James Chubb

Winds of Change

JChubb@eastdevon.gov.uk — Fri, 22 Aug 2008 11:31:00 GMT

Sorry about the title of this week’s column. Yes, I know it was a truly dreadful German Soft-Rock anthem, but it does sum up the content of the following few hundred words and as that’s what a title is presumed to do, so be it.

You might have heard on the radio last week that BTO (British Trust for Ornithology) and the RSPB (no need to expand that acronym) have published results of breeding bird surveys, carried out by volunteers I might add, which highlight a worrying trend. Over the last thirty years resident UK birds have been breeding earlier and earlier, to the point where the chaffinch is now a full 10 days ahead of previous averages.

Hold the phones! Ten days eh? Doesn’t sound very much, you may think. But it represents a leap of nearly four percent ahead of the assumed ‘norm’ and steals a march on migratory birds returning from distant shores.

Species like the willow warbler, garden warbler and swallow, which are tied to set breeding times because of long distance migration, are thought to be declining because of these early birds. And what is being cited as the cause for these accelerations? Climate change.

Over the past ten years there has been a great deal of speculation about climate change, indeed when I state that I firmly believe that it is a human-induced phenomenon, it still feels a bit like dogma. Perhaps it’s the use of the word ‘believe’ which gives it religious undertones, so put it this way; looking at the evidence provided by the IPCC (International Panel on Climate Change) I am convinced that it is happening, and we are at the root of it.

When the government’s chief scientific advisor, Sir David King states that climate change is “A bigger threat to the planet than terrorism” it is prudent to pay the issue some heed. We are taking the issue of climate change very seriously here at the District Council, with groups looking at ways in which a large employer such as the council can reduce its impact on the planet.

But there is still a great deal of uncertainty, and some very prominent figures, adamantly resisting the notion of our ability to alter the weather. That’s fine, in a democratic world people draw conclusions based on their own life experience. However, there are a few much-quoted clichés used to counter the climate change hypothesis and, using the very helpful New Scientist website, I would like to provide some peer-review scientific counter arguments.

Now I realise that this could be opening a great big can of local worms, but that’s great – discussion develops knowledge. So if you have questions or issues arising from this article, log onto my weekly newspaper blog on the devon24.co.uk website. The full online article counters 23 popular misconceptions, but I’ll only cover a few of those here, the full transcript can be found at the web address printed at the end of the column.

“Myth: It was warmer during the Middle Ages than it is now, with vineyards in England

English winemaking is once again thriving: the extent of the country's vineyards probably surpasses that in the so-called Medieval Warm Period. So if you think this is an accurate indicator of climate, it must be warmer now than it was then.

Historical anecdotes about climate have to be treated with caution. The frost fairs that were held in London when the Thames froze over are sometimes hailed as proof of how cold it was during the Little Ice Age from around AD 1500 to 1850. In fact, the slowing of the river by the old London Bridge, demolished in 1831, was a crucial factor in its freezing - which is why the Thames did not freeze in London in the winter of 1963, even though it was the third-coldest in England since 1659.”

“Myth: Carbon dioxide levels only rose after the start of warm periods, so CO2 does not cause warming

Samples of ice dating back hundreds of thousands of years have been extracted from the sheets covering Antarctica and Greenland. These cores show that at the end of recent ice ages, the level of CO₂ in the atmosphere often did not start to rise until temperatures had already been climbing for some time.

What seems to have happened at the end of ice ages is that an initial warming due to [planetary] orbital shifts led to more CO2 being released into the atmosphere, resulting in further warming that caused still more CO2 to be released and so on.

Where did the extra CO2 come from? The evidence suggests it was from the oceans. The gas is less soluble in warmer water, so warmer seas release it into the air, but this can explain only a little of the increase. Another factor may have been biological: phytoplankton in the seas soak up CO2 as they grow and fall to the ocean floor, but as the world warmed changes in winds, currents and salinity would have cut the phytoplankton's growth.”

“Half-truth: Human carbon dioxide emissions are tiny compared with natural sources

YES, it's true that CO2 emissions due to human activity are small compared with most natural sources. Yet ice cores show that levels in the atmosphere have remained fairly steady at between 180 and 300 parts per million for the past half-million years, only to shoot up to more than 380 ppm since the industrial age began.”

As a graduate in a scientific discipline, I am won over by the fact that the world’s most eminent scientific brains no longer speculate over human-induced global climate change – they accept it. If anyone is perplexed about the issue, but does not want to bury their heads in the sand, do visit the full article online and make your own mind up so you can decide what you should be doing as an individual.

For the full online web article, please go to: http://environment.newscientist.com/channel/earth/dn11462-climate-change-a-guide-for-the-perplexed.html

Wet and Wild Weekends!

JChubb@eastdevon.gov.uk — Fri, 22 Aug 2008 11:30:00 GMT

There comes a time in all of us, when we need to let our hair down and have some fun. I am fortunate enough to have a job which requires me to behave like a child for a lot of the time, and behaving like a child is sometimes the best way to capture the spirit of discovery in which children spend much of their time.

It’s a neat trick to pull, I have to remain professional and in control for the sake of the Council’s Health and Safety Officer, however if I am too stand offish and grown up about the events then no one has a good time except the man with the risk assessment folder, and that’s no fun for anyone. So by putting on activities which I find interesting and fun, and want to take part in myself, ensures that at least one person has a good time through the course of the afternoon.

It’s similar for the parents too. Certainly, the reptile ramble or minibeast hunt may have been billed for the children. They may have even brought their children, but don’t let appearances deceive you, they are no more here for their son and daughter’s benefit than the next person, they are getting as much fun out of it as anyone, and so they should be.

Which is why the next roll call of events should be looked upon as ‘family’ events. Kids will love it all, but if you allow yourself the indulgence, parents and grandparents will all get a kick out of them too so get the whole family kitted up and drag them down to Seaton marshes at the end of the month for a weekend of fun and frivolity on the marsh.

On Friday 29^th there will be a wildlife quiz, minibeast hunting and birdwatching sessions running throughout the day, so no matter what time you turn up you will be able to take part in these activities. Between 10 and 11am there’s a guided walk over the grazing marshes to explain the District Council’s ambitious plans for the area and point out features of interest in the landscape which the Axe Wetlands Project will aim to reinstate.

In the afternoon of Friday people can join Fraser on a guided walk looking at wetland plants and then in the evening there is a guided bat walk, starting at 7.30pm and continuing on into the night – if you’ve never heard a bat through the interpretation of a bat detector, then come along as this is a truly fascinating experience.

Saturday starts early with a moth breakfast at 8am. This sounds like a gastronomic faux-pas but the moths will be there in a visual sense only and the only item on the menu will be bacon sarnies – which are much tastier than moths I can assure you.

The quizzing and bird watching continues throughout the day on Saturday, but today you will be bale to take part in fishing on the borrow-pit, an area which is normally out of bounds to anglers. Willow weaving sessions will run in the morning and afternoon, where you can make your own willow dragonfly to take home with you, and in the afternoon between 2 and 3pm there will be a talk on the social history of the area, as something of a counterpoint to all this natural history!

Finally, Sunday kicks off with a bird ringing demonstration from 8-10am, and for anyone who has not seen our wonderful wetland birds close up, this is a great opportunity. We are lucky to have a very active ringing group working on the Local Nature Reserves on the Axe Estuary, and they are producing lots of very valuable information about the bird movements from year to year in our patch. The other pleasing thing, is that the group is very keen for people to come along and see what bird ringing is all about, especially children. This will probably be your best bet for close up views of the kingfishers, so will undoubtedly be a really popular event.

The other all day events will be on offer once again, but this time there will also be a chance to learn some wetland survival skills. Find out how to create a fire with a friction saw and which plants are edible (and which are not) on the wetlands. This will be a great introduction to the rufty-tufty world of Ray Mears, however we were unable to get the man himself along, such is life!

After that little lot a few of the Countryside Team will be ready for a sit down and a nice cup of tea, to say the least. So put that dates in your diary, as you can see, not all the events are aimed specifically at children, but so what if they are, anyone can join in, whatever the age. The only thing I can guarantee is that you will have a superb time!

Learning the ropes

JChubb@eastdevon.gov.uk — Fri, 22 Aug 2008 11:29:00 GMT

There is so much going on this week, that this column is forced to split itself into a few sections. So, apologies for disrupting the narrative flow of the story, but hopefully you bear with me as you read on.

Firstly I am in the middle of a steep learning curve, and one which I am finding totally engrossing. A few months ago I met the owner of the Devon Bird Of Prey Centre as I was filming for an ITV programme to be broadcast in a few weeks (more about that later). Karen and I got chatting and I quickly let her know just how fascinated with raptors I am. After a little while we came up with a plan to provide bird of prey experiences for schools in East Devon and in turn she would train me as a falconer. WOW! Falconry has been a passion of mine since I was tiny, and now I am getting the chance to learn all about flying birds of prey and caring for these incredible animals.

In turn, when Karen is happy that I am adept enough to work with her birds and not pose a threat to them, we will be touring schools in the District allowing the bird’s incredible charm to engage the children with a message of local conservation. It’s one thing to show people slides of barn owls and explain why they are scarce, but to be able to have the owl there in the same room, looking at the kids, flying over their heads – well, it’s a magical way to win new hearts and minds to the conservation cause.

So at the moment I am a mess of fiddly knots, chopped up chicks and in the process of winning the confidence of Karen’s birds. People say elephant never forget, but they’ve got nothing on a raptor. If you make a mistake with a falcon, at best you’ve forever messed up any chance of you building a bond with that bird and at worst you can do the animal serious injury. I’ve got a long way to go, but under Karen’s expert guidance I am making great headway. Anyone can come down to the centre and meet the birds, you might even see me tying myself in knots with a 30 metre creance line. The Devon Bird of Prey Centre is located at Fermoys Garden Centre, Newton Abbot.

Next for a first, if that isn’t a grammatical or existential contradiction. Through the winter this column noted how many cattle egrets had wintered in Devon and Cornwall, and I think I speculated that breeding wouldn’t be far off. Well, Somerset has grabbed the glory and recorded the first successful breeding attempt of this bird, know in the UK. A single chick was fledged from a single pair of birds, but considering that this is a bird more commonly seen sitting on the back of an elephant in East Africa, it’s a really huge event.

Heath Week 2008 has been chugging along for the last five days, if you are reading this on Friday that is, and if you are then you can still get to a few of the last activities. The festival comes to an end this Saturday, with events throughout the day on Aylsebeare Common, starting with an early morning bird watching session and finishing with a moth trap and bat walk. For more details check out the RSPB website.

Finally, a little news from the wider District. Last week EDDC’s Arts Development Officer, Ishbel Ramsey, local environmentalist Chris Holland and myself spent the afternoon in Honiton canvassing opinion about a proposed new nature area for the town. The consultation was a great success, people had concerns yes, but the overwhelming feeling was in support of the venture.

We’ve not got hundreds of yellow Post-It notes covered in scribble, which we will sort through an influence the project for the town. When I look at the spread of Nature Reserves in East Devon we look after here at the Countryside Service, there’s always been an unsatisfying gap on the map around Honiton, so this should go some way to filling that gap.

Oh yes, the telly – catch me introducing graveyard wildlife on Richard O’Brien’s Dead Strange, broadcast on ITV Westcountry on Thursday 7^th August at the prime-time slot of 11.30pm. Yes, I’d set the VHS if I were you!

Eating the view

JChubb@eastdevon.gov.uk — Fri, 22 Aug 2008 11:29:00 GMT

Last night I gave a lecture (sounds a bit grandiose, but it was billed as such, so lecture it is) for the Bicton Summer Lecture series at Darts Farm. I looked at the idea of the edible seashore and cooked paella with various seafood ingredients to illustrate my point.

The question and answer session at the end of the talk threw up some interesting points about the ethics of a self-service seashore snack bar, which I thought would make a good start for this week’s column.

There has been a great deal of coverage recently about local sea fishing, especially with the closure of the rocky reefs in Lyme Bay. A couple of people were concerned about the sustainability of collecting items for the pot from the seashore, was I promoting a reckless practice.

My perspective is this, I am not advocating people substituting wild food for every meal, but rather explore the potential of adding to meals with a little of what you can find in our sea. Moreover, this is one way you can take first hand responsibility for the impact of your meal on the local environment; if you wander down to the pools and fancy periwinkles look a little thin on the ground – don’t collect them! Try something else, or pop to the fishmonger.

I think that if we were more approachable to different kinds of seafood – taking our cues from the more adventurous palettes of continental Europe, perhaps we would celebrate our local produce more highly, to say nothing of cutting down on the terrible waste of fishing by-catch.

Spider crab are landed locally, periwinkles are harvested in considerable numbers locally, however all of this wonderful seafood bypasses the local markets and is hurried away, back across the channel, to grace the tables and tapas of our European neighbours.

So if an introduction to new tastes begins by grilling a few limpets in the hot embers of a beach BBQ, I think it’s a step in the right direction. With that in mind, here are a few of the recipe ideas I proposed at last night’s presentation. The measurements are a rough guide, as are the ingredients – I leave it to you to judge for yourself whether you want to gather your own wild harvest.

Seaweed crisps. Find a fresh length of oarweed, also known as belt-wrack. A freshly beached frond is fine, or you can snorkel for a fresh leaf just off the low water mark. Allow the seaweed to dry in a warm, well ventilated area for a few days until it is dry but not crispy. When rubbery, cut into tortilla shaped triangles before deep frying. Be careful as this will make the fat spit like crazy! Serve immediately with sea salt, as these interesting dippers soon lose their crispiness.

Shore crab bisque. Fry some diced carrot, celery and leek in olive oil until tender, add a dash of brandy and boil off the alcohol. Add some fish stock and bring to the boil. Drop in some large crabs, if you are so inclined you can render them torpid by putting them in the freezer for an hour or so before cooking. After about 10 minutes of boiling let the liquid cool before zizzing it in a food processor, you want to whiz up all the shell, but not turn it into grit so not too much zizzing! Pass the mixture through a conical sieve and mash with the back of a ladle to extract the maximum flavour. Serve warm swirled with double cream and a few drops of cognac for the grown-ups!

Rockpool paella, the original surf-and-turf! Fry a chopped medium-sized onion, add some diced chicken and brown. Add some sliced peppers and beans and fry briefly, before adding paella rice and turning in the hot oil. Add a good pinch of saffron and enough stock to cover the rice. Scatter your own selection of shellfish on top; I like mussels, cockles, a few periwinkles and some furrow clams. Cover with foil and leave to simmer gently for 20-25 minutes.

So there you go, a few ideas for simple dishes with a wild twist. Who knows, perhaps I should commit more of these to a book!

I'd like to be...

JChubb@eastdevon.gov.uk — Fri, 22 Aug 2008 11:28:00 GMT

…Under the sea. But not in an octopus’s garden, octopuses at best make scattered piles of crab carapaces outside their burrows, but one could hardly call it gardening. And not technically under the sea – more like floating on top of it. With the East Devon Coastal Festival kicking off at the end of next week, I’ll turn my attention to the waves once again.

This is my favourite way of rockpooling. On a bright sunny day, when the tide is being uncooperative and covering the pools during the day, I like to peel on a short wetsuit, pull on a snorkel and mask and float above the pools watching what goes on when the creatures have their pools to themselves.

If you have the time and patience, and this is where the wetsuit come into its own, I can strongly recommend perching yourself at the low water mark as the tide encroaches and following the shallow water back up the beach, floating about a foot above the rocks, towing yourself forward with the tide. As the water rescues each pool, you can almost hear the gasps of relief from the shannies and crabs.

Life in a rockpool is a very difficult one, full of danger and environmental stresses which make climate change seem tame. There are few other places where conditions can change so dramatically, it is surprising to find anything that can live in rockpools and truly amazing considering the vast diversity of life that flourishes in them.

Chit rocks, below Jacob’s Ladder in Sidmouth is one of my favourite places on the East Devon coast. A little sandy cove full of flat fish and bass, with a rocky outcrop acting like an oasis in the sand for interesting creatures. This is why I’m kicking off the Coastal Festival here on the 1^st August.

But why are rockpools so difficult? Well, a key principal to bear in mind is that all marine life, excluding mammals, rely on oxygen dissolved in the sea water to breathe. As water temperature rises, so the amount of oxygen in the water drops off exponentially, making a warm rockpool a difficult place to breathe. The pools at the top of a beach may be about 17 degrees on a hot sunny day, as the tide first leaves them high and dry. Over the course of the next 12 hours – six hours out, six hours back – the temperature in this pool could have increased by 10 or even 20 degrees depending on how shallow the pool is.

Then there is also salinity to bear in mind. Rockpools are always in danger of being diluted by rainwater, an all too common occurrence in the summer months! Add to that dilution any beach streams and then factor in the evaporation of the sun, making some of the pools much, much more salty – didn’t I say it’s a surprise anything at all lives here?

But to counter these dramas some of the rockpool creatures come up with incredible ways to survive, and this also explains why you find more things, the lower down the beach you go. Basically, the less time the pools spend out of the sea, the less fluctuations they have to withstand.

Take the humble shanny for instance. Nothing much to look at, although it can change colour depending on where it is hiding – dark black/brown for kelp-strewn rocky overhangs and blonde for open sandy shallows. Shanny’s are territorial and normally like to frequent a familiar nook. If this nook happens to be 3 meters above the low water mark, as was the case with a shanny on Wembury VMCA, then no matter as they can breathe through the skin as long as it remains moist. So this means it’s really important to return any little fish you catch while rockpooling, to the spot where you found them – you probably plucked them from their home!

What about crabs? Crabbing is the staple introduction for most young rockoolers and (normally) their fathers. Although mums or grandparents make excellent crabbing guides too, my grandma taught me to crab as a young boy, and now look – I do it professionally!

I reckon over the next month, I will explain one thing more than any other – why are there so many dead crabs on the beach? Well, in short, there aren’t, but first impressions can be deceiving.

As I am sure you know, crabs have an exoskeleton, like a suit of armour. Their leathery skin is reinforced with calcium from the seawater, making it a hardened carapace for protection. When the crab comes to grow it needs to shed this skin and crawl off to harden up its new skin. The shed skin stays whole for a couple of days, floating about in the shallows, tricking people into thinking there’s been a case of crab genocide. But pick up an empty crab shell and have a look for the tell tale signs.

Firstly, does it stink? If a crab dies it will start to pong rather quickly. Is it heavy? Dead crabs feel heavy in the hand. Finally, look in its eyes. A dead crab’s eyes remain dark, while a shed skin will have clear eyes, like glass. The creature has popped them out of the old sockets and they are probably watching you from a safe distance, slowly getting bigger...

There are many, many other interesting things to be found of East Devon’s coastline, but I won’t go into detail on all of them here. Over the course of the next month, while the festival is in full swing, I’ll be dealing with coastal ecology most days and will keep you abreast of what’s been found through this column, before then if you have any specific question, come down and find me on the beach!

Looking forward

JChubb@eastdevon.gov.uk — Fri, 22 Aug 2008 11:27:00 GMT

In case you haven’t noticed, East Devon’s countryside was a little quiet last week. This was because I spent the week in the Mediterranean Alps watching golden eagles and black kites; sitting amongst drifts of harebell and broom; the sky punctuated by swallowtail and purple admiral butterflies. Its was bliss, I hope you didn’t miss me.

But now I’m back, and looking forward to the next few weeks, as schools shut up shop for August holidays and the next phase of East Devon Countryside Rangering swings seamlessly into action. Once school’s out for summer, my attention turns to family events, to keep everyone entertained and making the most of our marvellous natural playground.

Next Sunday, the 27th, sees the launch party of East Devon Heath Week a joint venture to celebrate the District’s heathlands by providing guided tours, walks, rambles and night time cycle rides across this globally threatened habitat. The weeks gets started up on Woodbury Castle, where from a central base camp, people can take part in activities including story telling, willow weaving and treasure hunts. This day is very much an open invitation, just come on up to the common and get involved, however the rest of the week’s activities are limited in the numbers they can accommodate, so you should ring the booking number to reserve your places. Here’s just a few of the week’s events, for the full programme visit www.rspb.org.uk/events.

On Monday morning you can join the RSPB’s Charles Reed and myself on Aylesbeare Common, for a tractor ride and pond dipping in the heathland ponds, later that day there’s a guided mountain bike ride while in the evening is a chance to see nightjars on a twilight walk.

The Devon Wildlife Trust’s East Devon Local Group host an open day at Bystock Ponds on the 29^th July, so join the group for a personalised tour of this magical little site. That morning, I’ll also be leading a reptile ramble on Fire Beacon Hill.

A night time mountain bike ride across Mutters Moor takes place on the 31st, while first thing that day I am leading an early morning bird walk across Trinity Hill Local Nature Reserve.

On the final day of the festival week, you can kick start the day early with Toby and Charles at Aylesbeare Common, looking for Darties at Dawn, and for the true bird buffs, there’s another chance to meet nightjars and moths that night at Aylesbeare. So from dawn till dusk, the wardens will be welcoming you to the common, I only wish I could be with them!

However, on the first of August the East Devon Coastal Festival kicks off and I will be up to my neck (sometimes literally) in rockpools along the East Devon coastline. This annual festival has become a regular favourite in the Countryside Events programme, and this year will be another success as long as the summer weather decides to put in an appearance! However, more about our summer rockpooling treats in a future article.

In preparation for the Coastal Festival, I will be giving a Bicton Summer Lecture at Darts Farm on the evening on Thursday 31^st July. My lecture will be looking at the edible treats lurking in our rockpools and give a few hints and tips for finding a seashore feast.

I’ll cook a wild seafood paella in the Darts Farm demonstration kitchen, and while that’s cooking away, I’ll present a slide show about some of the colourful denizens of our shoreline with some gastronomic tips. There will be tasters for everyone, but make sure you’ve had your supper before coming along, as it will only be a taste, I can’t afford to feed you all! For more information about the Bicton Summer Lecture Series contact the college on 01395 562311.

So just because the schools are shut, doesn’t mean the education has to stop and, as East Devon’s Education Ranger, I’ll be on hand to help you enjoy our countryside and the plants and animals we share it with.

Easy Beesy

JChubb@eastdevon.gov.uk — Tue, 15 Jul 2008 12:26:00 GMT

I’ve written about birds in this column ad nauseam, and for good reason – everyone warms to their avian charms. But what about the other contender in the euphemistic phrase, bees?

Its Heath Week at the end of this month, so I’ve been out and about recently refreshing my acquaintance with East Devon’s heathlands, revising for the ecological pop quiz which normally ensues. It’s a real treat, to be able to spend time on a sunny heath in the middle of July, creeping about after adders and lizards, or rooting about through the grasses in search of an elusive specimen; what’s not to love?

One group of animals which always raise an eyebrow are the solitary bees and wasps which call Fire Beacon Hill home. Not only are they a very cute group, but they banish the misconception in people’s minds that there’s just two types of bees – honey and bumble – and a single black and yellow stingy wasp. This is anything but the case.

While walking on the well trodden paths of the local nature reserve, look out for tiny burrows in the sandy soil. This light sandy soil acts like a radiator and is the perfect incubator for solitary bees, of which the UK has about 250 different species! Unless you are a committed hymenopterist, in which case you will already know all this, there’s not really much point in trying to describe the various species, but that shouldn’t discourage you from a closer inspection.

When you’ve found your burrows, on a warm sunny day, settle down beside the path (insuring you’re not resting on yet more holes) and wait for the returning adult. If the insect is carrying leaves, or pollen on its legs, it’s a herbivore and therefore a member of the bee family, if however it is bringing back a juicy caterpillar or other hapless animal then it’s a carnivore and that mean a wasp.

The bees and wasps make a burrow in the soil and lay an egg or group of eggs at the bottom of the burrow. The adult will then tend these eggs and larvae, feeding them on either plant or animal materials as appropriate to the species, until the grub has reached the stage to pupate into an adult itself and start the cycle once again. Watching these tiny animals working away is always entertaining, and notice how much they look like ants – another member of this family of animals.

You’ve got no reason to be wary of these bees or wasps as they are either stingless or, if they do have a sting they are disinclined to use it.

Another group of ground-living bees, this time a little more familiar to us all, are the bumble bees and yet again there’s more to this little lot than you may first imagine.

In total there are 25 different bumblebees in Britain, a few years ago there were 28, but in recent years three have become extinct. So bumbles are in something of a crisis, which means they could benefit from more of us looking out for them.

Of the 25 species, there are six which are common enough for us all to look out for and six is few enough to provide you with a brief description of each, however it will mean resorting to the use of scientific names which I apologise for in advance! Before we start its useful to know that a bee’s body is divided into three sections; the head (self explanatory); the thorax (between the head and the next bit); and the abdomen (sort of the tail). I’ll just describe the males here as females have already been out and about in our gardens and are now beneath ground producing eggs as fast as they can.

The best way to interpret the following written key is to translate it onto a simple box diagram of two squares (head and thorax) and a rectangle. Colour as appropriate, and you’ve got a ready made ID chart for bumbles.

Firstly the garden bumble bee, Bombus horotum. A black head, yellow thorax with black stripe, yellow at the front of the abdomen, a black stripe and then a large white tail.

Not to be confused with the white tail bumble bee, Bombus leucorum, with black head, black thorax with yellow stripe at the front, black abdomen with yellow stripe and white terminal band.

Bombus terrestris or the buff tail bumble bee has a black head, orange front of the thorax and black to the rear, a black abdomen with orange strip and off-white terminal stripe.

Bombus lapidarius or the red tailed bumble bee is easily recognisable, with black head, black thorax and abdomen with a bright red stripe at the tail end, just as its name suggests!

Bombus pratorum or the early nesting bumble bee has a black head, black thorax with yellow at the front, a black abdomen with partial yellow stripe and orange tail band.

Finally the common carder bee, Bombus pascuorum, is an orangey fellow with orange head, orange thorax and variously orange, black and buff striped abdomen.

So, armed with your bumblebee ID chart, get out into your garden, the local park or up onto the heaths and record what bumblebees you see busily collecting nectar and pollen. Your records could prove hugely valuable in years to come.

A Positive Start

JChubb@eastdevon.gov.uk — Tue, 15 Jul 2008 12:25:00 GMT

About eight years ago I spotted a job advert in the guardian supplement, looking for a Publications Officer for the Devon Wildlife Trust. I was, at the time, a newly graduated Biology student, working as a Press Officer in North London, and not really liking it at all. I jumped at the opportunity and, with my CV being well received, was sent a pre-interview exercise to gauge my abilities.

I got a scientific paper by the Trust’s Marine Biologist and it was my task to transform it into people-friendly language. The ground-breaking data detailed trawling damage to the rocky reefs of Lyme Bay and its author was one Chris Davis, I remember trying to picture the boffin who wrote such interesting stuff.

Little did I know that I would successfully land the job with DWT and, moreover, get to know Chris very well indeed. So the progress of the Lyme Bay Project has been something I have kept a close eye on over the last few years. Last week a major step was taken by the Government when they confirmed that an area of seabed lying off our coastline between Beer Head and West bay in Dorset, would be closed to scallop dredging, beam trawling and otter trawling.

It is scallop dredging which has been shown to cause the most damage to the fragile corals and sponges of our cold water reefs, and so it is this practice which has been halted. Other forms of fishing, such as potting, hand lining and diving, which do not have such impact, are still allowed within the 60 square nautical miles and if the marine life benefits from the removal of heavy fishing gear, these low impact fishing techniques could benefit.

As a conservationist I am very proud that this has happened off our coastline. As I’ve stated in previous articles, our levels of maritime conservation lag woefully behind that of the terrestrial, and this is a positive step in the right direction. Of course not everyone sees it this way.

Fishermen and their lobby groups have been very vocal to undermine the exclusion, stating that this will be an unbearable burden coming, as it does, at exactly the same time as massive increases in fuel costs. I can empathise with their frustrations, but it doesn’t make scallop dredging any less impacting. So what are we to do?

I enjoy fresh Lyme Bay scallops immensely, and would be sorry to see a reduction of these beauties leading to alternatives being brought from overseas. Especially from further a-field, where they may have even worse fishing practices! I hope that the lobby groups and fishing associations, which have worked so hard in recent years trying to resist the Lyme Bay ban, will now work with their members to help them diversify their businesses.

As Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall is quick to point out in his book “Fish”, or on his current TV series, Lyme Bay has some of the best fish in the world, so the loss of a fishing fleet to sustainably harvest this bounty would indeed be a great shame. But the key lies in the little word sustainable.

As with any food that economically reflects its scarcity, intricacy or expertise in collection, we should be clamouring to pay a little more to buy our local scallops, hand caught and fresh off the quay. For a good analogy, look towards our friends in Tuscany, an area we in the South West could do well to emulate.

Truffles have been long treasured in the Tuscan hills, with skilled old men and their truffle hunting hounds or pigs foraging in secret woodlands, the location of which is passed down through generations. A few hundred grams of white gold might be gleaned from these areas each year, and so gastronomes know they have to part with considerable cash to enjoy the fungal feast.

Yes, it would be quicker and easier to bulldoze the entire ancient woodland and collect all the truffles there. But that would make for a very small harvest this time next year…

Wandering on Woodbury

JChubb@eastdevon.gov.uk — Mon, 23 Jun 2008 09:57:00 GMT

I hope you enjoyed last week’s column, its always a pleasure to uncover new talent and it looks like Exmouth has a healthy future with local journalism!

This week I want to continue in a similar schools-related vein, but this time it’s all my own words I’m afraid. As this week I’d like to invite you to join me on a virtual visit to Woodbury common, a retelling of the trip Woodbury Salterton Primary School and I made last week, in glorious sunshine.

The school met me in the Castle car park, and while I was waiting for them to walk up from school I must admit a knot had formed in my stomach. Woodbury Common isn’t an area we manage at the District Council, as it is in the safe hands of Bungy Williams and the Pebblebed Heaths Trust, so its not an area I feel as intimate with as say Fire Beacon Hill or Trinity Hill, and yet in a few moments 30 students and their class teacher were going to join me for an entire day on the heath – would I be able to find enough to keep their attention for the next four hours? I needn’t have worried.

After a brief breather to allow the group to catch their breath after a very smart march up from the village we got underway.

I used the castle to illustrate how heathland, for all its wilderness feelings, are in fact of human construction. The castle at Woodbury is thought to have been in use between 500 and 300 BC, with a brief reprieve in the Napolionic Wars at the beginning of the 1800s. In its first incarnation, the wooden-walled palisades would have protected the local population and stood guard over the surrounding lowlands. Perched high on the hill this would have been a splendid place to spot your enemy approaching, giving you a day or two to prepare for his arrival. The point of time we were speaking on is really important, as this is an Iron Age fort and it wasn’t until the discovery of iron, that heathland was created in any serious scale.

Before the invention of iron tools, people couldn’t physically chop down very many trees from what was an almost completely wooded landscape. When iron axes were available larger tracts could be felled, on which domesticated animals could graze and so a rough ericaceous habitat was created, we call heathland.

So, enough of the history, we were there to study natural history, so it was off for a nature walk for the rest of the day and see what we could find. In total, 54 animal species were spotted and discussed, and quite a few of the plants too…

We looked at the three different types of heather that grow in Devon, and nestled below the heather we found countless common lizards, some of which were obliging enough to allow themselves to be caught by me and studied in closer detail. Green tiger beetles flew off with every footfall and small heath butterflies swarmed.

There were birds galore overhead with stonechat putting in a late appearance and yellowhammer feeding on the paths ahead of the group. One of the students noted that for a bright yellow bird, yellowhammer are very difficult to spot on the ground! Swifts blasted overhead and buzzards wheeled lazily in the blue skies. After a shady lunch taken under the pine trees we set off again in search of carnivorous plants, and headed over towards the boggy parts of the reserve.

Amazing sundew glittered on the wet flashes, their tempting red-tipped leaves ready to entice flies to their doom and subsidise their meagre nutrition from their roots. The idea of meat-eating plants is a wild and wonderful one and the kids really took a keen interest in them.

We climbed a steep hill out of the gully and one eagle-eyed student spotted the brilliant glimmer of a velvet ant, a beastie I was really hoping to see. Velvet ants are in fact members of the wasp family, with the females being wingless and therefore look rather ant-like. They are about two centimetres long, with a vivid turquoise abdomen, crimson thorax and black head, they are simply stunning. The child bent to pick it up as it was so colourful, but luckily it disappeared between the pebbles before he could grab it. I say luckily, as the females have a really serious sting and it would have been a nasty lesson for both of us!

By the time we marches back up the hill to Woodbury Castle a few of the kids were beginning to tire, and I must say I was getting a bit thirsty too! They had a trek back to school to contend with, while I jumped in the ranger-mobile and headed for the cool of the office – you can have too much of a good thing you know?

Finally, a quick post-script as promised to class three from St Josephs school earlier today. I was out with them on the estuary and one of the class – an East Devon Junior Ranger, naturally – found the rarest animal on the estuary, Ophelia bicornis, while digging in the clean sand. He was very proud, and I was extremely pleased to see one as I don’t think I found a single specimen last summer. These little worms are only found on the Exe and one other location in the country, so we were justifiably happy to see it! After showing he rest of the class, everyone fell to their knees in the bright yellow sand and wouldn’t stop digging until each of the 32 children had found one! Well done class 3!

Sniffing out a story with the Newshounds

JChubb@eastdevon.gov.uk — Mon, 23 Jun 2008 09:56:00 GMT

Last week I had the pleasure of being interviewed by Exeter Road Primary School’s after school journalist club – the Newshounds. Ten students from the school visited the Exmouth Local Nature Reserve and gave me a grilling about everything under the sun, especially birds! I was so impressed with their inquisition I offered them space in this column if they could get their article to me three days later. I was to be impressed again, when two days later I received a phone call from the Newshounds cheerfully telling me that the article was ready, a day early and spot on the word count – if only I could be that disciplined with the weekly copy!

Here’s their story, I hope you enjoy it; I certainly did.

Ten curious Newshounds from Exeter Road Primary School went to the Exe Estuary on Monday, 2^nd June to find out about the birds that live and feed there. While eating lunch, the Newshounds talked about what they already knew about birds. We wondered whether birds hibernate. James Chubb is an expert on birds. He answered our questions carefully. Mammals hibernate but only one group of birds do (they freeze themselves to save energy) the hummingbirds, but they don’t appear on the Exe.

James told us that there are 27,000 birds on the estuary in the winter, arriving from late September to October. We find the winter really cold but birds find it warm – warmer than Siberia where it’s freezing cold. Birds travel to their favourite places to eat and breed. This is called migration.

Have you ever seen a flock of geese in a v-shape? Some of us have. The Brent Geese travel in a v-shape and take it in turns to be the leader. This saves energy. They fly to Siberia in April, about the same time as the swallows arrive here. The young birds get back to Exmouth before the adults in September. They follow their instinct instead of a map and a compass.

James took us across the sandbank. He dug a hole and there was lots of black sand. The sand was anoxic, which means free of oxygen. Then he showed us two types of worm: the ragworm and the lugworm (which he accidentally cut the head off!) The lugworm was dark red and wrinkly. The ragworm was smaller, skinnier and paler.

Next, James took us to the water opposite the mussel bed. It was literally covered with blue mussels that seagulls pick up, fly six metres into the air with and drop onto something really hard, like a rock. Only the cleverest herring gulls do this because otherwise they will wear their beak out scratching at the blue mussel shell continuously.

James then picked up in his net about a dozen shrimps, a crab, shells, pebbles, sand, mud and a tiny flatfish called a plaice, but no chips! He told us that birds eat flatfish, shrimps, crabs, blue mussels, lugworms and ragworms. And here’s a brilliant fact: some birds eat other birds. The Brent Geese eat eel grass which is their favourite food. It grows under water and there are two types. Exmouth is special because both types grow here.

One of the Newshounds found lots of pottery on the shore. There were also lots of bricks and litter like glass and beer cans. The birds mistake the litter for food and it can get stuck in their throats or they can get their legs caught up. If the tide comes in they will drown. James said that it is laziness that some people do not put their rubbish in the bin.

He loves his job as a ranger. He said ‘it’s the most brilliant job anyone could ever have’

I must admit to blushing a little while reading, but it’s nice to be appreciated!

As much as I enjoy leading adult groups on nature walks, there is something particularly satisfying in working with children; something which I think is illustrated by this article.

Children are inherently interested in the world in which they find themselves, they love to explore, and soak up information like sponges. It is my privilege that the District Council employs me to help them do this – I’m the lucky one, not them!

World Wonders

JChubb@eastdevon.gov.uk — Mon, 23 Jun 2008 09:55:00 GMT

Marvellous, at long last another countryside column from me, prompted by a muffled “What the ????” from beneath the duvet.

This morning I was quietly putting off the inevitable getting out of bed moment, snoozing gently to the dulcet tones of Messers Davis and Stourton on the Today programme. Then came a story about putting an economic value to the global loss of biodiversity and my ears pricked!

The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity Review has followed on from the, aptly titled, Stern Review of climate change, and looks to put a global financial cost on loss of ecosystems and biodiversity. Good start, I thought, but sadly I think this report may have missed the fundamental point of the issue as all others seemed to have before it. The report claims that if current ecological deterioration continues unchecked, global GDP, global Gross Domestic Product, will reduce by 7% by 2050. Well, that’s a fine how-do-you-do, but is totally meaningless to me.

I thoroughly agree with the need to put environmental truths into fiscal language of economists, but nothing drafted really gets to the nub, the fundament; we’re not merely destroying the planet – we’re killing our only means of existence.

The problem is that ecological issues, so frequently trivialised by trotting out a ukulele player at the Haye Literary Festival, I’m not joking, go further than our modern flim-flammery of over-elaborate bean trading we like to call Economics can comprehend. And then there’s the moral argument, which maintains that because we are a species on this planet with the ability to completely remove another, we have a fundamental duty to ensure we do not. However, that discourse leads to some very, very tricky questions…

I prefer to focus on the positive, and the life-enriching, life-affirming reasons why sharing the planet with other life is a good thing. With so much British natural history on telly at the moment with the return of Springwatch, I’m going to go out on a limb here and talk about some of the global facts from the natural world that keep my head shaking in wonderment and my mouth permanently a-gasp in awe! So for the next few hundred words, here are a few of my favourite wildlife facts, about species you may, or may not find in your back garden. Starting with the small, lets work our way up to the big stuff…

The social amoeba Dictyostelium normally lives as single-celled microscopic organisms, however in times of food shortage as many as 100,000 of these cells will fuse together to create a single living entity with differentiated tissues and the capability of self-reproduction.

Hermit crabs recreate our property ladder by congregating in areas where there is a high level of mollusc predation. The dominant crab will get first dibs on a new shell and the second down will move into the shell vacated by the first, and so on down the ladder until even the smallest hermit is accommodated.

Hummingbirds have the capability to shut down kidney function. These tiny birds feed on nectar, which has such a high water content they need to excrete a great deal of water while they fly. If they continued to do this during the night, while they rest, they would dehydrate.

The teeth of sea urchins are self-sharpening and as the tooth wears away through use, it becomes progressively harder.

Worm-like amphibians called caecilians provide their offspring with a hearty meal at birth, of themselves. The female’s skin grows extra thick while brooding and when the eggs hatch, the young feast on this thickened dermis.

Naked mole rats navigate underground by seismic echolocation – in a world of no sight, hearing or smell, these animals have developed the ability to sense echoes in the soil through their feet. The echoes are created by the animal itself, banging its head on the ground.

Marine iguanas of the Galapagos islands are the only species of lizard to regularly shrink and grow again. When storms force the lizards to stop feeding for long periods, they can shrink by as much as 15% of their bodyweight. The lizards will get even bigger than they were the following year when they can feed well again.

For many years, American and Russian navies thought the opposition was attaching listening devices to its fleet of submarines, as they found perfectly round chunks of rubber missing from the sub’s sonar domes. It was then discovered that these missing pieces had been chewed off by the wired cookie-cutter shark, an animal with a mouth adapted for boring into large fish.

Albatrosses are able to pinpoint the exact location of their nests even after foraging trips of many thousands of miles over featureless oceans, often lasting many months. They do not rely on magnetic sensitivity to achieve this feat, and no one knows exactly how they do it!

Female hippopotamuses are officially the greediest animals on the planet, with the stomach contents making up as much as 25% of the animal’s body weight!

The largest animal to have ever lived on earth is the blue whale, with a heart the size of a mini (the old one, not the new massive one) and blood vessels an adult could swim through, this is a true giant, which feeds on some of the smallest animals on earth, zooplankton.

Shells, sparrows and spades

JChubb@eastdevon.gov.uk — Tue, 03 Jun 2008 16:07:00 GMT

The past few weeks have seen house sparrows descend upon the marshes in search of a seasonal treat. Hemlock water dropwort, growing along the edges of ditches around Seaton Marshes, is full of house sparrows chirping and bickering over a feast of newly emerged damselflies.

Sparrows love damselflies and dragonflies, but the only time they are capable of catching these masters of the sky is while they are weak fliers, newly emerged and sub adult. The grizzly end of being guzzled by a hungry sparrow is the ultimate insult, coming, as it does, at the end of one of the most incredible processes in natural history.

For the last year or two, damselflies on the wing this year have been living a sub-aquatic life, breathing through gills and walking across the bottom of ponds, ditches and streams. After several larval stages, called instars, the adult damselfly is about ready to emerge both from within the larval skin and from the water too. A double whammy of emergence!

This means the damselfly not only has to peel itself out of the old skin and inflate crinkled wings, it also has to transform from a gill-breathing underwater creature to an air-breathing flying insect.

After all this stress, the weak-flying, dull-coloured young damselfly hangs from a reed stem while its wings stiffen and its flight muscles warm. While it is in this vulnerable position, down swoops a sparrow and all that struggle was for nothing! Terrible for the damselfly, good for the sparrow and fascinating to watch.

Down on the estuary…

I’ve just finished the first week of school visits to the Exmouth Local Nature Reserve with schools from the local area. This year there are three weeks in the summer term when the tides are right (well, right-ish) during the day and I’ve teamed up with Jenny Lockett, the Exe Estuary Officer, to host the sessions. It has been a welcome return to estuary educational visits, and having Jenny along too has been a real boon – for me and the students!

It’s interesting how different schools use the service differently, all the while I keep what I do relatively consistent. For example, Clyst Heath primary school came on the train from Exeter, popped on a boat at Topsham for a short cruise down the river before exploring the beach with me and returning to school on the train – what a fantastic day! I wished that I could have been with them the whole day!

This morning, Clyst St Mary primary visited in the morning, while the tide was still very high, so we wandered over to the docks area to watch the tidal race, and then popped in to Exmouth Shellfish and looked at the mussels being processed and the fantastic aquarium Myles has running there. By the time we got back tot eh nature reserve there was enough sand to venture out and the children got their own chance to catch specimens, although we didn’t find a lobster as big as Myles’!

Jenny has been such a superstar this week with the schools visit, providing a huge amount of information for the schools about wider estuary issues that I agreed to put a little plug in this article for the up coming Exe Estuary Forum, on Saturday 11^th June, from 11am until 4, I’m sure it will be a really interesting event and anyone wanting to know a bit more about our fantastic Exe, should definitely make every effort to attend email Jenny for more information or to book places on jenny.lockett@devon.gov.uk.

Finally, this weekend is the Exmouth Kite festival, and Jenny and I will be teaming up again to promote ecology on the estuary at this wonderful event. Jenny’s taking the reins on Saturday while I play cricket, a terrible vice which afflicts me at this time of year, and I am going to be down on the Estuary on the Sunday. Do come along and say hello, and get an extra big smile if you tell me you read this article!

The Silly Season

JChubb@eastdevon.gov.uk — Tue, 03 Jun 2008 16:05:00 GMT

This is the start of my silly season. Schools want to get out of the classroom and with the pressure of the modern education system on their shoulders, I can see why!

Working as a nature reserve Education Ranger, it’s kind of my thing to bang on about the relevance of outdoor spaces for learning. However I have been somewhat hamstrung by modern educational policy, which is about as flexible as our beloved red sandstone – you try and twist it slightly and its crumbles into dust.

Its not just the fact that there’s a generation of teachers who, like me, didn’t do much outdoor education at school themselves; as reported in last week’s press, its down to the dreaded SATs and the fact that to run a “successful” school, you need to constantly think results. What a tragic, and all too politicised nonsense.

All the inspirational teachers I remember in my life were grounded in one common aspect – they taught from the heart and were passionate about their subject. They were able to make their subject (or subjects in the case of my Year 4 teacher Miss Robson) come alive and seem personal to me as a pupil. I wasn’t just force-fed examination answers in an attempt to top meaningless poles.

This is, definitely, not a dig at teachers, we are really fortunate that here in East Devon there are lots of fabulous teachers, many of whom I am lucky enough to work with regularly and all of whom keep me jolly busy! I just really do not envy the framework in which they have to teach.

The fact that it is a soulless quest for momentary results, proven to be quickly forgotten (as all cramming information is), reflects that this is a system for the statistically hungry politicians, and not for our young people. I can stomach it at GCSE and Advanced Levels, but now we are compiling tables of the under sevens and my heart sinks.

Wowzers, get me?

So what’s reason for this little tirade in my otherwise uncontentious countryside column? Well, as kids are being allowed to be children less and less at school, it is becoming increasingly important to allow them this indulgence in their own time.

I know, I know, “But what about homework?” I hear you cry. And I agree – there isn’t enough information in the world that justifies a person under the age of ten to take work home from school, really there isn’t. If there isn’t time in the school day to learn something, then don’t test the little guys on it!

The good news is there’s plenty going on to get your little ones involved with, which takes the pressure off you as a parent to know all there is to know about bug hunting, pond dipping or rockpooling – for example.

I’m not championing these old fashioned and rather eccentrically English pastimes because I think it imperative that all East Devon’s children know the difference between a pond skater and a water boatman (although I also happen to think this is important) but because such activities simply immerse children (and their parents) in the real world – the natural world, which isn’t obsessed about MP3 players and other man-made tut. It’s a case of making things less sophisticated, less touch-screen-interactive-windows-based-operating-system. What could be more interactive than getting bitten by a water beetle, or nipped by a crab?

So next week is half term. Your offspring’s teachers are taking a well earned rest with a bottle of pinot grigio or two, and it’s your turn to step in. So, bring them on an educational experience they wont even realise is self-improving – join me on an LNR event. There’s three to choose from, and all are free of charge.

Wednesday 28^th May, get up early for an 8am woodland walk at Knapp Copse, near Honiton, for a bird song spectacular. We’ll be finished by 9ish, so why not combine it with a visit to a Honiton deli for breakfast – you’ll have earned it on those hills!

Thursday 29^th is another chance to come reptile rambling with me, this was so popular last half term 67 people turned up, so prepare yourself for crowds if the weather if fine! We start these events from the Bowd Inn, so there’s an easy early lunch option at the end of this event too.

Finally an Exmouth event to wrap up the week, as we’ll be getting up close and personal with the busy bees of The Maer LNR, on the seafront, on the 30^th.

I’m not sure if you’ve seen The Maer recently, but it is looking wonderful and I would like to say a big “Thank you” to Andy Harris and his Exmouth StreetScene team for keeping it spick and span in the litter department and wild and interesting in the vegetative department. Join me for an introduction to the weird and wonderful bees of the dunes.

We’ll be starting at two, so there’s plenty of time for a good lunch first, and low water is in the morning, so you can even fit in some rockpooling at Maer rocks beforehand – go on, make a day of it!

Summer is here at last!

JChubb@eastdevon.gov.uk — Mon, 12 May 2008 12:56:00 GMT

Ye gads the Heat! You know it has got hot, because people are wearing funny clothes that they weren’t wearing a few weeks ago. Odd length trousers which look like the wearer has experienced an unplanned growth spurt overnight. A few misguided chaps are even walking about with their tops off, as always happens when the thermometer climbs above 15 degrees, when did that become ok? Which reminds me, I must cancel the milk…

But this social observation aside, the real reason to smile is that summer is officially here, and it’s heralded by a much nicer sight than acres of pallid flesh wobbling along the esplanade.

Swifts are once more overhead, screaming their exuberant welcome in our skies and brightening up even the most stormy summer sky. They are the last migrants to arrive and the first to leave, and they make my heart soar every time I see them. My little house in Exeter is right beneath a colony, so their noisy banter is the soundtrack to summer BBQs, and they have returned to their roosts at the Knowle, so my office is filled with their clamour too as they tear about between the buildings.

There is no getting away from swifts, and there is no way I would want to either. As well as being a special indication of the long days of summer and embarrassing afternoons of cricket, swifts are also amazing animals too.

No other British bird is quite so perfectly built for a life on the wing, when the swift chicks first fledge the nest in a couple of months time they will be taking leap of faith which is pretty much unconceivable. Imagine, you have never flown a yard before, you are miles from the floor, peering from the eaves of a tall building and your only assurance that you can fly is a niggling suspicion in the back of your mind that perhaps you can. You wriggle to the edge of the ledge and allow yourself to fall over the side, you unfold enormous wings, catch the air beneath them and begin a non-stop flight that could last for the next 365 days!

Swifts, once fledged, will not touch a solid object, like the land for example, for up to a year after leaving the nest. They do everything on the wing, eat, sleep, procreate! They only stop flying to lay or incubate eggs, and then they are off again, soaring through the skies like a tiny fighter jet.

They travel vast distances every day on feeding forays, often chasing storm fronts for the insect bounty they provide. And at the end of the day they return to the colony and celebrate a day well spent with some acrobatic flying and tuneless screaming; tuneless maybe, but still music to my ears.

If they do land on the ground they are somewhat stuck, and unlike swallows or housemartins, swifts never ground themselves deliberately. They have no legs to speak of, their lower limbs have shrunk in proportion to their long sickle shaped wings. Little clawed feet are OK for gripping rock faces or the sides of buildings, but no good at powering yourself into the air.

If you do happen upon a swift that has got itself stuck, the chances are it’s a young bird or and old sick bird, either way its life will be curtailed by cats if left to its own devices. If the bird looks healthy then you can try gently launching it into the air – cupping its tiny body and tossing it upwards and away from yourself. If the bird struggles to the floor once again, or worse plummets straight down then you have more of a problem on your hands and you should try and get the bird to the safety of an animal rescue centre. There might not be anything anyone can do, but professionals are best placed to decide this.

Other summer flyers are on the wing again this year, and well worth getting out to look for. Green tiger beetles are abundant on Fire Beacon Hill’s paths and bare ground, patrolling stretches and chasing other tiger beetles with dazzling speed. Chose a sunny morning to go looking for them, and pause anywhere you find a sunny aspect and notice small round holes in the ground. The chances are your approach frightened off the beetle, but it will quickly be back if you wait patiently. On the wing they are easily mistaken for small butterflies, on the ground they look like small emeralds that have sprouted legs!

More about those later in the summer though!

Drop everything and go!

JChubb@eastdevon.gov.uk — Mon, 12 May 2008 12:55:00 GMT

Wow! Stop what you are doing immediately, which means stop reading this column, don’t worry I’ll be here when you get back. Get yourself down to Holyford Woods immediately, I assure you it’s well worth it…

…See, I told you, magnificent isn’t it? For those of you who have resisted the temptation to drop your newspaper and dash out of the door in your slippers heading for the hills, here’s a bit of an explanation and perhaps that will be enough to encourage you.

Things are a bit early in the woods this year. Spring is in the air and the whole world is a vibrant, verdant vista. The bluebells are blooming on the sunny southern facing slopes and this azure spectacle always seems to be a little more dazzling every year. The dark green of the ivy and ferns offsets the blues and provides a magic carpet which Aladin would be proud.

The leaves are just budding from the branches and are still a juicy lime green, yet to develop their darker more sombre tannin-filled green. And because the canopy hasn’t closed over yet, which is why spring flowers blossom early after all, you can see the powder blue sky overhead and hear its residents as clear as a bell.

The woodland is alive with bird song, not just early in the morning and last things at night, but constantly as birds proclaim ownership of territories and advertise their appropriateness as mates. As much as the flitting trill of a chiff-chaff may sound wonderful to our ears, if we were able to translate the calls it would make any of us blush!

There is an ever growing colony of ravens living in the woodland and spring is the time of year to see raven in their pomp. They are incredibly intelligent birds, having been shown to effectively ‘play and at this time of year their urge to frolic reaches its zenith.

You will probably hear the raven before you see them. Listen out for a deep throated croak, almost saying the name of the bird; “raaa-v’n, raaa-v’n” look up and watch for a large shape to momentarily block the sun! Raven are enormous birds, with big females having a longer wingspan than some of the smaller buzzards in the area. They have a very characteristic shape too, having thin wings with tapering ends and a large wedge-shaped tail. As they fly over the tree tops the raven twist and turn in the air, displaying superb aerial ability. This mock fighting can be seen in other birds here too, and last week I witnessed a jaw-dropping moment from the local buzzards.

Three buzzards were tussling over the trees just above my head. There is a wonderful area to the south of Holyford Woods where you climb a bare hill and can look down on the roof of the woodland for a really special view of what’s going on, I was just along here and the buzzards were swooping within a few metres of my head. One came particularly close and pulled up in the sharp banking manoeuvre, so close in fact that I could hear the wind rushing over its wing feathers, ripping at the trailing edges and sounding like the air itself was tearing apart!

The spectacle continues beneath the canopy too, although this area is the domain of the smaller birds. I would recommend finding a little glade and settling down either sitting or leaning against a tree, and soak up the full show.

Firstly you will probably see the blue and great *** in the outer branches of the oaks. They are tirelessly searching for food and collecting nesting materials to line their nest spaces. As flit of brown caught my eye and brought my attention to focus on a diminutive wren. This little bird was dashing back and forth to her nest site within the fungus damage of an oak tree, never returning with an empty beak. Another brown streak, this time characteristically flitting from high up, to the base of a tree – treecreeper. They climb vertically up the trunks of trees, searching for small insects in the fissured bark. They always climb up, and so they always fly down. Nuthatches on the other hand climb down the trunks of trees, reaching the bottom and flying to the top of the trunk to begin again.

Great spotted woodpeckers were drumming out their rhythmic message of hostility, proclaiming that tree to be theirs, and yet again I failed to hear a lesser spotted woodpecker in this woodland. I fear this could be the writing on the wall and a dash might have to put against LSW and Holyford Woods, at least for the time being.

What was supposed to be a quick fifteen minute dash down to the woods for a couple of photos, turned into a morning soaking up the spring, but it was worth every second and I would seriously recommend you drop everything and go!