Clare Topping – Page 29 – Enviro-Mentalist

Greenfinches – where did they go and why are they back?

When I first moved to Daventry my back garden was a barren wasteland with respect to little feathered friends. Eventually, after putting out peanuts and other bird foods, rather than the expected starlings and sparrows, our first visitors were greenfinches. We have welcomed these back every year, including some youngsters, numbers increasing as I tempted them in with sunflower hearts.

However, this Winter, there seems to have been a dearth of the little fellows with chaffinches being this season’s greenfinch. Where I had regularly seen 6 or 8 of them fighting over the feeders this year there were just one or two. I mentioned this to someone at the Northamptonshire Bird Club who knows more about such things than I, and he also seemed to think that the numbers were down. He thought they may have succumbed to a disease that has hit finches over the last couple of years.

This morning, I opened the blinds to look at the windy world and immediately counted 8 greenfinches in the garden. I don’t know where they went especially when the weather was cold and the bird numbers in the garden increased, but I certainly welcome the greedy little chap and chapesses back to fight over the feeders once more.

Frogspawn

I have anxiously been listening out for the sounds of Spring – the birds are singing, the expected flowers are starting to show up in various places and it is therefore with some anticipation that I have been listening out every morning for the sounds of frogs singing in the pond.

Other people had seen frog spawn in their ponds weeks ago, I was beginning to wonder if it was the fact that I had a north facing garden or whether we had upset the frogs by renovating their home last Summer. We spotted our first frogs last week, and this morning we saw frogspawn. See the photoevidence – please accept my apologies for the poor quality.

Now the worry starts – we have had the pond for a few years now, but apart from some tadpoles from some imported spawn we have not had any tadpoles yet. The frost has usually killed it all off in the past, but we are hoping that the fact that we have deepened the pond and the spawn is near the bottom may give them a chance this year. Fingers crossed!

Migration – the lengths that some creatures go to.

I have become a huge fan of podcasts in the last few months, one of which I subscribe to being the BBC’s best of Natural History Radio. The last two weeks have been ‘World on the Move’, a series looking at the migration of species around the world.

Some of the highlights have included a visit to Gambia to look for the warblers that will be returning to the UK to breed in the Summer – it certainly puts a different slant on things to hear about ‘African’ rather than ‘British’ Chiffchaffs and Whitethroats. Apparently the Housemartins already appear to be on the move north. We are also asked to look out for Painted Lady butterflies and report in our first sightings of them. These amazing creatures migrate over from Africa – 1000 miles; there are networks of people looking for them all the way from Spain through Europe, they have even managed to reach Sweden in the past! Not bad for such a fragile-looking creature. However, one of the hardiest creatures is possibly the Alaskan Bar-Tailed Godwit. One of these was tagged and flew non-stop from Alaska to New Zealand, 11,700 kilometres in 8 days – not surprisingly she now holds the record for the longest non-stop flight. I think you have to agree that this is pretty amazing.

Should you want to find out more there is a lot of interesting information on the BBC website – http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/worldonthemove

What’s so musical about a song thrush?

Whenever anyone talks about song thrushes (particularly as it now seems as though they are yet another previously common bird that are apparently in decline) they always seem to wax lyrical about their song (I guess that explains the name; turdus musicus).

This has always been a bit of a mystery to me. When I grew up we used to have a large tree at the bottom of the garden on which a male blackbird used to perch and sing every evening. To me this always seemed more musical than the song thrush. It is certainly a more varied song than that of the song thrush which is a bit repetitive.

However, I am now changing my opinion. After starting my contribution to Nature’s Calendar late last year I have been listening out for song thrushes to see if they are singing all through the Winter or not. Yes, you’ve guessed it they are – there are two round here, one on the old railway track that I can hear through the double glazing and another closer to work, both of which have cheered otherwise dull, dark Winter days as I slogged to work through the rain.

I have never really thought twice about the thrush’s song until recently, in fact it is only in the last year that I realised how recognisable its depth makes it. I then started to wonder why it is so well loved as to even give rise to the latin name, after all robins are pretty musical, not to mention nightingales, but they are apparently not musicus enough. It was then that I found a quote in an old book that I have (British Birds and Their Haunts) that was published nearly 100 years ago that I think sums it up eloquently. ‘However near it may be, its song is never harsh, and heard at a distance its only defect is, that it is not nearer.’

More Evidence for a Cold Winter?

I decided that I would go for a spot of birdwatching today at the Country Park, although the black clouds and horizontal rain this morning did make me think twice.

However, the sun emerged in the afternoon, so I bade farewell to my long suffering beloved and set off with my ‘scope slung over my shoulder and headed east (on foot of course). Once again there seemed an absence of small birds at the park and very little birdsong to be heard above the roaring wind.

I edged out onto the dam clutching my ‘scope in the hope that we would anchor each other against the wind. The first thing that I noticed was the large number of wigeon around the edge of the water. The second, and slightly disappointing thing, was that the golden plovers seem to have moved on.

I moved down the dam to look at some of the birds further along and have subsequently decided that Winter has come early this year. I usually decide that Winter has arrived when the goosanders make it to the reservoir, last year this was around Christmas. Well, as you may have guessed they are here already, and in greater numbers, I counted 24 today, twice the number that I have seen before.

Time to get the thermals out?

My First Bird Atlas Survey

It was with some trepidation that we set out today to complete the first timed visit to one of the two tetrads that I signed up for. The trepidation was in part due to the dark clouds that were massing and partly because neither of us had done a survey before.

We had planned our route to take the full two hours and take in as many habitats as possible and I think we did pretty well; we managed to include housing estates (old and new), industrial estates, town centre, playing fields, churchyard, reservoir, scrubby fields and old railway track.

It took a bit of getting used to, trying to identify, count and record the birds and trying to decide if you had already seen that one. My initial worries about my bird knowledge were unfounded as it is about commonly seen birds and at this time of year I can recognise them most of the time.

Entering the data when we got back was easy and apparently the number of blackbirds (78) and house sparrows (60) that I saw were noteworthy. I have to say that the churchyard and the old railway track were teeming with blackbirds, which seems pretty representative of Dav this year. Other things that I noted were the almost complete absence of robins (I only saw 7 in the entire tetrad) and wrens, and some areas where we tend to see birds week in week out were empty (some might say almost desolate) particularly of finches.

Another result that suprised us was that the number of birds that we saw in older housing estates with established gardens was lower than in the newer housing estates. Oh yes, we also saw only one song thrush, but I did see my first redwings.

My other tetrad covers more farmland and part of the canal so there should be some different results there.

A birding first for me and my garden – are we in for a cold Winter?

Last Sunday it snowed here in Daventry (and in numerous other places in the Midlands). The snow settled, but had gone by morning. On thinking about this I cannot remember the last time I saw snow in November – it snows in April more than in November, and this time last year there were still Red Admiral butterflies about feeding on the ivy flowers.

The cold weather also seems to have brought increased bird activity in the garden. Although I am at work during the week my other half keeps me informed to the best of his ability (having only a beginner’s knowledge of bird types) of the number and varieties of birds that he sees during the day. This week he was trying his best to describe a bird that didn’t look like the other birds (his description was by necessity hampered by being colour-blind and I couldn’t decide what it was that he had seen).

Yesterday when watching a flock of 8 greenfinches in the tree I saw what I at first thought was one of the chaffinches that had been about earlier, but it didn’t look quite right. It flew away before I could confirm my suspicions, but came back later. Yes, said my beloved, that’s the one that has been in the garden for the last few days. As you may have guessed it was a Brambling (female I think) and the first time I have seen one (although I have always been hopeful as there seem to be a lot of sightings around). As this is the first time I have seen one in my garden, and it is November and the food out in the fields should not yet be too scarce I am wondering if this is a portent of cold weather to come this Winter.

First Frosts

On my way to work this morning (and for the past week) everything has looked so beautiful, the sun is just coming up, all the plants are coated in frost and the air is so still that even the industrial units look stunning bathed in an orange glow and reflected in the lake.

Autumn and Winter have combined into a colourful, but subdued tapestry.

So, by walking to work, not only do I get some exercise, I get to look at what nature is exhibiting and, as an extra Brucie Bonus I arrive at work toasty warm. If I get bit chilly by lunchtime – time for another walk.

I work in an office surrounded by people that constantly complain that it is cold. Now that the weather has been a little frosty in the morning (or bitterly cold as my colleagues choose to describe it) the air conditioning has been turned up to heat the office to 26oC and, if I didn’t turn it off each evening it would be left on continuously.

If only my colleagues could be persuaded to leave their car behind and walk the 20- 30 minutes to work then we would cut costs, reduce the carbon footprint and I wouldn’t have to listen to them constantly complaining about the cold!

Carroty Contentment

I have been in the same job for seven years now and to be perfectly honest do not enjoy the majority of it. It is not that I couldn’t enjoy the job that I do, it is just that I seem to spend most of my time frustratingly fixing the same avoidable problems. This week I had one of those weeks that has actually persuaded me that it may be time to finally move on and I have applied for a job that will involve at least a 40 minute commute, going against all of my principles and for what? It is not as if (should there be any such thing) that when I am at the Pearly Gates I will be marked by the job that I have done, the size of my bank balance and the perceived success that I have achieved in the world of work (although who would judge that and against what criteria I am not sure).

So, after a pants week at work I was hoping to be able to fill my precious weekend with fulfilling useful accomplishments. Inspired by the tulips on Gardener’s World on Friday night, my beloved and I decided that we would go to the garden centre to check out the spring bulbs. We were completely thwarted, we tried two garden centres only to be confronted by a mass of Christmas tat where the bulbs used to live (don’t get me started on the subject of Christmas – I could rant for days). On Saturday night we settled down to watch a film that a work colleague lent me – 300. This was the worst film I have seen since Charlie’s Angels, I feel I was robbed of two hours of my life! The weekend was not going to plan.

You may be wondering where all this is going and what it has to do with Carrots. Well, today I had planned to visit one of the two tetrads that I have volunteered to survey for the BTO Bird Atlas. I got the Ordnance Survey map out, we planned the route to take in all the habitats that we could in the two hours, and then the sky darkened and the wind picked up. If I went out today I am guessing that I wouldn’t see many birds as they would all be sat in the trees laughing at me getting soaked. So that left all of the jobs that I had been putting off; washing the ash off the car that all those fireworks kindly scattered (it was time for its annual wash anyway), do some more tidying in the garden, move what remains of the gooseberry once the sawfly had devastated it, that kind of thing. Whilst I was out there I decided it was time to empty the tub in which I had been attempting to grow carrots.

I had had a torrid time with the carrots (and everything else that wasn’t a courgette). I planted them with Welsh Onions in order to prevent an attack of the evil carrot fly that I had read about, I had carefully watered the seeds, covered them with a sheet of plastic to keep the pests out, watched as the little ferny seedlings had appeared and slowly got bigger, looked in disbelief as they vanished overnight (I know not where), not once but twice. I finally threw all caution to the wind and chucked some seed in the same compost in late Summer which seemed to grow. I had assumed that lack of thinning and late harvesting would lead to small and weedy carrots.

However, I was pleasantly surprised with my four bits of produce (they are not anaemic, they were meant to be different shades) and I found a strange kind of contentment that despite the poor weather and the disruption that has come from spending the last two years re-modelling the garden I still managed to grow something. I have come to the end of the weekend with a level of contentment that I have sadly never had from work, and the motivation to try again next year.

Autumn Colour (in praise of green)

I went out yesterday with the intention of utilising the sunny weather and the autumn colour to take some nice, if formulaic, photographs. Although the autumn display does not seem to be as bright as last year, I assume because of the wet Summer, there did seem to be a lot of yellow around.

Although I was thwarted by the fact that a large army of grey clouds turned up to hide the blue sky, I still managed to get some nice photos.

However, it did occur to me that it takes more than some yellow leaves and sunshine to make a spectacular autumn scene. Without the contrast of some evergreens or trees that shed their leaves later in the year I am sure even the brightest field maple would appear less attractive. I took the photograph below to illustrate this point. If you cover the green shrub next to the maple it starts to look a little less interesting.