September 2008 - Posts
Recently the Countryside Service here at the District Council ran a project to gather information about the District’s favourite trees.
The response was overwhelming and fifty prime specimens were selected to be recorded as one of East Devon’s Great Trees. These were not necessarily the oldest, or the biggest, or the rarest tress in the area, although some pretty old, big and rare tress were included, these were trees which were important to our residents for a variety of reasons. I am in the process of making a short online film about the project and so I’ll take the opportunity to talk about the shortlist here.
Firstly a local specimen, the second biggest Luccombe Oak in the UK which stands in Phear Park. This monster should be a local celebrity as it is a variety developed locally 250 years ago.
William Luccombe was a nurseryman working in Exeter in the 18th century; he introduced the turkey oak to Britain in 1735 as a solution to the problem of slow growing oaks for timber industry. However a critical oversight of the man was the poor timber quality of Turkey oak – back to the drawing board Will! It also introduced a gall wasp which is now affecting English oak acorns. In 1765 Mr Luccombe hybridised a turkey oak with a cork oak, and created the Luccombe oak which were planted as status symbols in large parks and gardens of the time, one of the first was in the large private park which has, over time, become Phear Park...
The Salcombe Thorn has stood guard on the approach to Salcombe Regis since Saxon times. Mentioned in Doomsday book, legend has it that if the thorn tree dies and is not replaced, disaster will come to the village. The tree which stands today is a recent replacement to ensure disaster does not befall the village.
The churchyard yew in Farway is one of the most exceptionally photogenic female yews in the District; she may well be over 1000 years old! Yew trees have a vast back-log of folklore and associated superstition, which is a reflection of how important this species has always been to people living in Britain.
Highly toxic, sap from the trees was used as a poison and arrows were tipped with yew resin to assist in a speedy kill. The bow from which the arrow was loosed would have been made from the strong, straight grained wood of the yew too. But medieval weaponry is a relatively modern construct of this ancient species. The reason why so many big old yew trees grow in churchyards is because the church was ‘planted’ beside the tree. Pre-Christian Britain was a pagan land, a religion of natural gods and an intrinsic understanding of the natural world. In this religion the yew tree is the ultimate symbol of life. A tree which through self-regeneration, should never die was seen as a potent symbol of life and worshiped with solid reverence. The yew tree was the original alter and when the new boys returned with the Christian message the best place to get your new religious message heard was right next to the old movement’s iconography.
The next tree is a star of screen and page. Enshrined in John Fowles’ 1969 novel, The French Lieutenant's Woman, a beech tree in the Undercliffs National Nature Reserve was used as prop in the film starring Meryl Streep. Lyme Regis is the location for much of he novel’s plot, but it is the lone cliff-top beech to which Meryl flees to get away from it all and collect her thoughts.
Finally a real treasure, and possibly the rarest tree in the line-up. A sapling growing at the entrance to the Whimple History Society heritage centre is a graft of the last remaining specimen of Whimple Wonder, a particular cider variety known only to the village. There was a time when most Devon’s villages would have their orchards, many with a locally significant variety of apple being favoured in the orchards. The Wimple Wonder was widely regarded as a good cider apple, and I sincerely hope that this element of the tradition is adhered to, as I would very much enjoy reliving this aspect of the apple’s history!
We are incredibly fortunate to have an embarrassment of riches in our District’s tree stock... Little or large, old or new, there are stories entwined in their living (or dead) branches. The Great tress project was a snap-shot of our knowledge at one particular point in time, but is also a start point for people wanting to find out more about the history of East Devon’s trees.
For more information about the Great Trees Project, visit the District Council website at www.eastdevon.gov.uk/countryside
They’re back – hooray! Last week the first fall of our winter residents returned to their beloved Exe estuary, and the first ones back this year were a raft of 87 wigeon seen feeding and resting off Mudbank Lane. Of course this means we’ve truly left summer behind, but unless you’ve had your head in a bag for the past three months you’d have noticed that summer hardly got started this year in any case.
So autumn is here, the first 87 winter waterfowl are back and that leaves somewhere in the region of 24,913 birds to return and our waters will be teaming once again with their whistling, piping, and guttural choking calls. It truly is a magnificent sight and worthy of a place in the top ten natural wonders of the South West, if such an award existed.
To celebrate this year’s winter returns, there are a couple of new initiatives I am leading which aim to develop our understanding and appreciation of these esteemed guests.
Firstly, the Meet the Birds mornings that have proven so popular on the Axe estuary reserves of Colyford Common and Seaton Marshes are coming to a town near you, Exmouth to be precise. Every month, on the first Thursday of the month, I will be in situ on the Imperial Rec, telescope at the ready, to introduce local enthusiasts and passing public to the birds. Come on down for a coffee and a chat about what is happening on the mud, and get a closer encounter with the binoculars and telescopes I will have brought with me.
These regular sessions have proved very popular in the east of the District, with a regular gaggle of people popping down each month to join me in the hide, which is where the Exmouth crew will have to be a little more resilient. We’ve not got the luxury of a bird hide on the Exe estuary, so people will have to come prepared for the weather and bring a decent sized brolly with you if it’s raining. The good news is that the birds are used to seeing people on the banks of the estuary, so a few golfing umbrellas shouldn’t startle them too much. If you are bringing your pooch on the other hand, please keep it on a lead.
In fact, now’s probably the right time to make a plea to all dog walkers’ good nature, and ask us (yes, this includes me) to all keep our pets away from the feeding birds for these crucial few months of feeding.
The Brent geese in particular have just returned to the eelgrass beds of the Exe after a 5,000 mile migration flight from Siberia. The last thing they need is an over-enthusiastic pup running through the flock and forcing them to waste energy escaping its playful approaches. It’s not just feeding times that are important to the birds either, roosting is equally finely balanced, with the geese needing to conserve all the energy they can while they are unable to feed at high water.
So spare a thought for our Siberian visitors in the coming months, and keep an eye out for others who haven’t read this column – perish the thought!
On the same lines, volunteers will be distributing a little leaflet this winter. It all started a few years ago…
As the rise in popularity of kite surfing really began to take off (pardon the pun) in Exmouth, I worked with local kite surfers and windsurfers to draw up a seasonal exclusion zone to protect feeding ducks and geese on the estuary. This was a really positive move designed to keep our wildlife and water sporters living happily side-by-side.
A time zone of September through to the beginning of January was deemed necessary to safeguard the main feeding times on the eelgrass beds and an area stretching up the estuary from the ‘duck pond’ was mentally checked off as the exclusion zone. This is as far as the process went however, and over the past few years some more work was deemed necessary.
So, Eric and Steph at Edge Watersports, and Peter at Waterfront Sports, along with a host of birdwatching volunteers will be giving out leaflets to water users this winter, reminding them of the importance of not disturbing the birds on the estuary. Not only does the presence of these birds, I think, enhance the quality of Exmouth as a coastal town, but it’s also an offence to knowingly disturb these animals.
Byelaws are a cumbersome, overly bureaucratic means of enforcement when compared to a widely regarded and genuinely acknowledged voluntary agreement, I’ll avoid them like the plague if I can!
So lets all ensure that when some bright spark does indeed introduce the South West Natural Wonder Award, Exmouth’s Winter Wonderland is right up there vying for top spot!
…And see, an osprey. Yep, the arrival of the first osprey on the Exe Estuary means that it is officially Autumn according to the birds and it’s the beginning of the season when I get a big crick in my neck!
In fact, birds have been migrating before now, but I didn’t have the heart to write about the onset of Autumn, when it hadn’t felt like summer had even begun. But, there we go, another August wash out to get the climate change debate hotted-up again!
But looking at recent trends, we could be safe in expecting a bit of a reprieve in the guise of an Indian Summer, and if September does indeed turn out to be a cracker, there’s plenty to get you out enjoying a spot of late summer sun. What’s more, the entertainment’s free in the great outdoors, so if you have suffered the wallet-emptying heartache of a torrentially wet school summer holiday, then look to the estuaries, marshes and woodlands for a spot of seasonal recreation on a budget.
To kick us off I’d like to focus a little on a regular superstar to the District, who deserves a special mention on this, their leisurely passage through our airspace, Ospreys.
The osprey, Pandion haliaetus, is an incredibly cosmopolitan bird of prey, being found on all continents on earth except Antarctica. Its life strategies vary according to where it finds itself living, being ground-nesting and sedentary in Australia and hugely migratory in northern Europe.
Our UK population is on the increase, after extinction in 1916 they reappeared in the mid ‘50s - a reassuringly positive story for recent conservation efforts. The UK subspecies undertake a 6,000 mile round trip each year to move between summer breeding grounds in Scotland, and northern England and winter feeding grounds in West Africa.
Roy Dennis and the Highland Foundation for Wildlife has been working on satellite tracking their local osprey population for a few years now, and their mapping work published on www.roydennis.org, is absolutely fascinating.
In 2007 one of the Moray Firth female ospreys migrated down the western side of the UK, spending a few days on the Axe Estuary at Seaton before hopping across the channel and heading south through France, Spain and North Africa. That was a bird I saw with my own eyes feeding in front of the Seaton Marshes bird hide, and to see this celebrity’s 3,000 mile trip digitised and mapped so intricately was a real privilege. As residents of an osprey service station on the main aerial motorway between Scotland and the Gabon, we all have the opportunity to feel part of this drama!
That year, one of the female’s nestlings, a male, ventured further west still, making over the Irish Sea and Isle of Man. It failed to make landfall again and the transmitter failed somewhere off the coast of Cornwall – the difference between success and failure on these mammoth migrations is perilously small.
So what should you be looking out for at this time of year to increase your chances of seeing this marvellous bird? Well, firstly keep an eye out for the other birds telling you there is something big, menacing and migratory in the area. Gulls in particular go berserk when an osprey is about and will stay in the air, around the raptor, making one heck of a noise. This is different to being spooked by a passing boat or kayak, when the gulls will move off, away from the disturbance.
On the wing an osprey is immediately identifiable by its size, much bigger than a buzzard, with straighter wings and a straight tail. If size is impossible to gauge, then look for the squareish wings, with a long ‘hand’ in front of the carpel joint. When perched quietly in a tree, they can be very difficult to spot and are easily overlooked, so keep your eyes peeled!
Osprey feed by catching fish out of the water, and if you are lucky enough to see this, it is one of the most brilliant sights to behold. They are equipped with massive feet, tipped with long talons like polished obsidian. The bottom of these claws are serrated like a knife, which is an adaptation for holding onto slippery fish. They will hover lazily over the water, focussing in on a large fish, before plunging in, feet first, and carrying the fish away (always head first) to a nearby tree or feeding post. One more adaptation that the osprey has is the ability to rotate its outer toe and hold a fish with two toes each side, rather than the normal raptor ratio of 3:1 – more like an owl than a hawk!
So this week, log on to the osprey migration website and watch for yourself as these wonderful animals undertake a journey we would think twice about doing on an aeroplane! When you see one headed for our part of the Country keep a look out and see if you can see this magnificent bird for yourself.