 |
| Waders at Severn beach. Simon Williams |
January
Masters of freeze and thaw
 |
| Field Blewits Ceridwen |
I was taking a
winter walk down the banks of the River Severn below Upton, and in a riverside
meadow I came across some fungi, about six inches across with thick light brown
smooth shiny caps depressed in the middle, pale gills and pale thick stems.
What was striking was that after two nights of very heavy frost, and now being
thawed by bright morning sun, these apparently fragile creatures still
maintained their integrity and hadn’t deteriorated into a mush. I asked a
mycology friend what they might be – she correctly replied, ‘They could have been Field Blewits. I once
took one home that was frozen solid and when it thawed it still produced its
distinctive pale pink spore print!’ Clever nature – the most unusual creatures
turn out to be masters of freeze and thaw.
(I also enjoyed an article in a recent New Scientist titled 'Soils of War' by Lynne Boddy, mycologist at
Cardiff University, on fungi’s many cunning forms of attack and defense)
Shepperdine
 |
| Shepperdine. Ken Wilkins |
I recently explored the Shepperdine
village area on the Severn Estuary just north of Oldbury Power Station. It’s
an isolated area with the embankment
running past wide skies and wide river to the west, and stubble and vegetable
fields, big hedgerows, trees and rough areas inland. That day it was alive with
mixed flocks of hundreds of finches and buntings - linnet, chaffinch and yellowhammer
– creating a fabulously generous sight and sound, with treefuls of birds setting
up great murmurings. In nearby orchards hundreds of fieldfares were flying and chacking, and
eating mistletoe berries in the trees.
The lane through the village is called ‘Nupdown’ – a loony-tunes combination of Up and Down. Walk along it and you’ll find the tiny 'tin tabernacle' of St Mary the Virgin Church, a corrugated-iron chapel dating from 1914 but still in use, accessed via a tiny plank bridge through a hedgerow and down a rough little path...
The lane through the village is called ‘Nupdown’ – a loony-tunes combination of Up and Down. Walk along it and you’ll find the tiny 'tin tabernacle' of St Mary the Virgin Church, a corrugated-iron chapel dating from 1914 but still in use, accessed via a tiny plank bridge through a hedgerow and down a rough little path...
Gadwalls
 |
| Gadwalls. Tony Hisgett |
I really like how selective in
habitat those quietly elegant ducks the Gadwall are: they are most frequently
found on their own little pools away from the hoi polloi of other water birds.
A few days ago at Pilning Wetlands two pairs had left the first large lake to
the shovellers, Canada geese, tufted ducks and quarreling coots, and had taken
over a quiet arm of the further lake for their own, well away from any adjacent
lapwings and curlews. And walking from
Clevedon back to Portbury Wharf behind the salt marsh recently, there were two
pairs just visible in a most secretive secluded pool between rhines…
Crow
attack
Just now in front of our house there was
a fierce aerial attack by three crows on one other. They forced it onto the
pavement where it lay on its back, legs waving and wings beating, while they
gathered round and continued attacking it. It just managed to escape and flew
off still hotly pursued by the others. I wonder what its crime was? - my
impression is that crows generally rub along well enough with each other.
A colleague subsequently suggested I
look up ‘Crow courts’ and ‘rook parliaments’ - and what a strange world I
entered of folklore and eye-witness accounts of large groups of crows pecking
one of their number to death. There is much speculation but no-one making a good
case for a reason: one saying of rooks that they are punishing a persistent
nest robber; one saying the crows are carrying out a form of euthanasia on a
weak or ill member...
Severn
Beach
 |
| Severn Beach Matt Buck |
For the first time that I can remember,
Severn Beach actually has some sand sufficient to warrant its name! Today this mini-beach
was graced with about 250 dunlin feeding busily along the shore line.
(Severn Beach is famous for its
misleadingly alluring name, belied by the reality of its muddy gravelly
foreshore and a backdrop of the Avonmouth industrial complex...)
February
Orchard
Pools & Severn Beach
At Orchard Pools a song thrush
was singing a refrain that surely had been copied from a reed or sedge warbler!
In Severn Beach village,
twenty sparrows were having a dust bath on the high street, and more sparrows
in surrounding thickets were creating their striking ‘wall of sound’ effect. I
strolled along the new ‘beach’ and kicked the genuine sand - summer here we
come!
‘Plant
intelligence’ - a New Scientist article & letter
There was a fascinating recent
article in New Scientist magazine on intelligence in plants. A summary reads: ‘In
the past decade, researchers have been making the case for taking plants more
seriously. They are finding that plants have a sophisticated awareness of their
environment and of each other, and can communicate what they sense. There is
also evidence that plants have memory, can integrate massive amounts of
information and maybe pay attention. Some botanists argue they are intelligent
beings, with a ‘neurobiology’ all of their own. There is even tentative talk of
plant consciousness.’
I responded to the hotly
debated issue of what might define ‘plant intelligence’, and was very proud to
have my letter published at the end of January. It read:
‘Intelligence is a slippery and elusive thing to
define, as Anil Ananthaswamy’s article on plant intelligence (6 Dec 2014)
shows. However, in the context of living creatures I would define intelligence
pragmatically as an appropriate, non-mechanical survival response to an
ever-changing environment. This seems to cover the case for plants as well as
other organisms.’
Sexing
foxes
 |
| Red foxes. Keven Law |
A large fox was just exploring our back
garden. The first time it came right up to the patio, and the second time it inspected
the vegetable plot as I have seen them do before (I suppose sometimes they eat
the vegetables?), before moving gracefully over the fence to next door's garden.
Previously I would have sexed it - 'a male' if it was large with a strong broad face - 'female' if it looked daintier with a narrower face. However I recently attended a talk by Bristol University researcher Jo Dorning called 'The private life of the red fox' ( based primarily on research on Bristol foxes), where we learnt that it is actually difficult to accurately sex them without looking at their private parts... We also learnt that females only come into heat for three days of the year, generally in January, while the males anxiously hang about for their mating chance; so a friend who saw a fox couple mating a couple of weeks ago while riding round Abbotts Leigh actually caught a rare sight. Both sexes are promiscuous though there is a dominant pair in each social group, and litters often have cubs with different fathers - but generally everyone in that group mucks in and helps rear the cubs...
Previously I would have sexed it - 'a male' if it was large with a strong broad face - 'female' if it looked daintier with a narrower face. However I recently attended a talk by Bristol University researcher Jo Dorning called 'The private life of the red fox' ( based primarily on research on Bristol foxes), where we learnt that it is actually difficult to accurately sex them without looking at their private parts... We also learnt that females only come into heat for three days of the year, generally in January, while the males anxiously hang about for their mating chance; so a friend who saw a fox couple mating a couple of weeks ago while riding round Abbotts Leigh actually caught a rare sight. Both sexes are promiscuous though there is a dominant pair in each social group, and litters often have cubs with different fathers - but generally everyone in that group mucks in and helps rear the cubs...
 |
| Rookery. Rosser1954 |
Rooks
start nesting…
A friend gave me a recent
nature article from Matthew Oates ‘Nature Notebook’, saying that mid-February –
Valentine’s Day – is when we can see
rooks start their nest-building. It quoted a beautiful poem 'Thaw' by Edward Thomas:
“Over the land
freckled with snow half-thawed
The speculating
rooks at their nests cawed,
And saw from
elm-tops, delicate as flowers of grass,
What we below could
not see, Winter pass.”
Pattering for worms
 |
| Gull pattering Stanley Howe |
A gull was pattering for worms on a local
motorway roundabout - very successfully as it got a beakful every few seconds.
As usual it made me laugh - it's something about the incongruity of the
ballet-like dainty movements of their feet, like big actor Bernard Bresslaw
dressed up in women's underwear, as he was so often made to do in the ‘Carry On’
films...
Walton
Moor
The First Celandine – heralds
Spring.
The First Chaffinches heard
singing a full summer song – heralds Summer.
 |
| Aust Ferry Nicholas Mut.ton |
I went to an early morning extra-high tide at Aust this morning – exciting as the water surges up and over the road where normally it never reaches. A crow and gull frenzy builds up around forty minutes before high tide - perhaps when the water goes over the normal high tide safety-zone for the small mammals and pushes them into the open. I noticed that the crows are much better at catching these small creatures, while the gulls then try to steal the limp little bodies off the crows!
I managed to get marooned myself in the middle of the road, and had to ask for sanctury from a parked Land Rover as the water came up and over my boots...
In mid-February I went on a birdwatching trip to the Lac du Chantecoq
region in central France, to see cranes and other over-wintering birds there
while it is still very cold and wintery. It’s a region of huge man-made lakes
and surrounding old forests, and I saw many species new to me, and beautiful
spectacles including the haunting sight and sound of thousands of cranes flying
and calling over the lakes, and a white stork pair mating on a village rooftop,...
 |
| Cranes migrating Antonio |
However one abiding memory is of the long long drive from Calais
through France’s heartland of industrialised agriculture – literally hundreds
of miles of wildlife desert with every scrap of wild verge, hedgerow or
woodland copse eliminated or reduced to identical neatness. It sent a chill
through me...
 |
| Storks mating. David Wilson |
Singing Blackbird
 |
| Mike Pennington |
In France we stayed in the centre of the
medium-sized industrial town of St Dizier. One morning I woke early before dawn, and heard a blackbird
doing some soft practising outside our room - helped because even though it was
cold the rooms were overheated so we had our balcony doors open. I think I
always underestimate when the blackbirds start to sing - probably because my
bedroom windows at home are still closed at this time of year, and they seem to
practise so very early in the morning...
March
Shelduck
On the estuary foreshore by Shepperdine
yesterday, six shelduck were gracefully courting each other with dancing steps,
lowered and raised heads,
and crooning chattering calls
 |
| Common Reeds. Bernard Dupont |
At New Passage the large banks of reeds shook softly, and created a
moiré shimmer...
New nest
There’s a rookery on the main road on the outskirts of Easter Compton.
A new nest was being constructed, with one rook bringing in big twigs and the
other arranging them. The latter (I’m sure it’s very wrong of me to assume it
was the female...) took a twig, tried it here, tried it there, tried it over
there – it reminded me of the artist Heather Jansch searching for the perfect
piece of driftwood for one of her horse sculptures...
Warming!
Birdwatching today, for the
first time I felt able to fling off my coat and sweater and roll up the trousers…
ClaptonMoor
On Clapton
Moor south of Bristol, two herons were sitting quietly against a hedge,
sheltered from a biting north east wind... However it was very cheering to
see, in an otherwise almost leafless landscape, hawthorne hedgerows breaking
into green along the road.
Rookery
Survey
I and a friend took part in a
five-yearly rookery count carried out by our local naturalist’s group. Our Tickenham
area which my friend knows well, included five sites including on the moors, in
woods and along roads - many being quite hard to access. But for me who loves
rooks, it was a privileged chance to get closer to these lovely birds and their
home life. Sadly almost all sites had fewer nest numbers, one in woods was
severely reduced apparently by the actions of the neighbouring golf club, and
one had disappeared altogether, and we found no new sites. However the rooks
themselves don’t mourn but just get on with their busy chatty nest-building - their
favourite trees were ashes and they do love to be next to big flat grass fields…
 |
| Scarlet Elf Cups Ceridwen |
On a bird walk below
Marshfield, in lovely spring weather, we found Scarlet Elf Cup fungi in the woods
– exquisite small thin deep cups of brilliant scarlet within, growing from
decaying wood. They appear in late winter and early spring, and are apparently
rare in Britain except in the west – rare enough for me to be asked to submit a
record. We also saw primroses and purple violets, and one celandine flower with
a record fourteen petals…
Avon observations
 |
| Avon mud. Linda Bailey |
At Sea Mills today, a lovely
early spring day…
Some vagary of tidal flow had
just deposited a thick layer of the finest, shiniest, gloopiest mud along the
banks. In places it was draped into glossy flobbery domes, whose only
equivalent might be the look of fresh raw kidneys jostled together on a
butcher’s tray.
There was a small island of
mixed twigs, plant matter and rubbish floating down the river. A crow had
perched itself there and was allowing itself to be swept downstream on its own
little raft…
Blackbird
song continued…
I had been thinking that I
still wasn’t hearing the blackbirds’ song. Then on Saturday I woke stupidly
early – 4.30am. The windows were slightly open, and at around 4.45am while it
was still dark, a blackbird started singing beautifully. Before 5am it had finished and there were no other
songsters; and if I hadn’t been awake for that small window of time this brief
phenomenon would have totally passed me by...
Lapwings displaying, Goldcliff
 |
| Ken Billington |
However on a recent trip to the Newport Wetlands, within the protected
environs of the Goldcliff reserve (entirely surrounded by fox-proof fencing) -
lapwings were displaying – what a glorious sight. Oystercatchers were
displaying too and they both were searching busily for nest sites. Black-tailed godwits were changing from
their greyer winter plumage to summer garb with brick-red heads and necks. A marsh harrier hunted low over the reeds;
when it threatened scores of avocets they flew into the lagoon directly beneath it - to keep a better eye on the
enemy, perhaps? Seawards, a lone whimbrel was bathing and preening in its own
small pool atop the shoreline.
April
Tree flowers
 |
| Poplar catkin. Bob Embleton |
Some ash tree flowers are very
noticeable at the moment - like miniature dark red bouquets bursting out along
the twigs. A line of grey poplar trees along my local main road are currently
dropping an abundance of their big fat purple-red catkins that look like unnervingly
like caterpillars...
Avonmouth sunset
Driving back home across the bridge from Wales at sunset with the
Avonmouth industrial site in the background, there was a long cloud in the
mostly clear sky over the factories, shaped like a crocodile and exactly
holding the Sun in its jaws...
 |
| Philip Heron |
During the first ten-plus years we lived
in our terraced house in Filton, starlings nested annually in a front corner of
the attic, and the peepings of the nestlings formed a summery background noise in
the bedroom immediately below. Then a subsequent loft conversion blocked their
access to the roof space, though for some years afterwards they still tried to
find a way in, and even many years later they were still looking.
Now this year we did hear sounds in the roof space beyond the converted area, but I thought it was still just starling attempting to get in from outside. However just now I was rummaging in that roof storage space with its access door ajar, when WHOOSH, a starling flew out and into the room! I rushed over to open a window to let it out, and it escaped - but not before it had defecated all down the window sill (the oily stain still lingers...) So, I am really hoping to hear the peepings of nestlings once again this year. But what a persistent memory they have of this nesting site - is it embedded in a scent trail, or their navigation systems or what? Miraculous really.
Now this year we did hear sounds in the roof space beyond the converted area, but I thought it was still just starling attempting to get in from outside. However just now I was rummaging in that roof storage space with its access door ajar, when WHOOSH, a starling flew out and into the room! I rushed over to open a window to let it out, and it escaped - but not before it had defecated all down the window sill (the oily stain still lingers...) So, I am really hoping to hear the peepings of nestlings once again this year. But what a persistent memory they have of this nesting site - is it embedded in a scent trail, or their navigation systems or what? Miraculous really.
Crickhowell lamb
Yesterday
walking on a path below Table Mountain at Crickhowell in Wales, we saw a tiny
lamb bleating in the bracken - the closest to newborn I've ever seen, still
with its umbilical cord trailing. One of our party spotted what we hoped was
the mother about forty metres away. He picked up the lamb – which rested with complete
trust in his arms - and carried it over to where she stood with another tiny
lamb, and she seemed to accept it fine. A little way down on the path we could actually
see where birth had taken place, and thought that perhaps she had been
frightened by a passing walker and had left this one there, giving birth to the
second away from the path? Anyway, we definitely felt we had done a good deed
that day...
 |
| On Table Mountain. Rudi Winter |
 |
| Stuart Wilding |
We went walking on the edge of the Forest of Dean near the Severn. It
was an ‘earthly paradise’ of early spring in hidden valleys, woods and ridges.
Swathes of white Wood Anemones ran across the woodland floor, with pale purple
Lady’s Smock snuggled in with Primroses, and a yellow Brimstone butterfly
flying through. Eight buzzards circled over one meadow – possibly four pairs
sorting out their mutual territories.
Chiffchaff
A Chiffchaff was singing in our Filton
back lane - a real first for me here after over twenty years, bringing a
delightful breath of the country into this densely urban area.
 |
| April sky. Notafly |
Springtime richness down the lanes and levels below Almondsbury today:
Birds included chiffchaffs, blackcaps, buzzards, kestrel, sky larks and
long-tailed tits. Bluebells were flowering abundantly down the hedgerows. There
was an abundance of butterflies - peacock, comma, orange tip, small white, small
tortoiseshell – literally scores of the latter.
One tree in a distant copse was bursting out in an explosion of
shocking green amongst its unfurled brothers. Is that special bright April blue
sky colour created or just enhanced by the acid brilliance of new grass and
dandelion flowers?
The little old field-access bridges across the rhines, are built of
small stone semicircles which reflect as perfect circles in the water...
 |
| Greater Celandine. Emoke Denes |
More brilliant shards of
Spring in this Cotswold haven: whitethroats, yellowhammers, scores of swallow
and house martins, green and great
spotted woodpeckers, the calls of treecreepers & marshtits, song of mistlethrush,
a blackcap’s ‘stone-tapping’ call . Buzzards hovering, bowed exactly like
kestrels. A brilliant blue shard of
blackbird egg with remnants of embryo, lying on the road. Flowering garlic
mustard, greater celandine and yellow archangel…
Priors
Wood, Portbury
Today in this woodland south
of Bristol, I was shown two unusual plants I’d been hoping to see for a long
while:
 |
| Moschatel. Andrew Curtis |
- Moschatel, the ‘Town-hall
Clock’: a unique woodland plant flowering in spring. The tiny yellow-green
flowers at the end of each stem are structured like the top five faces of a
cube, with four 5-petaled flowers facing out sideways (the faces of a clock
tower), capped with a four-petaled flower facing skywards!
- Herb Paris: another
unique-looking plant forming a woodland grove of sturdy long-stems each with a
lower collar of 4 (sometimes 5 or 6) large shiny leaves, supporting the strange
single flower of thin spidery greenish petals and stamens with a central dark berry,
which will become larger as summer progresses.
 |
| Herb Paris. Bob Embleton |
A member gave me a chunk of rotten wood she’d
found on the woodland floor, stained a dark metallic blue-green by the Green Elfcup fungus (Chlorociboria aeruginascens) that more rarely produces
fruiting bodies of the same brilliant hue. (Apparently wood thus infected was
prized by marquetry makers) I shall put it with my geology samples as it is
superficially indistinguishable from a real copper ore, compounds of which
ironically are used as agricultural fungicide – one of nature’s little jokes!
Ducklings
 |
| Homein Salem |
There were eight tiny Mallard ducklings
on the New Passage tidal pill (creek) today. Their brown-coloured mother was so
well camouflaged that as the babies clustered up to her, initially I thought
they were pushed against the muddy river bank rather than her flanks...
Orville’s
fate...
The old-fashioned ventriloquist Keith
Harris just died, leaving behind his dummy Orville, a big, fat, pathetic
duckling. A friend mused, ‘Just wondering what birders think about the chances
of Orville surviving on his own? Will he be pecked to death by other birds, or
perhaps mate with a Dunnock?’ I replied, ‘The extraordinary ventriloquist Nina
Conti recently did a documentary about a home for orphaned ventriloquist
dummies in America, that she visited when left the puppets of her own mentor on
his death. Maybe Orville will find his way there, finally mature into an adult
bird, and find love and happiness?’ Another friend added, ‘I read in the BBC obituary piece that at
one time when he was depressed Keith thought about killing himself in a duck
pond….. I still can’t work out whether to laugh or cry at that one…’.
And I see that in his later years Keith
actually did an 'adult' Orville show called 'Duck Off'...’
May
Starlings
success
So the starlings that finally managed to
get back into our roof space (see April above) have bred successfully, and I
can once more hear the cheeping of nestlings when the adults arrive with food. But
I reiterate - isn't that the most extraordinary story of perseverance over many
years? I suppose that each year they chipped away at a bit more roofing felt, plastic
eaves or whatever else stood in their way until they broke through into their old haunts
- but what was the drive that kept them persisting? My hat goes off to
them, and to Mother Nature.
Troopers
Hill
 |
| Mouse-ear Hawkweed. Anne Burgess |
Troopers Hill is a Bristol park, a lone
outpost of rock rendered acidic by centuries of mining, and with interesting
botany to match. On a recent trip there on the quite barren slopes, single
bright magenta flowers of common
vetch were very striking, as were the masses of broom in many shades of
yellow-to red, and big patches of furry mouse-ear hawkweed with brilliant pale
lemon flowers. Many busy black mining bees crawled about the earth paths.
Killcott
on the Cotswolds
Within the woods, great pools
of alternating bluebells and wild garlic. Wonderful lane-side banks of spring
flowers: still many primroses, violets and wood anemones, and now also opposite-leaved
golden saxifrage, yellow archangel, stitchwort, wood sorrel, red campion,
greater celandine, tufted vetch, green alkanet and comfrey.
 |
| Water vole. Peter Trimming |
In the village valley we saw what we
thought could only be a water vole in the beautifully clear, shallow stream
that runs through it; there were also many small burrows in the banks at water
level. I later researched to find there was a small isolated community of water
voles in that area; and subsequently reported the sighting to the Gloucestershire
Wildlife Trust.
Oxford
Ragwort
 |
| Oxford Ragwort. Ian Cunliffe |
I was most intrigued by
a new flowering daisy-like plant with almost feathery foliage that that has
been colonising our local motorway central reservations in a few specific
locations. Whizzing past at speed, it appeared chamomile-related with
large-centred flowers in shorter, more flattened clusters - was it yellow
chamomile? Unable to stop and look, I became so frustrated that I found myself
hoping for a holdup so I could jump out and identify it! And then as soon as
one leaves the motorway and could stop more easily - the flora reverts to
buttercups, dandelions, charlock and a host of other yellow flowers that aren't
THIS one.
From my crude descriptions, Bristol
Wildlife’s botanical expert initially suspected Crepis vesicaria (Beaked
Hawk's-beard). However he then correctly
reported, ‘Having spent a fair time queuing on the M5 on
Friday, I now think the answer to Lois's question is Oxford Ragwort (Senecio
squalidus).’ Other members pointed out its interesting origins – a native
from the slopes of Mount Etna – as well as thinking that the "squalidus" was a bit
unfair - though it is invasive...
Vocal
Learning
Radio 4 had a fascinating
programme called ‘What the Songbird Said’, about animals who do ‘vocal learning’
– who learn a language/song from their parents and community. So far the only ones
known are us humans, cetaceans, sea lions, some bats, probably elephants – and
songbirds including parrots and hummingbirds. And it’s the birds who seem to
have the closest neurological and brain structure similarities to us, with an
optimal learning period in childhood, a left-brain specialization, etc. The
summary said:
 |
| Tom MacEnzie |
 |
| Ian Watkin |
It’s interesting how much bees love
cotoneaster flowers, which are so inconspicuous. Our bush today is covered with
both.
I had a first view of a starling fledgling on our back lawn today (which I assumed / hoped was one of those from the nest in our roof). Its parents had tugged a large worm from the grass, minced that into a ball, and were feeding this to the youngster.
Spanning
Continents
 |
| Reed Warbler Francesco Veronesi |
I responded, ‘It's absolutely fascinating to think that you were
hearing mimicry of an African bird. We don't often ponder the daily realities
of the 'other half' of migrating birds' lives... the different foods,
environment & climate, pests & diseases, predators... and how they move
apparently effortlessly between the two. Graceful bridging of schizophrenic
worlds...’
 |
| Herring Gull chick. John Haslam |
Last week we finished a geology trip in north Brittany with a trip to
Mont St Michel - somewhere I last visited 50 years ago when it filled me with
horror at its tourist-displayed dungeons and torture implements. However that
seems to have been swept away, and I liked it this time - full of birds! In
particular, on some large cylindrical water tanks half way up the mount and
overshadowed by trees, gulls were nesting (herring I think), with a pair of
gorgeous chicks tottering about under their parents' eye. With their spots and
fluff I do think they are wonderful, and I also enjoyed this nursery glimpse
when usually back home it's much more hidden on high roofs.
I also heard my first turtle dove, as an adult at least – sadly not in
Britain but in the Baie de la
Fresnaye in north Brittany, a large lonely
estuary surrounded by wooded cliffs. It is a lovely sound that seems hauntingly
familiar – perhaps a childhood memory from when turtle doves were more common
in Britain?
 |
| Mont St-Michael. Jean--luc Lebrun |
Photographing our Fish
 |
| Biodiversity Heritage Library |
(‘Spring/Autumn/Winterwatch’ are popular and
very interactive annual BBC nature programmes, with many contributions from the
public and from amateur naturalists)
June
 |
| Severnside sunset. Steve Hale |
Looking west out my loft window just past 9pm this evening – there was a
beautiful clear rosy sunset deep towards the north-west, with great sweeps of
mackerel cloud formations. Jackdaws were flying off north-east towards the
mysterious destination where they roost, and starlings were flying south-west
towards their equally unknown roosting spot. The local swift group were performing
a shimmering evening dance – a total of eight of them in that brief second when
they bunch and you can see them all together. And a blackbird was singing
loudly as he sat on an aerial opposite…
 |
| Common Sorrel Ivar Leidus |
Visiting St Ives recently on
the north-west Cornish coast, I walked a stretch of the coast path just below the
town. There was a typical medley of interesting plants growing on and between
the rocks. On one boulder were bracken, heather and English saxifrage all together;
another adjacent boulder was covered with ivy with foxglove and pennywort
pushing up through it. A larger rocky hill was surrounded by such a dense
growth of flowering sorrel that it seemed to rise from a rosy mist formed by
the long red flowering spikes. Though it was June, there were still many fresh
bluebells, mixed with yellow flags, big heads of sheep’s-bit scabious of that almost
unbelievably intense blue, and an extensive swathe of pink orchids.
Over the sea but unusually
close in to the cliffs, gannets were hunting followed by shearwater and
fulmar…
a gannets’ very shallow dive is almost as awe-inspiring as its vertical drop!
 |
| Porthmeor Beach sunset. OLU |
In St Ives itself I experienced an
unusual (though not wildlife-related) phenomenon. The main
Porthmeor beach
faces due north, and our rented house up the hill behind it had big living room
windows also facing due north over the sea. Because it was so near midsummer,
in the morning you could watch the sun rise and shine into the living room
through the right-hand side of the window, and in the evening you could watch
the sun go down and shine into the living room through the left-hand side of
the window! Disorientating when one is so used to experiencing sunrise
and sunset on opposite sides of a building...
New
Passage & Severn Beach
 |
| Dyer's Greenwood Zell |
New Passage at very high tide this
lunchtime, with water to top of Chestle Pill banks and Pill mouth flooded like
a lake. The meadow verges round the Pill outfall were a jolly riot of red and
white clover, and yellow buttercup, cinquefoil and meadow vetchling.
Along the verge of the road in
to Severn Beach, I finally managed to identify another flower that has
tormented me on inaccessible motorway verges for years. It grows in large
clumps of refined spikes of flowers that look a sulphurous yellow from a
distance – it is Dyer’s Greenwood, Genista tinctoria of the pea family, used
from ancient times to make yellow and green dyes.
Ants
at Blaise Castle
In the Blaise Castle parkland in Bristol today, swarms
of flying insects must have been emerging from the grassland. They were being
followed by hundreds of gulls and scores of swifts, firstly pursuing them on
and over the grass sward and then as the insects flew higher, the birds
following them in their masses…
 |
| Selsley Common. BaryonicBeing |
Yesterday I climbed with a friend to the
top of Selsley Common on the Cotswolds just south of Stroud. The steep west face of
the limestone grassland common was a mass of orchids - there must have been
literally thousands evenly spread through flowering grasses and yellow rattle,
including common spotted, pyramidal and possibly common fragrant. Also the occasional
pure white one which might be ‘alba’ variants - apparently in most of
the grassland orchids the flower colour tends to be variable. There were also many
of those wonderful tiny lime-lovers like fairy flax and common milkwort or even
the rarer chalk milkwort.. Sky larks were singing in profusion; and many jumping
up almost from our feet; one, unusually in my experience, doing so stationary
from a low bush.
Cinnabar
moth
 |
| Cinnabar Moth CharlesJSharpe |
Swift
party
Yesterday morning there was a full-on
though short-lived swift screaming party at our local Filton site, made up of
fifteen birds. This was an encouraging total to see, as during the nesting
period I’d only seen them in threes and fours - and every year their total numbers
dwindle.
Discussing this online, one member
asked, ‘Juveniles adding numbers?’ I
replied, ‘I was told that the extra
numbers at this time of year are year-old swifts without partners, while the new
fledglings apparently don't hang around but immediately start the migration
back to Africa. Is this your understanding?’
He said, ‘You could well
be right, swifts don't breed till four years so non-breeders will be joining in
the screaming parties (they may actually try to breed but according to literature
are never successful - not sure how extensive that research is though), and it
may be true that juveniles depart immediately but I don’t know how they
evidence that to be honest. I'd be interested to know how they come to that
conclusion (date of ringing recoveries in wintering grounds? sightings in
wintering
grounds?). If satellite tracking has taught us anything it’s that
much of our 'knowledge' of bird migration in many species is b****cks!
Dont know if they've satellite tagged any swifts, would be interesting. Juvenile
swifts are identifiable in flight given the right views but how many bother to look? They
may or may not be present but on 'sightings' I suspect they're under recorded,
if recorded at all - something I'm guilty of myself.’
 |
| Swift Monica Korzeniec |
Another member added, ‘Yes, they have satellite tracked Swifts
and yes it is interesting: http://www.bto.org/science/migration/tracking-studies/swifts’
July
Brecon
Canal
 |
| Moorhen chick. Paul Chapman |
I went walking the southern
end of the Brecon-Monmouthshire Canal in Wales - Newport to Pontypool and the
westwards Crumlin Arm up the Valleys. It is very lovely – mostly un-navigable
at this end, lined with majestic mature trees and full of water birds, mostly
moorhen and mallards and their prolific broods at various ages. Some moorhens
were still on nests, not just secreted under banks as I am used to, but in the
middle of the water – on a sunken shopping trolley in one instance! The tiniest
babies looking straight from the shell with black fluff and bald patches,
scudded about or peeped and begged pitifully. A parent and youngster honked together
in a high and low tone creating a tune like an old-fashioned car horn. An adult
swum with a long reed for nest-building: holding it in the middle he let the
forward end touch the water and drift past, then touched the new forward end to
the water as though he was kayaking… Two confiding adolescents
wandered close,
showing their huge khaki feet more resembling an ostrich or an iguana.
 |
| Big feet! John Fielding |
Mallard males going into
eclipse hung out together in groups of tens and twenties - some of their heads
literally looking like a knife had been roughly scraped through the shiny green
top coat to a dull brown beneath.
A sparrowhawk swooped close by
with bloody prey dangling from its claws, landing in an adjacent oak tree to
eat.
On a length of open water, a swift skimmed down to drink once –
On a length of open water, a swift skimmed down to drink once –
 |
| Swift drinking Billy Lindblom |
On a very busy M4 roundabout, two adolescent mallards were busy crossing three lanes – I hope they made it…
Beautiful water and waterside plants tended to go in themes, with just one or two species dominating a length. On the banks were pale pink marsh woundwort as pretty as orchids, water figwort,
 |
| Brooklime. Alan Murray-Rust |
There were surprisingly few
dragon- or damselflies till the last, warmest, stillest day when they appeared
in force, including a golden-ringed dragonfly and a broad-bodied chaser.
I do love the Welsh! On a shop
end where the canal met a road, local youths had graffiti’d their gang name in
large letters, and then in medium letters added: ‘Sorry about your wall’ !!!
People effortlessly mixed
Welsh and English. Overheard from a group of older couples having tea in an
eccentric canal-side cafe: Welsh-Welsh-Welsh – ‘should have done it years ago’ –
Welsh-Welsh – ‘making her plum jam’ – Welsh-Welsh…
 |
| Zigzag Clover JCSvenning |
Moths
& Mulleins
On a geology walk in the
Malverns on Saturday I saw the magnificent caterpillar of the Mullein Moth: a
large smooth pale blue with bright yellow stripes, on a Great Mullein plant.
 |
| Mullein Moth caterpillar Ian Kirk |
And yesterday in Marshfield
triangle I saw a single yellow Moth Mullein plant flowering. And a brown hare.
Severn
Beach area
 |
| Amphibious Bistort. Derek Harper |
At Orchard Pools, the surrounding
area showing a lovely medley of pink-purple flowers: mauve Meadow Crane’s-bill
& Teasels, dull purple Red Bartsia, and a small pale-pink Mallow.
Oldbury
Power Station
This nuclear power station on the Severn
Estuary north of Bristol has created fine nature reserves round its now-disused
lagoons. I found a good swathe of Spiny Restharrow on the bank leading up to
the old lagoon, Oldbury Power Station. I don't know how rare it is in this
area, but it is the first I have seen.
 |
| Oldbury Power Station Alan Kent |
Access to the newest lagoon near the road was lined with those small Cherry
Plum trees with pretty little early fruits. Individual trees hosted fruits of distinctly
individual colours – one tree had pure yellow, another red, and others had yellow
streaked red, or a dark red-purple. But what was striking was, as you plucked
plums from separate trees - each colour tasted distinctively different
too!
Planet of the Bugs
Earlier this year I read a newly-published book
about insects called 'Planet of
the Bugs: evolution & the rise of insects', by Scott Richard Shaw (professor of entomology,
Wyoming). I found it so interesting
that I did a precis of its most arresting points. Re-reading this recently, I
thought some other people might enjoy it so I copy it below:
·
If insects became extinct, ‘the terrestrial
environment would collapse into chaos’.
·
Less than 1% of insect species are significant
pests. Also by stressing over-vigorous plants they allow more species to
coexist in smaller spaces.
·
Most plant-feeding insects are food sources for
other wildlife, & a fundamental, nutritious source for vertebrate species
including humans.
·
They adapt to most extreme conditions on earth.
One fly’s dehydrated larvae can tolerate
immersion in boiling water and liquid helium.
·
They can feed on and metabolise plants highly
toxic to vertebrates.
·
They quickly evolve resistance – despite our
best attempts we have not exterminated a single species.
 |
| Dragonfly metamorphosis bgv23 |
·
In the Cambrian the first multicellular animals
lost little time in evolving structural support and protective gear: cuticles,
skeletons and shells appeared in only 5 my.
·
As atmospheric oxygen levels rose, potential
oxygen toxicity drove cells into clusters for safety, and aerobic respiration
drove greater activity.
·
The Cambrian continental drift rate was apparently
10x faster than now – which reconfigured earth rapidly, with land masses nearer
the poles which stabilised climate, and provided more shorelines, habitats etc.
Also the Earth span faster, the Moon was closer, and higher tides caused rapid
pulses of nutrient flow.
·
Early shelly animals built portable hard parts
be secreting waste products that solidified.
 |
| Arthropod anatomy Justus Watson Folsom |
·
Plants couldn’t survive on land till an ozone
layer developed, and they had developed structural supports: by the late
Silurian they had evolved lignin and cellulose.
·
Contrary to conventional wisdom, animals may
have moved ashore long before the plants, and in order to move ashore the
plants needed the animal communities to prepare the soil.
·
Insects evolved six-legged locomotion which is
the most stable, efficient and quickest.
·
During the Devonian arthropods got smaller –
they were thus less easily predated, could take advantage of safe mossy-type
micro-environments, could breathe directly through their cuticles, grow &
reproduce faster, and needed fewer resources for survival. They also survived
the first forest fires!
·
Springtails survive extreme conditions – some
have glycol antifreeze in their blood and are the only hexapods known to live
along Antarctic shorelines. Some survive dessicating deserts, & can dry out
and rehydrate when it rains.
 |
| Springtail spaermatophore Peter Brockman |
·
327ma during the Carboniferous, wings evolved
(possibly as solar panels) and rapidly expanded. They were one of the great
innovations that kept insects ahead.
·
In the late Carboniferous, wood roaches evolved
a symbiotic relationship with their gut microorganisms and became the first
macro-consumers of dead wood. Also plant-rotting fungi and other soil-creating
and -recycling microorganisms steadily developed - hence we would never again
see coal laid down in such abundance.
·
It appears that though the end-Permian
extinction massacred life in the oceans, insects living in freshwater pools and
streams found adequate sanctuary.
·
Great arthropod innovations during the Permian
period included homopteran piercing-sucking
mouthpart design; complete
metamorphosis; and silk-spinning which let aquatic insects inhabit many diverse
micro-habitats. They also learned to live in fast-moving streams.
·
The Triassic saw the rise of the wasp family
with saw-like oviposters to place young deep inside plant tissues; which would
also become the tool for parasitism and stings. This family would give rise to
the social insects (bees, ants and social wasps – see below). The two largest
wasp groups each contain more species than all the vertebrates combined!
 |
| Parasite wasp fir002 |
·
The Cretaceous saw the development of
angiosperms with flowers and fruit, pollen and nectar, and new symbiotic
relationships and developments with the insect world. This enabled plant
species to spread much further, faster.
·
In the late Cretaceous, moths and butterflies
developed with their innovation of the caterpillar; and the bees, ants and
social wasps arose.
Thistle stem gall
Today on a
walk round the woods and fields of Warmley Forest to the east of Bristol, we
saw many examples of the thistle stem gall caused by the fly Urophora
cardui . These formed quite large smooth pale-green pitcher-shaped
galls on the stems of Creeping Thistles.
The area was also pleasantly
full of moths, butterflies and dragonflies - Six-spot Burnet Moth, and Marbled
White, Small Copper, Small Essex, Meadow Brown and Gatekeeper butterflies, and
Southern Hawker dragonflies.
August
 |
| Field Milk- thistle AnRo0002 |
Aust
Cliffs
The Field Milk Thistle
(Sonchus arvensis) is flowering all along the concrete causeway that leads to
Aust Cliffs – some of its big brilliant yellow
raggy flowers are up to two inches across, and to look into their
glowing centres is like looking into the heart of the sun…
There was a camper van parked
up nearby with a big grey cat stretched along the dashboard in the front of the
van, on its own cuddly bed. When the owner drove off, the cat remained contentedly
lying there…
 |
| Buzzard. Brian Thompson |
Walking down a lane bounded by
rhines on the levels below Almondsbury this afternoon, I saw a buzzard at a
distance in front of me perched on the earth of the path. As I approached it
flew off at low level down the lane carrying something dark in its claws, stopping
to rest then carrying on as I moved behind it. Then at its original perching
spot I found the corpse of a moorhen… headless…
…raising
my game?
 |
| Male Red-veined Darter Katja Schultz |
On the same walk I saw what I hope I correctly
identified as two Red-veined Darter dragonflies: one
male yellow-green with
wonderful part-pale blue eye parts, the other a reddish female or immature.
It’s a rarer dragonfly round our parts, and started me attempting to make a
more scientific identification using my new reference books - but oh it is hard
for me to push myself into scientific mode, to talk of pterostigma and antihumeral
regions, to use someone else’s ideas of what is noticeable and distinctive
which can vary so much from what strikes me in the field…
 |
| Brimstone moth. MURichardson |
There
is a lovely Brimstone Moth on our sitting room wall.
Brecon
Canal again
I made a second trip to the
Brecon Canal in Wales, and have now reached the zone approaching the Brecon
Beacons where the waterway has been
restored sufficiently for boats to travel.
The water was absolutely crowded
with many species of fish, from small fry to impressive 14 inchers, cruising close
to the sunny surface.
Grey squirrels cavorted
through the trees like monkeys, stripping nuts from the hazel trees with madcap
agility – my favourite was one hanging full length from the slenderest twig-end
above the water by its front paws alone, before adroitly pulling itself back
up.
The canal edges were beautiful
with forget-me-nots, speedwells, gypsywort, water mint, marsh woundwort,
angelica, meadowsweet, hemlock water-dropwort and willowherbs; and lance-leaved
water plantains and arrowhead water plants flowered in the canal.
 |
| Rosebay Willowherb seeds Mike Garratt |
Fruiting rosebay willowherb may
have the purest white ‘down’ of all plants from its silky-haired seeds – so
fine that when you grab a handful it goes to nothing like pressing sea foam,
leaving a silky residue on your fingers like a plant lanolin…
Sitting by a tall stand of
flowering stinging nettles against a bridge abutment, I observed a puff of
smoke. I thought someone smoking must be walking down – but there was no smell,
no person – and another puff appeared, and another… it seems the nettles were
releasing these puffs of pollen as they warmed, a sight I have never witnessed
before.
 |
| Jay. Dave Hughes |
Orchard
Pools
At Orchard Pools today, I
watched a wood pigeon fly down to surface of the water of the main pool, and
then enter the water breast-deep in flight before re-emerging and flying
off – was it pulling something out of
the water? It looked a daringly acrobatic manoeuver…
In the richly-fruited scrub
and woodland adjacent, two jays flew off one after the other, each holding a small
fruit in their beak…
High
tide
I went early to see an
extra-high tide at New Passage this morning -
it came completely over the extensive salt marsh and right up to the Severn
Way embankment. But even with all the birds pushed up to higher ground, I still
didn’t manage to see the yellow wagtails that are currently there - this brightly-coloured
little bird is obviously not as visible as I’d hoped!
September
Noon
Flies
 |
| Noon Fly Charles J Sharpe |
At Shepperdine by the Severn
Estuary today, I watched a large group of striking-looking flies feeding on blackberries – they were the size of a bee
with shiny black bodies, black wings
with rust-orange bases, and dark eyes with a small cream-yellow area. They turn
out to be the Noon Fly (Mesembrina meridian), common apparently but not one I’d
been aware of before.
Brimstone.
Lovely to see the sulphur
yellow of a Brimstone butterfly in our back garden today.
Wood
Sandpipers?
 |
| Wood Sandpipers at Pilning. Paul Bowerman |
But had I been mistaken? -
only one had been seen recently (though more were seen in August), I didn’t
have field experience, and better birdwatchers questioned my report… I had a
crisis of confidence.
Spotted
Flycatchers
 |
| Spotted Flycatcher. Ron Knight |
On the annual walk we lead for
the Bristol Ornithological Club, my keen-eyed friend caught sight of three spotted flycatchers – an adult and two
young – flitting about on the woodland edge high on the ridge of Cadbury Camp.
Clevedon
Goldcrest
At a house by Clevedon Harbour
today, we watched a goldcrest perched on a windowsill and apparently peering
inside – uncommon behavior for these tiny birds who, whilst not shy, don’t
generally favour man-made structures!
October
Sodbury Common
 |
| Sodbury Common. SteveF |
I and J. explored a new area today – the large spread of common land
just north of Chipping Sodbury, noted for its abundance of interesting small birds.
I haven’t been able to find out why this spread of rough, untouched open
grassland and scrub has been left ‘unimproved’ – is it historical or geological?
– but it’s an inspiring place to visit, and we were lucky enough to see plenty of
small birds including skylarks, stonechats, whinchat, lesser whitethroat, and snipe
Acorn cups lay by the side of a large log, with a hank of cow’s hair
tucked into a crack in the bark – J. Says it’s signs that a jay has been hiding
treasures there...
Redshanks at Sea Mills
On a highish tide today, a dog
running through the salt marsh flushed about fifty redshank from the north side
of the river bank. The birds zigzagged sharply across the water, then dropped
down to rest invisibly in the sparse mudbank vegetation of tall sea
asters on the opposite bank. It is incredible how even mid-sized birds like
redshanks, and in large numbers, can render themselves so invisible when they
wish to…
Water
Rail at Aust Ferry
 |
| Aust Ferry. Mark Hobbs |
Walking along the hidden saltmarsh
behind the big area of reeds along Aust’s disused old ferry line today, I
flushed a water rail which flew rapidly
back into its reedy cover...
Flashing
teal
 |
| Common Teal. Lip Kee |
Cornish birds
Walking the esplanade between the
towns of Newlyn and Penzance in
Cornwall recently, we watched small groups of
turnstone pottering busily all along the sand and pebbles, so very unafraid of
the humans walking near them…
And two pairs of swans swam serenely far out in the big bay, with St Michaels’ Mount behind them.
 |
| Turnstones Roger Cornfoot |
And two pairs of swans swam serenely far out in the big bay, with St Michaels’ Mount behind them.
 |
| St Michaels Mount Bay Wolfgang Glock |
Sitting drawing on the rocky
peninsular of The Island in St Ives and watching nearby meadow and rock pipits
and oystercatchers – two black redstarts flew in to a few feet away, flitting
and settling round the boulders and showing their lovely red tails.
There were yet more turnstones
on St Ives’ harbor beach, still happy to share their space with the great tides
of humanity that constantly wash through this popular town…
Oldbury
Power Station
 |
| Musk Mallow. Derek Harper |
On a visit to the Oldbury
Power Station reserves today, I had a fine view of a smart tit with a peaked
black cap, in roadside hedgerow. But was it a marsh or a willow tit, both quite
uncommon for me? I don’t have the
experience to distinguish them, but luckily local birders knew it was a marsh
tit which has been frequenting the site over the last few days.
On the rim of the youngest
lagoon, now all dried up to scrub, there were mallows with pure pink flowers but
deeply divided geranium-type leaves which
I hadn’t seen before. They are Musk Mallows, and apparently squeezing the
foliage releases a perfume – I look forward to trying this!
Wood Pigeon
& Cotoneaster
On a chest-height cotoneaster
overarching the pavement from our front garden in our densely urban small back road
– a wood pigeon was sitting eating the berries. Its apparently fearless
behaviour seemed more typical of colder, hungrier times – especially as these
berries never seen that popular with birds, who generally only bother with them
when tastier fare has gone...
Birds
obtaining Vitamin D
In response to a query about a
blackbird stretched on a lawn with wings and tail spread, a New Scientist
reader thought this behavior was ‘sunbathing’ rather than anting:
‘UV-B
rays in sunlight facilitate a crucial step in the biosynthesis of Vitamin D. In
humans this occurs directly in the skin, but in birds the skin is shaded by
feathers. To resolve this, birds use an oil secreted by the uropygial gland, or
preen glands, near the base of the tail. This contains a precursor steroid that
is converted into Vitamin D by sunlight. The bird spreads this oil on its
feathers by preening, then suns itself either by ‘sunbathing’ or more briefly
in flight, and consumes the photosynthetic product with the next preening.’ I hadn’t heard of
this clever system – have others?
November
 |
| Glossy Ibis at Pilning. Martin Tayler |
I went to see the exotic Glossy Ibis at
PiIning Wetlands this morning, that has been a regular there for some days.
Watching it feeding along the pool banks with an egret foraging nearby - why, we
could have been on the edge of the River Nile!
At a distance from an adjacent pool I
thought someone had left two model yachts to blow across the water - but the
paired and angled white triangles were just the hindquarters of two mute swans
feeding up-ended...
Meadow Cranesbill was flowering at Orchard
Pools, and Common Blue Sowthistle below Severn Beach…
On roadside power lines between Easter Compton
and Pilning - two redwings sat on one stretch with seven rooks adjacent –
neither of them species that favour such perching spots, round our way at least…
Filton
rooks
 |
| Rooks on sward. Mike Pennington |
Today, alerted by a friend, I watched three
rooks feeding on the grass on of a nearby large sports ground, BAWA, amidst the
crowd of gulls, crows and jackdaws which are habitually there. Now rooks used
to graze on our local Millennium Green which is only about two thirds of a mile
'inland' from this sports ground, and it was a pleasure to watch these lovely
birds so at home there; but from around ten years ago the rooks left and never returned.
So did our Filton park start to feel too
urbanised for our rooks? Did the woody planting that was established in our
park in the millennium year make that space feel too dangerous, when rooks
obviously favour feeding on nice open sward or fields? In comparison, the
spacious BAWA grounds could be seen as 'almost' country as they back onto the more
rural spaces of Filton Golf Course and the now-disused airfield.
Bird bath
 |
| Cake Pill Dr Duncan Pepper |
Newport Wetlands
From the comfortable
viewpoint of the Newport Wetlands Nature Reserve cafe, we could watch blue, great
and coal tits attacking nuts in a nearby feeder with great gusto. Unusually the
tits were gathered in equal numbers, allowing one to appreciate how very
diminutive coal tits are in comparison with the others – but boy do they have attitude to compensate! I couldn't perceive any actual pecking
order, but felt if there were – coal tits certainly wouldn't let themselves be
bottom!
We also
learnt that these wetlands now have their own starling murmuration to rival the
Somerset
Levels. I certainly enjoyed the idea of this as an alternative venue –
to anyone who has made the long trip to Somerset and stood around sometimes for
hours in piercing cold in the middle of nowhere waiting for the flocks to
arrive, it sounds a wonderful alternative to be able to wait in this warm cafe – and quicker
to drive to too.
 |
| Newport Wetlands Visitors' Centre Pwimageglow |
Humboldt
I recently read the new biography of
pioneering naturalist Alexander von Humboldt (1769 1859) by Andrea Wulf. His many striking
contributions included:
·
Pioneering
the ‘web of Nature’ approach which underlies modern environmental thinking, in
which living organisms from large to microscopic are seen to contribute to an
integrated whole. He studied and understood that deforestation, monoculture and
overuse of natural water sources by man, were harmful to soils, living things
and the climate; and that man had already been using these harmful practices
for millennia and had consequently permanently altered much of the globe for
the worse. He also forecast that overuse of fossil fuels would detrimentally
alter climate.
 |
| James Steakley |
·
He
observed the similarities of some species in both Africa and South America, and
suggested the idea that separate continents might have been joined in the past
– a forerunner of tectonic plate theory. This was helped by his suggestions
that a continuous area of molten rock within the earth created volcanic events
that were linked, and formed major geological features.
·
He
wrote the first ‘popular science’ books. He held the first international
inter-disciplinary scientific conference.
·
He
had a huge influence on many other scientists, artists and thinkers, including
the geologist Lyell, Darwin, and members of the Romantic movement like
Coleridge.
·
He
promoted the idea that indigenous people were not savages but had their own
rich history, languages and culture. He campaigned against slavery his whole
life, and encouraged democratic movements wherever he could.
He was incredibly famous in his lifetime
and for subsequent decades, but if almost forgotten now except for the many
geographical features named after him...
 |
| Grey Wagtail. Richard Bowerman |
December
 |
| Kenn Moor FollowMeChaps |
We walked along the river and round the
moors of this lovely remote-feeling area just east of Clevedon. Along the river we saw a peculiar sight: within
a thoroughly cleaned-out rhine with all
its bankside covering scraped away, something coloured was poking through the
weeds floating on the water. Then we could see it was the head of a moorhen
with only the red beak just poking through the weeds and the rest of its body submerged.
Without bank cover to hide in as moorhens love to do, this one obviously had
taken the only cover it could find...
Further on along a woodland drove, we
saw three lesser redpoll
feeding low down. With their tiny size, pretty colours
and expressive faces – they are almost unbearably cute!
 |
| Lesser Redpoll. Mike Pennington |
Early?
Celandines are flowering on rhine banks
below Amondsbury.
 |
| Colin Kinnear |
There were swan families on the River Kenn. One adult pair were doing a courtship dance, with that beautiful mirroring of movements of bowing and billing. Does that lead straight to mating, and is it very early for that?
Still unseasonally
warm...
Today I saw a magpie bearing what looked
like nesting material to a tree, and two starlings ducking under a roof eaves
as if scouting for nest sites... and have you noticed the numbers of gnat-like
insects dancing about?
 |
| Raven & Buzzard. Howard Taffs |
A friend knows an older couple who
recently bought a smallholding on top of the Mendips, above Wells. Amongst
their many woes of extreme weather, poor soil, animal predations etc, they have
been trying to keep ducks and rescue chickens. However local ravens hunt
efficiently in pairs there: they swoop down, one holds the domestic bird down, the
other goes for the head and pecks out its eyes etc., and in a flash feathers
are pulled and the stomach is opened –
soon the couple had almost no birds left.
Local farmers say the ravens go for their
lambs in the same way. It’s hard to keep
objective about this, isn’t it... and the couple are quite traumatised.
In an ensuing discussion I
added: ‘I think
more than anything it's the brutally efficient technique of going for the eyes
that horrifies - yet if you're a smaller predator trying to disable a larger
animal, what more efficient way is there? And nature didn't give them those
powerful tearing beaks for nothing, or the smarts to work together. Like others
here, I am a ravenophile, just feeling tested at the moment.’ A colleague said, ‘Yep, the going for eyes tactic is also
common in crows – I’ve spoken to farmers who have described how they walk up to
lambs with their head swaying from side to side, which intrigues the lambs
(described as seeming to have a ‘hypnotic’ effect) and soon as they’re close
enough they take out the eyes.’
Another said, ‘I can't help but make value-judgements on
predators and their methods. Take wolves for example. Gorgeous animals, but
their hunting strategies, although advanced in terms of teamwork, seem to end
in their prey suffering a long and painful death. Give me lions any day. A bit
if a scratch on your back at first, but a quick bite to your jugular and it's
job done. Ravens are the wolves of the bird world; Peregrines are the lions.’
Sparrowhawk,
owl, wagtails
This
afternoon a sparrowhawk came down and perched on the handles of a bicycle lying
on our back garden lawn…
 |
| Short-eared Owl at Aust. Paul Milsom |
In
the Aust Service Station, pied wagtails flew in to roost in small trees by the
building entrance.
OPS
mallards
At Oldbury Power Station lake I watched three
male mallards doing a 'washing routine' in rough unison with each other: first
a shallow dive as though washing, then a vertical rearing up and shaking of
wings, then a drop down with shaking of tail parts, then repeat... I presume
this was a version of their varied display and courtship behaviour.
 |
| Waders at Oldbury Power Station. Craig Lewis |
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