Nature Notes

The common crane

sally.fairbrother@archant.co.uk — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 12:23:00 GMT

This winter has thrown up three special bird species for the "patch" – though, alas, no waxwings this time around! Crossbills, a grey phalarope and most recently two common cranes have found sanctuary in the area.

• Crossbills

PICTURE: Brian Palmer

In January 2009 a grey phalarope had put in a brief appearance at Instow and, to my disappointment, I had missed an opportunity to see it for myself. Imagine my delight then when another one showed up in late November, this time at Northam Burrows. The confiding bird was seen to occupy just one of several pools of floodwater lying on the plain - though close to the 'Old Tip' road and a hundred yards on from the Appledore bridge as this small construction is dubbed. And here it stayed a week and more, forever in motion running and spinning in the water picking minute organisms from off the surface, or below. How it managed to gather sustenance enough from this one modest pool to fuel its clockwork movements just left one amazed.

• Grey phalarope at Northam Burrows

PICTURE: Brian Palmer

After reading a report of crossbills at Wistlandpound Reservoir, on the edge of Exmoor, I paid this location a visit some days later. More in hope than expectation it must be said! December 5 was unpromisingly grey and overcast, but within an hour of arrival the journey proved to have been worthwhile. After circuiting much of the tree-lined reservoir, searching the while, suddenly a telltale sign, a twirling light shower of winged pine seeds accompanied by a falling cone or two. Looking upwards to the top of a Sitka Spruce there they were: a flock of crossbills, fifteen in total, busily engaged in wresting the cones from the flimsy outer branches then hoping back nearer the trunk to stouter boughs. There they extracted the seeds with those specially evolved mandibles. As we watched the fifteen crossbills thus engaged another flock, bigger in number, passed overhead. This was only my second ever sighting of the species here in North Devon. My first, at Umberleigh, had been forty five years earlier! Yes my long wait finally over in exciting circumstances ...

From mid-January onwards a first winter - juvenile - common crane has been putting in appearances in North Devon. However, on February 6, Barnstaple birder Steve Jordan looked on as an adult crane flew from the direction of the town over the new bridge before landing on the saltings at Penhill. "The red patch on its crown was distinctive" says Steve. So two of those upstanding, long-striding birds have been gracing our patch...

At Braunton marsh on February 12 I finally caught up with the unobtrusive juvenile. It was keeping company with three mute swans in the corner of a field near the toll road. It was here that camera-toting Brian Palmer took the 'distant record shot'. Small numbers of common cranes visit eastern and southern England each year but rarely venture this far west. There are fifteen species of crane but grus grus is the only one to have been a native here.

Centuries ago cranes were a common species in the land. Macaulay in his history of England wrote: "The marshes of Cambridgeshire and Lincolnshre were covered during some months of every year by immense clouds of cranes". However, that was 400 years ago. Hunting and the drainage of great tracts of marshland saw their disappearance as a breeding species. In 1979 a small population re-colonised a part of Norfolk, but there has been no further expansion safe for at Lakenheath in Suffolk.

The Great Crane Project, a partnership between the RSPB, the Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust and the Pensthorpe Trust, with major funding support from Viridor Credits Environmental Company was set up in 2006 to give a big helping hand in their re-establishment. To think that in the near future the Somerset Levels might resound to the trumpeting calls, the courtship spectacle, of these stately birds is truly exciting for everyone in the South West.

Wading birds

sally.fairbrother@archant.co.uk — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 08:56:00 GMT

A variety of wading birds - both passage migrants and over-wintering ones - have been showing around the North Devon coast these past weeks. Curlew sandpipers, green and wood sandpipers, a (single) spotted crake, ringed plovers, turnstones and bar-tailed godwits amongst others. There have also been plentiful numbers of oystercatchers and curlew again. At the foreshore of the estuary one evening recently the autumnal rays from a westering sun caught the red bills and pink legs of a loose gathering of oystercatchers making them appear as if from the tropics!

• Turnstones at Skern

Just as described by Edward A. Armstrong in the chapter The Lough in Winter from his book Birds of the Grey Wind: "In winter, birds which are almost indistinguishable brown specks on the mud when the summer sun is overhead are now picked out by the slating rays with every hue accentuated ..." "Even the demure and dumpy ringed plovers tripping along the mud in fits and starts, with yellow legs twinkling beneath dark dibs, look almost elegant', he continued.

• Ringed plover on the mudflats

Ringed plovers, particularly when at roost, are often confiding to a degree as, on occasion, are turnstones and dunlin. Proof are in the photos.

At Bradiford water toward the end of September some birders - myself included - hoping to see the spotted crake that as spent a couple of weeks here logged two whinchats instead!

• Curlew with its ragworm meal

Did I see the red-breasted flycatcher when on Lundy on September 26? (One had been seen earlier that week on the lundy). I will never know but when journeying down the beach road for embarkation I caught sight, across Millcombe valley, of a flycatcher species. It had briefly perched on a wire fence before flying back into some bushes. But time did not permit further investigation. At once birdwatching can be the most rewarding and the most tantalising of pursuits ...

• Dunlin resting at high tide

Yellow is the colour in high summer

sally.fairbrother@archant.co.uk — Wed, 05 Aug 2009 09:20:00 GMT

There are many yellow-coloured wildflowers presently showing along the Tarka Trail!

Prominent of course are the various hawkweed, sow-thistle and ragwort species, not forgetting representatives of the cabbage - cruciferae - family such as charlock and the statuesque hedge mustard. Common Fleabane, golden-road, common toadflax, lady's bedstraw, ribbed melilot, meadow vetchling, tansy, St John's wort, yellow bartsia, evening primrose, bird's foot trefoil, agrimony, fennel, yellow wort, tutsan, tormentil and silverweed are all to be found at some point along the way.

• Tansy was once known in Devonshire as golden buttons.

This year, at Instow, I came upon the most impressive stand of henbane I have ever seen.

• The flower of the henbane

Here the majority of the plants are five feet tall with stiff decurved branches spanning a similar distance outwards and bearing rows of seed capsules. At the ends of the branches are the bell-shaped flowers mirroring those of the petunia. Henbane is a member of the plant order Solanaceae, to which belong the valuable Bella Donna, potato and tomato. And the accursed tobacco!

• Seed capsules ofhenbane

The Ancients found medicinal uses for henbane and its properties are very much in demand still...

THE WONDERS OF MIGRATION - A PAINTED LADY YEAR

sally.fairbrother@archant.co.uk — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 12:24:00 GMT

Natural migration is one of the world's wonders. Consider the many bird species little bigger than babies' fists flying epic journeys, through heat and tempest over desert, forest and ocean for a spring and summer stay in Britain. And then, within the year, undertaking the same distance again, back to their wintering grounds. Just think of the arctic tern, flying from the top of the northern hemisphere to the base of the southern, for the continued perpetuation of the species!

• Willow Warbler

Here in the southwest we have enjoyed a fine start to the season with a visit at Velator pond, Braunton, of a garganey a duck species unusual as being a summer, not winter visitor to this country from Africa. From the same continent warblers seem to have arrived in strength, particularly the common whitethroat. And whimbrel have passed through in number.

Such feats of endurance are staggerng to contemplate. And yet. insects, delicate entities weighing hardly a gram, also make these epic flights. A few butterfly and moth speces annually arrive here in varying quantity.

• Painted Lady Butterfly

Painted lady butterflies are found worldwide, with the exception of South America. Those that arrive here in the UK - and in an average year found sparingly - will have migrated from the desert fringes of north Africa along an eastward spreading line to central Asia. However every decade or so there is a mass invasion into mainland Europe and upwards into the UK. This is brought about by exceptional rainfall in their homelands triggering a bountiful supply of foodplants. In consequence, mass hatches of the insects occur, in turn producing a mass movement away from the natal areas owing to an inexorable sharp decline in vegetation. There was a painted lady 'year' beginning toward the end of May into June 1996, which I well remember - finding them plentiful at Westward Ho! ) At that time a prolonged flypast, from mid-afternoon to dusk, was witnessed over one mid-Devon village by a Fellow of The Royal Entomological Society no less. It is also recorded that 1879 and 1903 were exceptional years.

• Underwings of a Painted Lady Butterfly

The sheer volume of this year's influx would suggest it to be at the very least on a par with these. Millions have wafted across the English Channel and made it far beyond the Scottish border! Travelling distances in excess of a thousand miles to reach us these insects certainly elicit awe.

Having seen one's and two's as early as April I suspected it might be a good year for the species. At Instow on May 30 this notion was certainly vindicated for off the estuary they were breezing in at head height throughout the day. And numerous all along the coastal strips as well as the hinterland. Painted ladies are strong fliers with exceptional stamina and are abroad far longer during daylight hours than other butterfly species - well into the evening. In fact I have seen them still active at 9.00pm. Feeding on thistles, mallows, burdock and nettles there is little fear of their larvae defoliating crop or garden plants. In fact they should be welcomed for their weed control potential.

Compared to other (bright-liveried) members of the Nymphalidae to which it belongs - eg Purple Emperor, Red Admiral and Camberwell Beauty - it is, in my opinion, dull in appearance having a flat base colour of tawny-brown falling short of redemption by black markings and white spots on the forewings.

February nature notes

sally.fairbrother@archant.co.uk — Mon, 23 Feb 2009 10:27:00 GMT

The past week has thrown up a few interesting birdwatching surprises here in north Devon. Firstly I went out to Newbridge near Bishops Tawton on 18th Feb to check out the flocks of geese and swans frequenting the fields bordering the railway line and Taw. Consorting with the many Canadas was a black swan and I must say the creme de la creme of its kind.

On the opposite bank the small group of Mutes held a Whooper. In the same field common snipe by the score - perhaps as many as an hundred - were flushed.

On Saturday 21st February I went in search of the cattle egret recently seen in the Yelland area off the Tarka Trail. Although I didn't encounter the bird I was treated to a gathering of six spoonbills - three adults and three immatures - at the RSPB's Isley Marsh. Two of the spoonbills had been ringed which suggests they had flown in from Holland, or maybe Spain?

The Lapwing or Peewit or Green Plover

sally.fairbrother@archant.co.uk — Thu, 05 Feb 2009 17:16:00 GMT

In times of harsh weather, such as we are experiencing in this young New Year, our feathered brethren are daily tested to the limit. Feeding methods, evolved over millennia, can now prove decisive to the survival of hundreds of their number. For obvious reasons predatory birds and waterfowl generally hold an advantage over insectivorous or ground-feeding species. (Have the goldcrests and chiffchaffs, espied along stretches of the Tarka Trail over Christmas, come through? Also the Dartford warblers seen on Saunton Down before the Arctic onslaught?)

• The handsome lapwing or peewit

From the beginning of winter few of us locals can have failed to notice the ubiquitous presence of lapwings in fields bordering our roadways, or on marshland and estuary. Did these handsome green, black and white birds, with chestnut undertail and, in British birds, the unique permanently erect crest, presage the exceptional winter ahead and move downward and westward from mainland Europe in larger than normal numbers? And how right was that observer who described a lapwing flock looking 'like a flickering chequerboard'. As long as the ground remains yielding then the lapwing, widely known to countryman as the peewit ( in books often called the green plover, describing its upper colouring ) will be able to probe with its bill to find the invertebrates needed for nourishment. But should frost ironbound the soil it will have to look elsewhere. The mudflats and underbanks of the tidal rivers will suspend starvation.

Forty or fifty years ago the lapwing - or peewit as I called it in those days - was a regular nesting bird in north Devon but 'advances' in agricultural practices ie. land drainage and general intensification - have, lamentably, driven it from traditional breeding grounds. In my boyhood I fondly remember the springtime sight and sound of peewits over a particular rushy field near my home. Now I have to journey to the Exe estuary, where still they breed, to relive and refresh on that special joie de vivre.

In these present conditions however their plaintive cries arouse pity...

• Chestnut undertail feathers of lapwing

Waxwings at Roundswell

sally.fairbrother@archant.co.uk — Thu, 08 Jan 2009 09:42:00 GMT

Waxwings those exotic casual visitors are presently in North Devon. January 5, a dull half-lit day suddenly found redemption in my eyes. For quite by chance I spotted twelve of these much hoped for birds in a tree at Roundswell, Barnstaple. It was after 4am when I took the photos so I sent a message to Jay Nicholson, a keen birder and 'snapper', to visit the site the following day and hopefully find both better light and the birds!

His results are represented here.

As a result of berry crop failure in Scandinavia waxwings in their thousands have been crossing the North Sea into Scotland and the eastern side of England since last Autumn. Many of the flocks have filtered out across the country as berry stocks here are decimated.

Sadly, a high proportion of the visitors will never make it back to the extreme NorthEastern Europe breeding grounds from where they originally came.

PICTURES: Jay Nicholson

Autumn wildfowl in North Devon

sally.fairbrother@archant.co.uk — Tue, 25 Nov 2008 11:47:00 GMT

For the birdwatcher the weeks and months through autumn and winter are as full of interest as any other, as several species of wildfowl move down from their high Arctic breeding grounds. Hotspots, of course, are coast, estuary and lake, places more than likely to throw up an unusual if not rare, sighting.

• Great Northern diver.
Photo: Jay Nicholson

• Little egret chases its
aquatic prey

• Curlew in November

• Turnstones at skern

• Brents over the
skern embayment.

On October 23 I received a message from Torringtonian Jay Nicholson. Earlier that day he had been on a "Coastwise" course at Ilfracombe aquarium and afterwards, with camera to hand, took a stroll over to the harbour. To his surprise and delight, there in the outer harbour was a great northern diver - in full spangled breeding plumage! And, further good fortune, it continued to swim into the inner harbour and, so close did it come into the side, he was able to shot a couple of good frames using just a standard lens. Well done Jay, I'm envious, few people this far south get to see the bird in eye-catching summer plumage.

In my early teens I had read Great Northern? by Arthur Ransome and ever since I have dreampt of seeing (and hearing) Gavia immer in its breeding plumage and habitat. Of course I have seen the occasional individual here along the north Devon coast eg. Morte Point, Yelland, Hartland - but only in the sombre winter livery of grey upper and white under parts. But strikingly white underparts one must say, revealed as I have seen on occasion when, after a meal the bird goes through a vigorous belly preening, rolling onto its side with leg held aloft.

All the five northern hemisphere species of diver - ie. great northern, red-throated, black-throated, Pacific and white-billed - can be seen from time to time in British waters. The best records in this part of the world must come from Cornwall's shores where both the rarely seen white-billed and pacific have appeared.

On the notably clear and bright morning of November 1 I was in Appledore with spotting scope and camera hoping to get a photograph or two of the King Eider, a remarkably rare visitor from the circumpolar regions. It goes without saying twitchers are coming from all over the country to get their "tick". It was in the bay off the Skern when I spotted it but as for a photograph, not a chance. It led me a merry dance, always staying just out of range for a decent shot. All the same it was good to see it - and should it return next winter even better, for then it will be a splendid sight indeed sporting a full orange frontal lobe extending from red bill to forehead. There are four species of eider: Steller's, common, king and spectacled. Three of the species, including the King of course would not normally be seen this far south, but it isn't unusual to find groups of common eider down here during the winter especially by the Instow/Yelland jetties...

The camera did get some use though. On the upper tidal mudflats of the Skern embayment a flock of twenty turnstones were, well flipping over stones and found to be fairly approachable before running faster than my walking pace could maintain equi-distance. Nonetheless I managed to get some closer shots when they decided to fly down to the tideline. The brents were there too and the usual curlew, redshank, little egret and oystercatchers.

Travelling back from Appledore I checked out Fremington Creek. Pretty quiet but a greenshank with the commoner species.

Late July Nature Notes

sally.fairbrother@archant.co.uk — Fri, 25 Jul 2008 10:38:00 GMT

As well as a number of grasses and several wildflower species of mid to late summer display architectural qualities, these include plants such as hedge mustard, bristly ox-tongue, weld and members of the thistle, willow-herb and the carrot families.

• Common blue damselflies

• Sea lavender at Isley Marsh.

• Perennial flax.

Chicory is another summer arrival, with unmistakable cornflower-blue flowers, which open and close in synchrony with the sun's rising and setting. Although chicory is not common, there are at least some sites locally where it can be found in groups. One place is alongside the Tarka Trail at Instow. Chicory plants have been cultivated for a long time as both the root and flower serve some culinary or medicinal purpose.

Enjoying a similar habitat to chicory is the more ubiquitous goats beard or jack-go-to-bed-at-noon, whose flowers peculiarly open during the morning hours.

I was pleased to find yellow bartsia along the trail, together with vipers bugloss, agrimony, soapwort and eyebright. Sea-lavender formed mats of lilac along the foreshore at Isley marsh and, in the reed-beds, there were common blue damselflies by the score. On a grassy bank nearer the mouth of the estuary there are many blue flowers of perennial flax, a lovely slender plant. Here there was also marbled white, ringlet and small skipper butterflies.

Adjacent, on the shingle foreshore, there was a gathering of circa 100 oystercatchers ...
One of the commonest butterflies at this time is the gatekeeper. It is another good year for migrant butterflies and moths ie. hummingbird hawkmoth, silver Y, clouded yellow etc. But the intense prolonged heat is beginning to test our trees and in some instances has triggered leaf-fall.

Contact Stewart Beer at: stewart.naturalist@btinternet.com

A sea lamprey moves up the River Taw to spawn.

sally.fairbrother@archant.co.uk — Mon, 19 May 2008 09:31:00 GMT

A warm and sunny afternoon spent logging natural history from the Tarka Trail just out of Barnstaple ended on a high note indeed. Having stopped to admire a resplendent drake shelduck feeding alongside its smaller mate by a channel of shallow water - it being low tide time - my attention was diverted by movement 20 metres upstream. Intermittent thrashes in barely its own depth of water was what appeared to be a conger eel. Lifting my binocular and seeing that the marine creature bore a mottled back and, to each end orange-yellow colouration, this first thought was immediately banished. Inwardly sprang the words - lamprey, a sea lamprey!

Sea lamprey: a 500 million years ancestry

With camera case and binocular held aloft I carefully slide down the concrete embankment and after a few tentative steps blithely advanced out toward the waters-edge. Even here the mud-bed remained firm. Without further ado I sploshed out to photograph the impressive specimen slowly making its way upriver to spawning grounds. Now at my very feet lay the link to the fossil Agnatha, the earliest (jawless and cartilaginous) fishes of our oceans...

Almost fifty years have elapsed since my boyhood sightings of lampreys in the wild. Those also had been in the waters of the River Taw, at Umberleigh. Summers spent wading or swimming in the cold clear waters - yet to be severely fouled - sometimes resulted in a glimpse of Lampetra fluviatilis the River Lamprey: once or twice these being seen attached to the flank of one kind of fish or another. (The versed "Derby-Boughs" of that same period were luckier than I, noting in the River Yeo adjacent to where the Silver Leat housing estate now stands, the movement upstream of salmon and sea trout and, yes, sea lampreys ).

But here now was the ultimate view of a petromyon marinus, a specimen the length and girth of my arm. Its colouration, the size and configuration of the two dorsal fins, the seven gill slits to each side, the large eyes and the single nostril on the upper surface of the head were effortlessly registered. Only the downward facing mouthpart, or sucker, containing row on row of teeth used in the rasping away of scaled flank and flesh remained, to the greater part, hidden. Uncasing the camera I fired off several frames for later scrutiny and, I hoped, a selective few good enough to grace a page of the North Devon Gazette!

One of several Henry Willliamson books in my collection is Salar The Salmon. It is an inspirational work and one I often delve into, rejoicing in its imagery. Here on the river-bed I was sharply aware of Henry's tale for Chapter 5 is titled Lamprey and in it Salar encounters Petromyzin or Stone-sucker. And Petromyzin's relation Myxine, 'the glutinous hag of the Two Rivers'. A group even stranger than lampreys are Hagfish...

FACTS

There are three species of lamprey in British waters. Sea Lamprey Petromyzon marinus, River Lamprey Lampetra fluviatilis and Brook Lamprey Lampetra planeri.

Ammocoetes. There is a larval stage in the development of lampreys. This tadpole-like larva, remaining burrowed in a silt-bed for between 3 to 7 years before metamorphosing into true adult form, was once thought to be a distinct species, thus dubbed Ammocoetes.

Anadromous. A word describing fish such as lampreys and salmon that migrate from salt water to fresh water to spawn - and invariably to expire thereafter...

Through the middle ages and later lamprey pie was highly regarded by the royal courts. In 1135 King Henry 1 (fourth son of Willliam the Conqueror ) died in Normany from, reputedly, a surfeit of Lampreys! The City of Gloucester, in token of their loyalty to the royal family annually presented a lamprey pie to the reigning sovereign, a tradition ended in 1836 for reasons of costs! Lamprey remains a culinary experience in parts of Europe with Portugal favouring the Petromyzon marinus.

Contact Stewart Beer at: stewart.naturalist@btinternet.com

• Stewart’s anthology An Exaltation of Skylarks, now with four colour plates added, is published by SMH Books ISBN 978-0-9512619-7-2. It can be ordered from all good bookshops, or directly from www.smh-books.co.uk

Robin Redbreast

sally.fairbrother@archant.co.uk — Sat, 01 Mar 2008 10:45:00 GMT

For practically the whole course of my life I have been conscious of the work of the eminent ornithologist David Lack (1910-1973).

• Andrew Lack speaks at
Blackwell's, in Oxford

Mr Lack taught biology at Dartington Hall between 1934 and 1938, where he made his classic study of robins leading to his best-known work The Life Of The Robin. This ran to several editions and once was even used as an O level English text. ( In David G. Jenks' A History Of Devonshire Ornithere are several references to his studie ). He produced other authoritative titles - thirteen in total - including Darwin's Finches (1947) and Swifts In A Tower (1956). One book published in 1950 was a literary collection titled Robin Redbreast.

Imagine my surprise and delight when early last year his likewise distinguished son Dr Andrew Lack, since 1987 a lecturer in biology at Oxford, contacted me. Andrew, it transpired, was engaged in updating and extending Robin Redbreast, now long out of print. It was a honour for me to get involved, to help a little in the transformed version. And, as Richard Mabey says in his Foreword to Redbreast, it really is "a rich re-working" showing that "the bird has always been there in a corner of our hearts".

This charming selection of robin verse and lore is contained in twelve chapters each with a beguiling heading, as follows. 1. 'Tamest of the Feathered Race.' 2. The Saga of *** Robin. 3. 'Piously did Cover them with Leaves.' 4. Robins and Prisoners. 5. 'Robin Redbreast Tunes his Note'. 6. 'Lord in Heaven, how he Sings!' 7. The Robin in Myth and Folklore. 8. 'The Westminster Wonder.' 9.The Robin's Home Life. 10. 'A Robin Redbreast in a Cage.' 11. Robins and Children 12. A Happy Christmas. A literati tour de force yes, with Edmund Spenser, William Shakespeare, Ben Jonson, Christina Rossetti, Thomas Hardy, Robert Bridges, Ted Hughes and over a hundred others represented within the covers, but also an array of revealing studies/observations.

David Lack himself considered the alacrity with which robins can build a nest. "Robins can build fast, the record perhaps being one that built in a gardener's coat pocket between 9.15, when the man had hung up his coat in a shed and lunchtime, when the nest was almost complete. The robin had occasionally been reported ousting another bird from its nest, and even sharing a nest with a great tit or a pied wagtail. "( Records from David Lack, The Life of the Robin, 1943 ). There are two North Devon references. A poem by the Rev. W. Burdett c.mid 19th cent., inspired by a robin's nest found in the reading-desk of North Molton church. And from R.D.Blackmore's Lorna Doone comes "Everyone knows that robins sing all night," which somewhat dispels the theory of street-lighting, and modern-day traffic niose, inducing nocturnal tunings! A truly classic anthology it will bear endless dipping into

Terence Lambert painted the book jacket and there are photos taken by Andrew Lack and cartoons drawn by Euan Dunn (currently head of Marine Policy at the RSPB)
within. The official publication date was February 25.

REDBREAST The Robin in Life and Literature by Andrew Lack ( hardback, £19.95 ) is available from or through good booksellers or, in case of difficulty, from SMH Books, Pulborough, West Sussex, RH20 1NG (email address: smhbooks@email.com. Telephone01798 831906 ) £19.95, post-free. Cheques should be made payable to SMH Saer.

Contact Stewart Beer at: stewart.naturalist@btinternet.com

Calls of curlews

sally.fairbrother@archant.co.uk — Tue, 04 Sep 2007 09:52:00 GMT

On the first day of September, and with the aim of photographing curlews to supplement a magazine article I had just written, I made for the Tarka Trail at Pottington. And, as expected, by looking through the lens of the camera, through my binocular and with the naked eye, an interesting hour or so was enjoyed here.

• A curlew feeding at the water's edge.

• A curlew moments after taking flight.

Several wildflower species were registered still flowering. One of these was a single plant of the tall Lactuca serriola the prickly lettuce, with its slender stalked (yellow) flower-spikes. It is also known as the compass plant for, in full sunlight, the leaves are oriented north/south.

On the shingle between mudflat and seawall mat-forming oyster plants were still showing their bluish flowers.

Sitting with my back against the seawall with a patch of shingle ahead, I watched a small party of swallows circling ever lower above me. Presently these landed on the shingle to collect the smallest gritstones, then away again with cheery twitters. In my stillness - the secret of all living creatures is quiet - a rabbit came lolloping along and, within inches, passed me by before sensing my presence and accelerating away!

However, the real purpose of my visit this day could not escape my attention, for all around the exposed mudflats came the intermittent, wonderful calls of curlews. Fifty and more of them. And, for a final touch, black-tailed godwits.

Contact Stewart Beer at: stewart.naturalist@btinternet.com

A revelry of insects

sally.fairbrother@archant.co.uk — Mon, 25 Jun 2007 10:28:00 GMT

The prolonged dry spell has been of immense benefit to our early breeding birds and mammals, likewise pollination-seeking wildflowers, shrubs and trees.

• A holly blue butterfly
resting on bluebell

• A North Devon location f
or pyrenean lilies

• Crow garlic in flower.

Also taking full advantage of the conditions, the insect legions have appeared early and in force - bees having secured a bumper harvest of pollen and nectar.

There are macro and micro moths aplenty and the orange tip and holly blue, two of springtime's emblem butterflies, are also to be seen in numbers. It is difficult to obtain a photograph of the holly blue showing its wings opened to reveal those violet-blue colours but, be that as it may, the diagnostic white, black-dotted underwings have a quality that is a treat to the eye.

Various white butterflies are on the wing, including the female orange tip - without the orange tip borne by the males - green-veined white, the female brimstone and, to many gardeners' chagrin, more than usual numbers of the large and small white - the cabbage whites! Speckled woods are also now on the wing.

St Mark's Day saw the coming of a certain species of diptera, the St Mark's Fly. These easily recognisable wholly black insects - in flight their legs are held a-droop - gather in looseish swarms over hedgerows and grassland. This year I registered two swarms on consecutive days, April 28 and 29, close to the day dedicated to said Saint.

With a little foreknowledge it is easy to separate the sexes of bibio marci, the females being slightly longer than the males, but with markedly smaller heads than the latter whose compound eyes give a distinctly bulbous appearance. Within a fortnight, epitomising the transience of life, these insects, albeit relatively sluggish in their movements, will have mated, deposited eggs beneath the soil and disappeared from the countryside scene. Until the same time next year.

Sitting in my garden on April 29 I was spectator to a hypnotic rebounding flight display by the proverbial transient life-form. Through the glare of the sun I suddenly caught sight of a little winged marvel climbing vertically about a metre into the air and, without a pause, dropping down and rising again.

Four minutes this went on before the atom of energy broke away from its "dance" and pitched on the nearest fencing panel. Half-suspecting it to be a day-flying moth I moved in to get a closer view. However, the little fellow had only forewings - clear yet gloriously prismatic forewings - and it was then I realised I had been watching a May fly, Cloeon dipterum.

Recently, in two new sites within the parish boundaries, I espied crow garlic, allium vineale, in flower - both places being roadside verges, rank with herbage and, to date, unmown by the Highways team! Allium vineale is an unusal plant regarding its inflorescent configuration when the pleasing pinkish, six petalled flowers (similar, I think, to bog pimpernel) are held on in excess of a dozen slender, inch or longer stalks rising out of a cluster of bulbils atop the plantstalk.

Crow garlic was introduced into north America and Australia where it became an invasive "weed". The alliums do have a propensity for blanket growth, thinking now of (the white flowering) ramsons, or wild garlic, and three-cornered leek! These plants are members of the lily family Liliaceae which include bluebell, spring squill, common Star of Bethlehem and Solomon's Seal, all of which are in flower.

On Sunday, May 20, I took a slight gamble and went to the parish straddling the southern boundary of Exmoor to photograph Lillium pyrenaicum, the Pyrenean Lily, or Yellow Turk's Cap Lily. I believe it was recorded hereabouts in 1849 by the botanist G Maw: does any reader know if this was so? I knew it was a little early to find any of these exotic plants in flower, but this year particularly everything seems to be appearing a week or two earlier.

I wasn't to be disappointed. I found a colony of a score and more of the unmissable plants
atop a high broad hedgebank - and three were already beginning to bloom!

In Christina Rosetti's famous poem, the lilies say: "Behold how we Preach without words of purity". Beautiful blooms they most certainly are, the yellow, dark-spotted pendent, recurved petals making the pinkish stamens a feature. My mind's eye transported me to their native Pyrenees, home of spectacular scenery and spectacular wildlife.

Here in "the land of bare hills", as the Celts labelled the village/parish, the plant of foreign lineage shares its new range with red deer, not chamois, with buzzard, not lammergeier!

"Why take ye thought for raiment? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow, they toil not, neither do they spin. And yet I say unto you that even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these." St Matthew. Ch6. V28-29.

Contact Stewart Beer at: stewart.naturalist@btinternet.com

An extraordinarily warm spring

sally.fairbrother@archant.co.uk — Mon, 07 May 2007 10:03:00 GMT

BY MID APRIL most members of the corvidae and turdidae are near to, or have completed, the raising of first, or only, broods. Rooks are well on course to do so, usually closely followed by the solitary nesting carrion crows. I have watched yet another pair of the latter species dismantle their old nest to rebuild a few hundred yards away!

• A mistle thrush collects food
for its young.

• The orange tip butterfly
appears mid-Spring.

• Piggyback to pastures
new: Stewart photographed
these snails earlier in the
season just as they emerged
from hibernation

• A voice of early spring.

Jackdaws, especially town birds, start the breeding season a little later than their country cousins and, even towards the end of April, can be seen gathering twigs, with much tugging and twisting from leaf unfurling trees.

The early starting mistle thrushes along with many pairs of blackbirds, robins and song thrushes have reared first broods.

I first heard, then saw, newly fledged robins on April 21and this reminded me of an incident the previous week when I thought I had happened upon newly fledged robins being tended to by their parents. However, on this occasion, it was a ritualistic pair bonding act where the *** robin was offering his partner a beakful of insects and she was calling in a thin metallic voice so like the juveniles she will later rear into the world.

Whilst working on my allotment, on April 22, three *** blackbirds - focused on parental duties, therefore pugnacity abandoned - flew down together to peck at the freshly turned soil, capturing worms with their splendid spring-bright bills. There were three blackbirds'
nests nearby then. As yet unpaired *** blackbirds are still doing battle with each other but, in their eagerness, low fast chases result in many striking speeding vehicles, a lamentable end for universally beloved songsters.

Once arrived, swallows waste precious little time in choosing a mate and a nesting site. Then, to bolster the numbers of their kind, tirelessly these gentle aerial wonders race, 'til summer's end.

By the third week of April many beech trees are already cloaked in satin leaves and oak leaves too are unfurling. Hawthorn blossom is showing and bluebells are beginning to open.There are also sweeps of white deadnettle and comfrey along the wayside.

On April 21, at Huntshaw, a roller-pulling tractor sent up a thick cloud of soil particles which drifted across the field over the hedge and across the B3232. On the same day, and for the following two, at Whiddon Valley on the outskirts of Barnstaple, there were intermittent snow-like showers of dandelion pappus.

The following day, April 22, at the same location saw, high above, my first swift of the year, a lone swift, consorting with a small gathering of house martins and swallows.

The early and consistently fine spring has certainly seen this April's delicious advance meshing with the Maytime!

Contact Stewart Beer at: stewart.naturalist@btinternet.com

• Stewart’s anthology An Exaltation of Skylarks, now with four colour plates added, is published by SMH Books ISBN 0 9512619 7 5. It can be ordered from all good bookshops.

Sparrowhawks - readers' sightings

sally.fairbrother@archant.co.uk — Sun, 01 Apr 2007 10:35:00 GMT

FOLLOWING my article on the sparrowhawk I have been contacted by Robert James of Lee, near Ilfracombe and Richard Huxtable, of Beaford.

• A sparrowhawk
photographed by Beaford
resident Richard Huxtable

• A sparrowhawk in a garden
at Lee, Ilfracombe. By Robert
James

Robert tells me his garden is often 'inspected' by these swift-flying fearless raptors. And well they might, for his doubtless large garden draws in a large and rich variety of birds,including - and he has sent me photos to prove it - yellow hammers! He regularly feeds visiting foxes and, recently, five badgers. Photos of these to follow he says ...

Richard Huxtable has also seen some sparrow hawks and said:

"We are regularly seeing Sparrowhawks circling the village and making off with small birds, even plucking them on a garden tree nearby. "

"Recently the female has been seen sitting on my garden fence. Last Friday she daringly flew down the back of our terrace, which ends in my garage wall, making a right angle turn with washing lines and kids toys everywhere to capture a collared dove with a soft 'Floomp' easily heard indoors. I managed to get a few shots before she took to the air with the dispatched prey swinging gently in one hand."

"Also this afternoon a juvenile Tiercel has turned up!"

Well thank you both for sharing your encounters with our fearless raptor whose catastrophic mid-twentieth century population collapse now seems distant indeed.