March 2008 - Posts
Do you remember your first time? No, not that. Nor am I talking about Germanic butterscotch sweets either, I mean the first time you see something – seasonality.
My brain seems to be a bit of a sieve when it comes to dates, so I must admit that I have taken to carrying a notebook with me while I am out in the Countryside. In my defence it’s useful for noting mileage as I hack along the highways and byways of East Devon, but it also holds some important memories too. Notes and scribblings are more than just diversions or trivia, they can reveal trends and provide information about when things are happening in the natural world.
There have been a couple of interesting firsts in recent days. Earlier last week I was walking on Fire Beacon Hill, outside Sidmouth, checking reptile traps with no real hope of finding anything. But to my surprise, under one of the sheets was a pair of common lizards, huddling in the corner and still extremely groggy! They were just shedding their skins, which lizards tend to do freshly after emerging from hibernation, and were not quick to dash away when I rudely interrupted them.
As “Life in Cold Blood” has just come to the end of its dazzling run, perhaps this is an opportune moment to enthuse about reptiles once again, if you rather I didn’t – look away now…
As with any British name for plant or animal, the prefix ‘common’ often belies a wondrous and frequently uncommon beast or bloom. Again it is the case here with the common, or viviparous lizard. Measuring a little over ten centimetres, this little creature is a complicated animal. It has a rudimentary “third eye”, a light sensitive patch in the top of its head which it uses to influence its sun bathing. And soak up the sun it must, as it doesn’t lay eggs as most reptiles do, but rather retains the eggs within its body, to regulate their incubation more closely.
After three months gestation, between three and 15 perfect miniature lizards are born and are immediately self-sufficient. They move away to feed in the surrounding area, growing quickly and reaching maturity within a year, and grow quickly they must as a common lizard’s lifespan is only five or six years. Lizards are cold blooded, but use behaviour to regulate their temperature to within a few degrees of normal, which means they are normally warmer than the ambient temperature and not strictly speaking cold blooded, an old fashioned term, which has been replaced with the less catchy but more accurate “ectotherm”!
Now these little beauties are out and about, they can expect to get a few more unwelcome intrusions from me, I never fail to enjoy watching these creatures on our wonderful heathlands, and with luck I’ll come across an adder while I am reptile rambling too.
A less expected first cropped up in Seaton last week, and was not seen by myself, but I did get a frustrating text message while in an all-day meeting! A large tortoiseshell butterfly was seen amongst the ivy growing on the side of a Seaton house, luckily by someone who knew the significance of this sighting. Large tortoiseshells are a butterfly I wrote about in this column last summer, and are very rarely seen migrants from the continent, having been formally extinct in the UK for many years. This one, at this time of year is almost certainly an individual that has successfully over-wintered, a much unexpected occurrence. After last summer’s large tortoiseshell sighting a flurry of reports came my way of mis-identified small tortoiseshell butterflies. So here’s a quick guide to telling a very common British butterfly from its rarer continental cousin. Firstly check out the size and colour, if its about 4 or 5 centimetres and bright orange it’s a small ‘shell, if its closer to 8 centimetres and a darker brick brown, then it might be a large. Also, look on the forewing, and count the dark spots – if it’s a large T, then it will have four spots, a small ‘shell will have three.
Finally, while pootling about Holyford Woods, desperately trying to turn up a lesser-spotted woodpecker (and still no luck on that front) I saw a very early blossoming bluebell. There it was, all by itself, poking a small blue spike skywards. So it could be an early spring for bluebells this year, so get your skates on and make sure you don’t miss them in 2008.
It’s been a long winter, but signs of spring are definitely on the horizon. Swallows have already been spotted on the Exe estuary, and Cornwall has records of house martins, and sand martins too, by the time this article goes to print, I’m sure Devon will have caught up.
I found myself early for a meeting in Exmouth last week, and spent a very pleasant while in Manor Gardens watching the signs of spring there. I’m sure that horticulturally the indicators were everywhere, but I have to confess I am all thumbs (and none of them particularly green) when it comes to gardening. So I was instead focussing on what the birds were doing to provide me with hints that summer is round the corner.
A couple of yeas ago the District Council installed bird and bat boxes in the park and these were being prospected by the resident blue ***. While erecting bird boxes in a mature woodland is a little unnecessary, what with there being so many natural nesting opportunities available, in the manicured perfection of a formal park such boxes offer a welcome roosting space for woodland birds.
Robins were scuffing around the mulch beneath the roses, searching for worms and other grubs, while up in the trees a male blackcap was a welcome sight, even if he didn’t treat the park visitors to a burst of his tuneful song. In one corner of the park someone has been putting out a handful of corn, which is proving very popular with one particularly scruffy robin. With body feathers sticking out at all angles, he was quite a sight, but he made up for his messiness with the most beautiful song, delivered with exceptional gusto from few feet away in a small bush.
One of the definite benefits of watching birds in these human surroundings, is that often the birds are more at ease with human presence and you can get a lot closer to them without disturbing them. As I said, I was on my way to a meeting and so didn’t have the ubiquitous pair of binoculars slung round my neck, and still I got great views! This little robin belted out his flute-like trill claiming ownership of his patch of food, it was a really uplifting spectacle on a cold February afternoon.
There’s a bird I would like us all to look out for this spring, as I am rather worried that it might not return to our town to breed. For the first few years working as the District Council’s Education Ranger I was able to enthuse at length about skylarks breeding on the Maer, but in the last two years I have not seen a skylark back in the long grass or on the sand dunes, previously their two favourite haunts.
The skylark is a bird that has suffered a dramatic decline in recent years. From what was once a very common sight, they are now restricted to uplands and unimproved agricultural areas in ever decreasing numbers.
Their characteristic call is sometimes the first clue you get to their presence. A supa-melodic series of rolling notes, seemingly coming from very far away and everywhere simultaneously. The song continues unbroken for long periods of time, as the larks call while falling gently through the air. This parachute display is a joy to behold, and would be a great shame if Exmouth no longer boasted this superb resident within its town centre.
They sing to claim a territory as their own, but have a very clever way of eluding predators. With such an overt display flight, it would be easy for an intelligent predator, such as a crow, to learn to watch the larks and follow them to their nest site, often found deep in amongst the grasses. But as the skylarks approach the ground on their seemingly vertical drop, they will veer off at the very last minute and scoot horizontally for some distance before dropping into the grass. They will then continue to scurry, like a little winged mouse, along the ground sometimes ending up at a nest some considerable distance from where they apparently landed.
So, if you are walking your dog, or just yourself, on the Maer this spring, watch out and listen out for skylarks, and if you do see one, please get in touch with me, either at the District Council, or through the paper. I can’t offer a financial reward for seeing one, but I promise that if you get the chance to hear one sing, this will definitely be reward enough!
About (well, almost exactly) thirty years ago I had the displeasure of being born in the Christmas holiday period, 30th of December to be precise. Admittedly it had its upsides; as a youngster I could get bigger presents by asking for joint birthday and Christmas gifts, but by New Years Eve I was left with another 360 days to wait until something exciting happened with wrapping paper. Latterly I’ve found that it means that due to people preparing themselves for a New Year’s party they are less inclined to over-do it on the night preceding festivities. Of course I still have to, so by this time of year, I have a serious case of over-indulgence. Which is a rather long-winded way of saying that at this time of year, I am in perilous need of some fresh air and exercise.
The good news is that although a lot of the countryside is sleepy and quite in the depths of winter, for some groups of animals life goes on, and there are less places for them to hide away from interested eyes so it’s a great time to get out and see them.
Birds, as I am sure you know, do not hibernate. They either scarper away to warmer climes, or stick it out and brave the weather. Some really intrepid individuals actually make a bee-line for our shores in the winter, as our gulf-stream warmth keeps us out of all but the most freakish cold snaps. So when out for a winter walk, look out for those birds that have joined us for the New Year celebrations.
The return of the little egret has been well documented in the last decade; a bird which was only a few years ago a really unusual find. has now become so commonplace locally that it rarely justifies a mention. Sometimes it is misreported as a new species for our country, and a sure sign of climate change. Not so. These birds were once common on our rivers, streams and estuaries, before our desire for fashionable headwear saw the last of them hunted to extinction. The little egret is merely regaining a toehold in this country, probably helped by our less severe weather patterns.
Cattle egrets, on the other hand are a truly Mediterranean species which are becoming something of a winter feature of the southwest countryside. Numbers are still only ones or twos, but rather than appearing and immediately moving on to warmer places, cattle egrets are lingering in our water meadows and riverside pasture, stalking cows with their sinister gate.
They don’t eat cattle, obviously, but rather follow them, picking up insects disturbed by the livestock’s movement. I wonder how long it will be before people are writing articles about cattle egrets breeding in the local egrets roosts?
If you are walking through arable areas, keep your eyes peeled amongst the stubble as it is now that some really exciting birds are being spotted. Orcombe point witnessed the arrival of a Lapland visitor this Christmas, however this one left less presents under the pine trees and didn’t arrive under reindeer power. A Lapland bunting was reported up there, which may, or may not stick around for a little while. Unless you are particularly interested in making a tick list of bird species this year I wouldn’t put off doing something interesting to go up and try to see it, as this is the archetypal LBJ: Little Brown Job! It’s a small brow bird, which tends to scuttle about low to the ground a bit like a winged mouse.
One little brown job I would urge you to go out and search for is the elusive wood lark. Now’s the time to look for this lovely little bird, a much scarcer relation of the declining skylark. In the summer months these birds breed in woodland and heaths, but in the winter they can be seen feeding in stubble fields. Look for a speckled brown bird, about the size of a meadow pipit, but with a much stockier build. A slight crest can be held flat on the crown, so don’t look for this as confirmation – rather, look for the one identification feature that it shares with no other small brown bird, wrap-around shades!
The pale eye stripe of a woodlark extends right the way round the back of the head and meets at the nape of the neck, giving the wrap-around effect. They have a large eye and later in the year can be heard making a sound almost as lovely as the skylark.
At this time of year I would recommend the cheap and cheerful cure-all of a brisk walk along the southwest coast path as a great way of staving off the winter blues. However, while you are out getting a lungful of fresh sea air, don’t spend all your time gazing out to sea. Look back over the fields and hedgerows at the wonderful array of wintering birds, braving our chilly climate.
Imagine living somewhere, when it came to the weekend question: “where shall we go for a walk today?” left you genuinely perplexed.
Access to the countryside is something we are lucky enough to enjoy in a very peculiarly British way, we may not have freedoms to wander hither-and-thither over any piece of open space we lay our eyes on, but we do have networks of safe, legally protected rights of way to satisfy out wanderlust.
One of my favourite routes is the southwest coast path. It doesn’t even really matter which section, just pop me on a winding path up and down the East Devon coastal valleys, or fighting against buffeting winds on the North Cornish coast and I am equally happy. In fact, we are particularly fortunate to have this resource on our doorsteps, and it’s possibly something we take for granted, such is it entrenched in our outdoor pursuits manifesto.
Even if you’ve no reference material, or even a map, you can make your way to pretty much any coastal town in the South West peninsular and know that there will be a well marked, well maintained path to lead you away along the coast. Just take a moment to think what it would be like to not have this opportunity and spare a thought for those coastal communities elsewhere in the UK which do not enjoy such freedoms.
It must be a deeply entrenched human instinct to want to walk alongside water, whether its for the aesthetic pleasures, or whether its more of a comforting thought of knowing you can retrace your steps easily, is a moot point but either way its something we all enjoy.
Stretches with plenty of access facilities, such as a nice big car park and perhaps some refreshments at either end, are always busy especially at the weekends. If the going is flat and level and the surface sound, these stretches are important for people with mobility issues, providing some of the few chances to get into the countryside if your hips aren’t what they used to be.
Last week, however, I enjoyed a walk along what can only be described as the antithesis of the easy access corridor, as I joined BBC Radio Devon on a stroll along the Undercliffs National Nature Reserve. Normally I’d reckon on a seven or eight mile walk taking between two and three hours. It is testament to the winding nature of this route, and how much there is to stop and take in along the way, that this walk took nearer to four hours to complete. We started at Seaton, walked over to Lyme Regis and caught the X53 coastal service back to our starting point.
The recording was part of Radio Devon’s celebrations of its 25th birthday. To commemorate this quarter century listeners have been invited to send in details of their favourite walks in Devon, and the Undercliffs was a popular route. I was asked to join the walk and talk about various aspects of natural history and geology along the route, and as the morning unfolded I completed a list of birds either heard or seen during our peregrination.
The list was looking a little flat by the half way point, as there was no time to sit about waiting for woodland birds to put in an appearance, we literally had a bus to catch at the other end of the walk, and none of us fancied the prospect of missing our service and waiting another two hours for the next one.
But, luckily, we stopped at the French Lieutenant’s Woman’s tree (surely too many possessive apostrophes in that sentence?), one of the Great Trees of East Devon. I hopped up into the branches to give my best Meryl Streep impersonation and while in the tree was distracted by the croak of a raven. I looked over my left shoulder and saw a huge glossy black raven plunge into a cliff-top holy tree, closely followed by a peregrine falcon, giving voice just behind it. These two were probably having a bit of a tussle and mouthing off, as neither would appear on the dinner menu of the other bird.
We did however find a small pile of black feathers, adorning a sphagnum-covered rock. By close inspection of the feathers it was possible to deduce that this was the feeding station of a sparrowhawk, probably female, who had recently dined upon a male blackbird, using the rock as a butcher’s block.
No sparrowhawks were seen or heard during our dash along the coast, but we still knew they were in the vicinity from what they had left behind.
I was frightfully late for work last week, through no fault of my own, I hasten to add. I woke up to the radio alarm, at 6.25 sharp as always, only to hear a report on the Today programme about a former Chairman of Shell stating that cars which manage less than 50 miles to the gallon are an unnecessary frivolity and should be banned under EU law.
Oil magnate? Large cars outlawed? Frivolity?
Naturally I thought I was still in a deep, deep sleep, put my head back on the pillow and blissfully snoozed on through my alarm call. However, I hadn’t been dreaming, it was a genuine news report, which could mark a watershed in the environmental movement.
Sure enough, environmentalists have been trying to persuade everybody for some time now that the green agenda is well and truly part of the mainstream, especially in big business. But everyone just smiled politely, felt it rude to argue, and carried on as before, flashing perhaps an apologetic smile as if the poor dear had finally lost it.
But here is a top dog, a fat cat, a retired Chairman no less, of one of the largest businesses on Earth, stating categorically that a huge number of his shareholders, and possibly his best-valued customers, are wrong to whiz about in cars that consume a litre of fuel reversing out of the garage.
And when faced with the normal hackneyed response: “that’s all well and good, but aren’t laws a bit of a draconian solution” - you know, the sort of counter argument put forward by people like, I don’t know, the Chairman of Shell Oil for example, for the past 25 years - Sir Mark simply points out that this is about morality, ethics and by virtue of which no-one can be exempt.
Priceless.
So, hooray! Today may have been a slap on the wrist for my timekeeping, but it was a massive slap round the face in realising that things are perhaps changing, and changing at the highest levels to boot.
Now, its not even close to the start of Spring, so I am confident no-one’s about to jump out and shout “April Fool!” but just in case, I will temper my enthusiasm just a smidgen, until a few more ‘suits’ come out in agreement with the (soon to be canonised if I have anything to do with it) Sir Mark Moody-Stuart.
But it does mean that things need to change swiftly to ensure the momentum is not lost. As with everything to do with business, it needs to be in the corporate mentality for change to occur. For too long, Chairmen and Chief Executives have hidden behind jargon like “shareholders” to excuse continuing as normal and not making changes that need to be made.
Surely the day that Bentley launches a mega-luxurious hydrogen car, with buckets of oomph and potable water as its only discharge, then things have really turned a corner?
The thing is, until the incentive is there to do things differently, business, driven by capitalist values, will resist change like the most pernicious limpet imaginable. Which is totally legitimate, that’s what they have to do, shareholders or something. At the moment, the over-hyped quest to find a petrol replacement in the form of biofuels is so missing the point as to be quite ridiculous. Scientists may as well have said, “Yes, we boffins have found a great replacement for petrol, and it only requires a small adjustment to your car’s engine. We call it diesel.”
Biofuels are a way of doing the same thing with the same technology, by simply swapping the fuel source. Not good enough, its like suggesting we all move over to woodfuel burners in our homes and then ship in palm wood from Indonesia to power the things. Great, more oil, but a lot less Orang-Utan filled rainforests. What we need is a different mobile power source in our personal transportation devices, it needs to produce no gaseous carbon emissions, and cause no loss of global resources.
Can it be done? I don’t know, at this point, but I wonder if someone in 1860 would have instantly dreamt up the Bugatti Veyron, after seeing Lenoir’s new invention in the morning newspaper? Some things have to evolve, they don’t just happen.
It is possible to simultaneously be deliriously happy, and desperately sad. I know, because last week I experienced just such an emotional paradox.
I can even tell you the exact time that I fell into my elated-gloom. It was 9pm on Monday and I was tuned in to BBC 1. It was the first programme in the series, Life in Cold Blood, an occasion I have been waiting for, well, for pretty much 20 years now.
I was over the moon because my favourite group of animals, reptiles and amphibians, was getting the full BBC Natural History Unit treatment, and yet I was genuinely deeply saddened as this is to be the last series of its kind. Sir David Attenborough, the man who, without knowing it, has had more influence over my professional career than anyone else on earth is retiring from the “Life…” series. It’s my desire to walk in his shoes, to reveal secrets of the natural world, to share a genuine all-consuming passion, which has sculpted my life and now that broadcasting beacon is to be extinguished.
Sure, we’ll still have his legecy committed to DVD and VHS, but nothing will beat that sense of nueron-tingling, stomach-knotting excitement that always accompanies the start of his latest project. What a fitting treat that his swan song is a eulagy to the most misunderstood and universally disliked group of animals; if anyone can convert the snake haters out there, it’s my guy Dave!
As a devotee of Herpetology – the study of reptiles and amphibians – I am already totally in awe of this amazing gorup of animals. But I know from first hand experience that reptiles in particular are a bridge too far for some people. Sadly my wife is just one of these people.
When we first met she refused to be in the same room as my ranbow boa, or even look at my leopard geckos! I must admit that the choice was a little harder than I admit in her company, but eventually the menagerie went and the rest is matrimonial history.
But I still can’t quite appreciate her perspective. I mean, leopard geckos are everything that an easy-to-love reptile should be, aren’t they? They are indesputibly pretty, have a hypnotic gaze from dissarmingly jewel-like eyes, they are slow and steady, and you can see right through their heads! What’s not to love? But no, she would not be told.
However, when Sir David’s magic was woven around these little beauties last Monday night, accompanied by the stunning imagery no-one but the Natural History unit can achieve, even Jo was impressed. I’m not sure it’s a green light for having geckos, snakes and bearded dragons back in the bedroom once again, but then I’m not 15 years old any more.
It is amazing that the charm of one individual, combined with massive ammounts of knwoledge, integrity and genuine passion can come together to produce a television presenter the like of which will probably never grace our screens again. It is a shame. TV schedules are increasingly full of air-time to be filled, and so often what fills it is absolute froth.
Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy mindless entertainment as much as the next person, but to counterpoint the flim-flam there needs to be the mindful. If we are to suffer the humiliation to our species that is Dancing on Ice or I’m a “Celebrity” get me out of Here, then we need people like David Attenborough on our screens.
I have never been lucky enough to meet the man properly. I say properly, as I did once serve him vegetables at an awards dinner when I was 15, but I was so nervous I had to be moved as I couldn’t pour the gravy properly. I’ve always daydreamed since then, that one day I would be sitting on the same table as David at a Natural History Awards Ceremony, waiting to affect mock-surprise when I’m announced to collect a HUGE gong, sealing my place in that illustrious roll of Natural History honour… then I wake up.
But don’t get me wrong. I would not want to be in any other line of work than this, and I have Sir David to thank for guiding my hand. To be able to get up every morning and know you are going to do something, often something quite boring, but something that is directly connected to conservation, is a brilliant feeling. I often have to pinch myself to see if I am dreaming these days, and realise that I am in fact awake!
One such occasion was Friday morning, when I visited Holyford Woods, near Seaton. Holyford is one of my favourite Local Nature Reserves I am fortunate to have within my patch. Every so often I am required, required mind you, to spend time there, getting to know it better. It may sound perverse, but getting out of the office is often the hardest part of my job, and yet it is then that I do the core of what I am employed to. Its only by really knowing a place, that you can hope to be a successful liason between it and other people.
I was on the track of an ilusive bird, the lesser spotted woodpecker, a bird with which I have some history within the BBC. Eighteen months ago I took a radio crew from Radio Four’s Open Country into Holyford Woods, in pursuit of woodpeckers, the lesser spotted in particular. We saw nothing, apart from a distant glimpse of a green woodpecker when walking back to the car – never work with children or animals is the addage, I’ve ended up doing both!
This time I spent an age sat at the base of an ash tree, tapping a pebble on the bark in an attempt to interact with woodpeckers. Within 15 minutes I had two great spots going beserk in the trees around me, desperate to find the woodpecker making all the noise and drive it out of their territory, but all they could find was a strange peson dressed in green, sat beneath the tree.
They were brilliant, making a strange gurgling call in the back of their throats, which I had not heard before. A flock of *** made their way past my tree wile I sat, long-tailed *** forming the bulk of the squadron, with a vanguard of coal ***, a few wrens and a goldcrest bringing up the rear. No lesser peckers in there though.
I stared through the winter tree canopy for so long I got a crick in my neck and felt dizzy when I stood up again; and yet I didn’t see the bird I was hoping for (I am beginning to think they are a not so funny joke made up within the birding word) but I still left feeling totally elated. The sky was the bluest tint of saphire, offset by the gaudy pink of a bullfinch, the glossy black of a raven and the metallic flash of a goldcrest – what wasn’t to love about a morning spent in such dazzling company?
Wednesday morning, the sun wasn’t so much shining, as reclaiming its place in an azure sky that has remained hidden beneath a blanket of gunmetal grey for the last few months. It was warm without being unseasonably hot, calm without being stagnant and the clear winter sky meant the views opened up ceaselessly.
In short, a good day to be out!
I had a window in my work diary, and all too often these coincide with drizzly, gloomy afternoons when the office seems a convenient bolt hole. But today there was one place, and one place alone that time could be spent justifiably and profitably on such a worthy day to worship East Devon’s wilderness – our heaths.
These are pockets of habitat rarer than the tropical rainforests, globally important areas that lie substantially in the UK and a large proportion of that in the South West. So these are our countryside crown jewels and the District Council manages two beautiful examples of these treasures.
I headed up to Fire Beacon Hill, ostensibly to check how the reptile traps had fared through the winter months, but also to soak up the ambience and appreciate this special day. I wasn’t disappointed. With frost still clinging to the shadows, the hedgerows were full of garden birds, while the heather busted with site specialists.
I know I bang on about Fire Beacon Hill, the Pebblebeds, Trinity Hill, but I honestly believe we are sitting on something genuinely special here in East Devon and until every last one of our one hundred and thirteen thousand or so residents have at least ventured out onto one and made their own mind up about the matter, I will continue to bang this particular drum. Not that you can just pop out at any time, to witness the true spectacle, you have to put a little thought into a visit to ensure you get the most from your sojourn.
Time of year is imperative, as Winter and early Spring are a little bit non-descript on a heathland. A dazzling day is necessary to get the jaw-dropping experience I had last week, anything less will probably leave you feeling short changed. As the Spring progresses the heaths start to buzz, and it’s the late summer when they are set ablaze, metaphorically, with the blossoming of the heather.
But for now, you’ve got to pick a stunning day and if you do, you will not be sorry for spending your valuable time out on the heaths. As I spend some visits on my own and the other visits, leading groups of people around the countryside, I can vouch that one sees the most wildlife, birds in particular, if you perambulate quietly around the place.
Look at it as an indulgence, everyone needs a little time to themselves, to contemplate things; to wind-down, and spending this time out in the fresh air multiplies these benefits manifold.
Don’t just rely on your eyes either, anytime I am exploring a Local Nature Reserve I am searching the area as much with my ears as my eyes, and to a lesser degree my nose too – I draw the line at bending down to lick the paths however!
I accompanied a delightful class from East Budleigh Primary school last week, on a walk up the river Otter. I was there to add some insight into the estuary and river’s wildlife and geography, and at the very outset I pointed out something to the class to help them get more from the morning.
“If I was blindfolded and placed at a random point on the river, I would be able to tell where I was just by the sounds around me, by the time you get back to the school, you’ll be able to do this too.”
And so we did it. Stopping at a few choice locations and silently absorbing the world around us. When you start to really notice things, using your eyes, ears and nose, the world really comes alive. Listening out for the whistle of a wigeon, or the 'tring' of a teal meant that we were still at the brackish end of the river, the beating of sheep or the quack of a mallard indicated we were further up stream.
So while you unwind, strain your ears to search the very edges of your sensational sphere. Hearing the Morse Code of long-tailed *** precedes the tiny little birds by some moments, and you always hear the disruption of a sparrowhawk before you see the creature swoop over a hedge.
There are other animals which survive by not broadcasting their presence and detecting these is more of a hit-or-miss affair.
I was skirting the edge of a mown area of the heath, brushing down the reptile traps and checking they were still there, when a bird erupted from beneath my foot. Exploding out of the sun-bathed heather, this little snipe took flight for a short moment and silently dropped into the heather a few metres away. I only caught the briefest glimpse of its tail as it made off, but that was all I needed to confirm it as a jack snipe, a gorgeous bird seldom seen or heard. A snipe would have taken off with an audible “squelch” call, flying high and for some distance before pitching down. A jack snipe on the other hand gives rarely gives a flight call, and tends to shoot straight up and down again.
Finally, I would urge you to take your time when exploring. Most people tend to jump out of the car, stomp around a footpath with a sense of urgency and purpose, before getting back in the car and heading home. Grab the opportunity to be idle, dally and saunter at all possible times and if you can bear to settle down with your back against a tree, do so with relish. I sat beneath a grove of pines, on the soft scented needles, warmed by the sun and on eye level with trees further down the hillside.
Perfect place to look for goldcrests, I thought.
About five minutes later a tiny little green-backed bird with a sulphur stripe on the crown flew into the canopy above my head. I couldn’t stop myself beaming! The goldcrest is our smallest breeding bird and one of the most beautifully colourful little birds too. It picked its way through the branches above my head, searching for little bugs hiding in the foliage, piping all the time with its tiny whistling voice.
After an hour’s exploring I had sorted out my movements for the rest of the day and headed straight to my PC to pen this article, I’d had such a satisfying morning, I just had to tell someone about it!
Now and then I am fortunate enough to witness spectacles which remind me exactly why I do this job. Last week, thanks to a series of fortunate coincidences, I watched the most spectacular drama unfold in front of my eyes, which left me totally elated, if not a little chilly! It involved the species dearest to my heart, and the closest encounter with one I have ever had. It may not have strictly speaking taken place on Exmouthian soil, but I could see the town in the distance so I thought it deserved a mention here.
There is an adage that there’s no such thing as bad weather, just inappropriate clothing, last Thursday I was to find out how true this statement is.
I had a morning meeting at the Environment Agency, to discuss the Exe Estuary. Not a prospect which filled me with instant, drooling expectation, but similarly not something I was totally dreading either. I left the house, got to the bottom of my road and realised I had forgotten my fleece jacket. Drat, I can’t go back for it, otherwise it will mean disturbing the puppy and I’ll not get to the meeting in time. No matter, I’m only dashing to a meeting, I’ll pick it up on my way back though.
The meeting passed without incident and as I was walking back to the car, chatting to my manager, I realised what a lovely afternoon it was turning out to be. I decided to quickly look in on a stubble-field nearby that I knew sometimes contained interesting birds. A quick ten minute scan to see if I could add to my year list and then back to pick up my coat… or so I planned.
As I entered the field I realised that the crows and rooks were making a proper racket, not just me disturbing them, but something more profound. I then spotted the cause of the ruckus, in the middle of the field I could see the wings and tail of a sparrowhawk, was struggling with a blackbird and the crows were above, adding their tuppence-ha’penny.
I squatted down on the edge of the path and had a closer look through my binoculars. As you might have picked up from this column, I am particularly fond of raptors, so the chance to see a kill close up was too good to miss.
As soon as I focussed I realised I had been quite wrong. This wasn’t a female sparrowhawk on a blackbird, the mess of grey and black feathers were in fact a peregrine desperately trying to subdue a rook! No wonder the local crows were going bonkers! My pulse quickened and I had to shift position to steady my shaking hands.
For as long as I can remember, peregrines have been at the heart of my love for natural history and here I was with the closest encounter to a wild falcon I had ever had. Both parties had their heads in the stubble when I entered the field and now I was downwind of the pair, squatting in the lea of the hedge, I was confident I would not disturb them.
I needn’t have worried. The fatal struggle between rook and falcon continued with ferocious anger for the next thirty minutes. I was rapt. The falcon was an adult female and quite a size, however for some reason she had not got a particularly good connection to her quarry and the young rook was fighting back with the kind of energy any animal is capable of when staring certain death in the face. To be fair to the corvid, there were a couple of times when I thought he might get away, the flacon however remained resolute and stubbornly bound.
I wanted to get even closer, to put into practice my two days as an army cadet and tiger crawl towards the brawling pair. I held off though, because as much as I wanted to get a closer look, my overriding sense was to not affect the unfolding drama, to have done so wouldn’t have been fair on either bird.
The pair wrestled on the ground for a full 45 minutes, before all went quiet and I presumed the falcon had prevailed. A large flock of finches caught my attention and I turned to look. When I looked back a second later I couldn’t make out what was what.
The head of neither bird was visible, two raggedy looking black wings stuck straight up into the sky and the rook’s belly rose above the stubble like a breaching whale. Where was the falcon? My attention had been away for literally a second, there was surely no time for her to have flown off without me seeing her, but where was she?
My biggest fear was that she had either caught my scent and left the kill – which would have meant serious consequences after for her after putting in that much effort to subdue the prey. The second thought was that the rook had somehow inflicted a wound on the peregrine in its dying breath and she was lying nearby.
I shifted to a crouch, and with my binoculars still pressed to my eyes, I moved gingerly downhill. I didn’t approach the scene, in case I disturbed the situation – my overriding fear was that I might jeopardise the precious consumption of this extraordinary kill. When I had moved around to a right angle of where I had been crouching, I could see that what I thought was the belly of the rook, was in fact the back of the falcon, totally still and lifeless.
When a falcon makes a kill, they normally squat above the quarry with their wings outstretched, what is called mantling the prey. This bird however had apparently fallen exhausted on top of the rook and I grew even more concerned. I held still and watched for a further ten minutes. In this excruciating time there was no movement from either bird. Five more minutes, I thought, and then I will have a closer look.
Thank goodness I held on, as after another two minutes the peregrine looked up. I breathed a sigh and relaxed. I then promptly jumped out of my skin as the rook got its second wind and started struggling once again!
The peregrine had a better bind now however and began to consume the most valuable and energy-rich parts of the rook, namely the Breast muscles and liver (I hesitate to point out, while the rook still struggled). By this time I had been squatting in a muddy field for the best part of an hour and a half, in January, with no coat on. My fingers were so numb I could not feel my binoculars and I was shivering more with cold than with excitement. With the falcon mantling the prey with its back to me and feeding heartily, I got to my feet, crept out of the field and ran back to the car. I jumped in and dashed back home, straight up to the computer, which is where you find me now, the feeling in my fingers just about returning.
I realise that the above account is rather gory but, at the heart of it, real wild-life is just that. The beauty of this scene was not aesthetic, but it was no less beautiful. I watched two animals literally struggling for their lives, both had all to loose, as the peregrine had spent so much energy struggling over the previous hour. Here was a world in which things don’t merely poddle along and exist – they survive! And it’s all out there for us to see. That’s what motivates me to do my job; that’s the sort of thing that drags me into the office in the morning.
It’s a bit of a shame, however, as I had ever such an entertaining article planned about Madagascan palm trees, perhaps that will have to wait until next week.