felt like a nosey neighbour, or worse an imperialistic dictatorship, we are now more bullish about spreading the message of conservation across the world and showing people how, by protecting the species they live amongst, they can provide a sustainable future for themselves, their families and their wildlife.
Global extinction is a terminal issue. Dodo, roc, great auk, Tasmanian wolf, all gone, never to be seen again, unless Michael Crichton is proved right and DNA samples can indeed by synthesised into entire beasties. We shouldn't put all our faith in works of science fiction however, it’s hardly the responsible thing to do.
And the saddest thing about these biodiversity catastrophes is that the culprit, nay the villain, on each occasion has been ours-truly, good old homo sapiens. My ultimate hero, Sir David Attenborough, puts the argument succinctly and, I would say, unarguably: “We are the only species on Earth capable of recklessly and knowingly leading to the total disappearance of another species. And for this reason alone we have a responsibility not to.”
There are masses of other moral, economic, ecological and environmental arguments - many of which are being covered by the BBC series Saving Planet Earth, but I find these simple two sentences are enough to have me convinced.
Of course there's no going back for the species listed above, but there are localised extinctions that are reversible.
The water vole is an animal that is officially extinct in Devon. I have heard of many people who know of 'secret' populations of these little mammals, and have learnt of a few captive breeding programmes, intending to help water voles refind a footing in the County, but the official line is “gone, but not forgotten”.
The district council, in partnership with the Environment Agency, has been leading a project to assist in the re-establishment of sustainable water vole populations. If water voles are going to make a comeback anywhere in Devon, they will probably do so along the River Axe, where there are populations in the headwaters in Dorset.
Water voles' problems have been mink-shaped. Devon was the first county in Britain to record American mink breeding in the wild - 1954 on the river Teign. 40 years later we also had the dubious honour of being the first county in the UK to have totally lost water voles in our rivers and streams.
The problem was that mink are able to get into a water vole burrow, and so the voles have no safe refuge from this impressive predator.
Please don't get me wrong - this is not a character assassination of mink. Having no human character, that is, of course, impossible. In their correct place on the planet, North America, I have nothing but deep respect for this animal. I marvel at its efficiency and strength, similar to our native weasel to which it is closely related.
The reprieve for water voles has come from the return of otters on all rivers in Devon. Otters will also prey upon water voles if the opportunity arises, but are too big to fit down a vole burrow, so the voles can bid a retreat. Otters also do not tolerate mink in their territory and are usurping them as they make their way back into our county.
So keep your eyes peeled over the next few years to see the return of Ratty.
Other animals are perhaps making their own comeback. Large tortoiseshell butterflies were last officially recorded in the UK in the 1960s. Local naturalist Mike Lock photographed one recently in East Devon, and the photo has caused some excitement. There are a few records every few years of large tortoiseshell, but these are normally thought to be immigrants flying over from the continent, or escapees from butterfly breeders’ collections. However, this year there have been a number of new insects spotted.
Scarce chaser dragonflies are abundant in the area while large red-eyed damselflies were found last year. Could this be the beginning of another insect incursion?
One of the best-known recolonisations was that of the little egret. Often wrongly heralded as an indicator of climate change, the ever-expanding population of little egrets was first noted in the south west.
These birds were hunted to extinction in the UK with huge demand for their plumes for the millinery trade.
Awaiting a colony of little egrets is a frustrating catch 22 situation - you could say the archetypal egret-and-egg quandary. Egrets will not breed in anything other than an established colony, and a colony won't establish until they start breeding.
There has been a breeding colony of little egrets on the Exe for many years now, and this year has seen the first fluffy fledgling in the Axe valley, which is an exciting turn up for this year's bird report.
Some disappearances are forever, some just temporary, but it is our responsibility to make sure our responsibility of species loss is minimal.
June has slipped past already, without me even noticing and without leaving a forwarding address. How rude, but it does mean we are now approaching July and the end is in sight for the quiet bird months in the District.
Yes, the local breeding birds are fantastic. Swifts are the epitome of summer, while, if you are prepared to travel a little bit, stunning hobbies can be found feasting on dragonflies at this point in the summer. And therein lies a clue as to how the ranks of devoted winter birders while away the long endless summer days.
I normally bump into East Devon bird watchers in the depths of February; wearing so many layers of clothing that identifying them in summer plumage, so to speak, is as tricky as picking a silent chiff-chaff from a willow warbler.
One thing connects bird watchers probably more closely than the birds themselves, and that's a need to be in the outdoors. A few hours spent pottering about the house is time wasted when 'things' can be seen. So summer calls for another aerial distraction, and this year the display is more stunning then ever before.
Dragonflies are a god-send for bored birders in June, July and on into August. There's enough of them to give the identification muscle a good work-out, and they are undeniably beautiful, so the aesthetic gland gets a good secretion too. All-in-all a great package to keep the summer birder at the top of their game, in peak physical fitness.
So where to go? Small streams and brooks will be home to shimmering damselflies and demoiselles. These small dragonflies rest with their wings folded away for protection. Larger ponds and lakes will be patrolled by imperious Emperor dragonflies, skated over by various hawkers and a mass of darters and chasers.
Most of the school ponds in the local area have dragonfly larvae living in them - normally these small water bodies attract broad-bodied chasers, which were appearing a few weeks ago. It is an amazing transformation. Being a nymph, immature dragonflies do not pupate to change into adults like, say, a butterfly or moth. Dragonflies go through a series of life stages, or instars, breaking out of their armoured skin and emerging a little different each time.
When they are ready to peel themselves out of their final skin, they get the insatiable urge to climb. Who knows what triggers this? It’s something which is filed under the badge of convenience entitled “Instinct” meaning “Haven't a clue”. But for whatever reason an animal that previously has been a water-breathing creature with no truck with land, is in a few short hours going to be a master of the air.
So the nymph climbs a reed stem, early one morning, and drags itself through the surface membrane. Bear in mind this is now a race against time as the nymph will not breath air until its out of its skin, and it can't breath water as it’s left that 30 centimetres behind it.
The nymph uses sharp hooks at the ends of its six legs to anchor itself in place and starts to force itself out. A rupture line splits along its back, from behind the head to the top of the abdomen and through this the adult dragonfly emerges.
It falls backwards, arching over to grab hold of the stem below the empty skin with its new legs. If all has gone smoothly so far, the process will have taken about 25 minutes and the major job of inflating the wings now begins. The dragonfly is totally helpless at this point, which explains why the wee small hours are chosen in which to complete this transformation.
Dragonflies are a particular favourite of house sparrows and any hapless individual caught emerging in the sunlight will be an easy breakfast for a passing spadger.
As the dragonfly pumps coelemic fluid through the wing veins, the crumpled membranes expand and become taut. The dragonfly then warms its flight muscles before it can take to the wing for the first time.
Once the flight muscles are warm the young dragonfly, called a teneral, flies off away from the dangers of the water, normally to the safety of trees to feed and become strong. In a few days the full adult colouring will have developed in the dragonfly and it will return to the water to claim a mating territory.
A large dragonfly, such as the majestic golden ringed dragonfly, can spend up to five years as a nymph feeding on the gravely bottom of a high Dartmoor stream.
They will then go on to spend a few months at the most as a winged adult. It is only because we see them most as flying insects that they are called dragonflies.
If the name reflected the lifestyle, they really ought to be called dragonswims.
Last year in the Axe valley, just north of Seaton, large red eyed damselflies were seen mating over ponds for the first time in Devon.
Previously only recorded on a handful of sites in the east, this is a dragonfly that has hopped over the channel in the last few years to set up colonies in the UK.
This year, the newcomer is a species called a scarce chaser.
Perhaps coincidence, perhaps an indication of local climate change - either way the books need to be rewritten about dragonfly coverage in the South West.
Why not join East Devon District Council's Nature Reserve Officer, Fraser Rush, for a dragonfly walk around Seaton Marshes next week? Phone the Countryside Service on (01395) 517557 for more details.