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Nature Notes by Ian Bennett

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June 2011

 

I was determined to rise early on this last Bank holiday of May to bring you one of the most unusual sights to be seen on the Roseland for quite some time. But we all know the road to hell is paved with good intentions, and by the time I had got out of the house the object of my search has disappeared- vanished, evaporated before our very eyes into the very stuff of clouds. I speak of – puddles. I am sure Madame Bush over on the Gardening page (NO, don’t go looking just yet!) will be covering gardening in a drought. And even though Southwest Water have confidently predicted that there will be no need for water restrictions this year (They have consulted their piece of sea weed on the smoking shelter out by the car park), I am sure we are all aware of just how dry it has been this spring.

 

We are enthusiastic gardeners and have been well aware of the click and whir of the water meter as we try to keep precious plants alive. All our water butts have been empty for a couple of weeks now and most of our new season’s vegetables have come to an untimely stop. Nevertheless, nature still flourishes, the seasons change and each season’s flowers bloom in their turn.

 

Flora and Fauna are busy repopulating the world with their offspring; there are baby rabbits everywhere (much to our neighbours chagrin!), nest boxes are having a lively time, ours are occupied by blue tits and great tits even though we specified that only sparrows need apply! On the creek, some of our waders have already appeared back from family duties up north. Egrets and small numbers of red / greenshank can be seen strutting their stuff but for the main, the empty creek lies still, awaiting the turn of the tide and the return of our resident wader populations. Even so, it is still a magical place with crabs scuttling for cover and all sorts of sea weed in full growth and vigour.

 

One of the most magical aspects of living on the Roseland (to me anyway) is having the time to stop and look, really look. When those not as lucky as we precious few come down on holiday, there are beaches to sit on, breath to catch, wonderful local delicacies to sample – liquid and solid, and all manner of diversions that conspire to prevent us from just looking, really looking, say in a rockpool.

 

When we have children with us we have the excuse to go rockpooling, but have to spend so much energy on making sure no one falls in, over or off that we become distracted from the real work of studying a rockpool. Then the children grow and tire for a while of childish pursuits but lucky is the person who gets beyond such prejudices whilst still able to squat on their haunches over the edge of one of these bejeweled microcosms or to run the edge of stick through weed to chase out shrimps, blennies and bullheads.

 

I have a lot of travelling to do over the coming months and when not travelling I am going to focus on looking rather than writing so this is my last monthly Nature Notes for a little while. If anything comes along that I really must share with you I will send our Web Master something to publish, but until the autumn I don’t want to distract anyone from being out in the wonder that surrounds us. Get out there and have a look for yourselves!

 

 

May 2011

 

The April showers never really showed up, but April Flowers certainly did! I cannot recall a better show of spring flowers than we have in progress even as I write.  Drifts of snowdrops gave way to hedgerows filled with primroses and shy nodding violets which were eventually complemented by woodlands full to overflowing with blue bells and through it all, the ever reliable campion plodded away, gaining ground and profile as more and more flowers appeared on over wintering plants. The umbelliferae are well represented with alexanders, cow parsley, sweet cicely, chervil and all showing to great advantage, so really the best thing I can say is to get out there and see it for yourselves! 

 

We are truly blessed when it comes to wild flowers on the Roseland, but even so we were very excited over Easter to spot not one but two groups of orchid growing away in a field not a million miles from our house. The first orchid we spotted was a grand plant some 18 inches tall with several good sized flower spikes, but luckily it was set back from the path.

 

Further on we saw maybe 15 more pyramidal orchids growing well across maybe 50 square yards of field. Sadly they were strung out along the side of the path and when we went that way again yesterday not one of them was left! I was so disappointed! Now those flowers will not grow and develop seed and so there is now a gap in the growth cycle of a rare and wonderful plant.

 

No, actually I wasn’t so much disappointed as livid! How selfish! How unthinking! How stupid! And what’s more- how illegal! Wildlife is not protected for its own sake- it is actually protected for our sake! Remember the old saw about “for the want of a nail a shoe was lost, for the loss of a nail a horse was lost and for the loss of a horse the battle was lost”  (my abbreviated version). We need a strong, balanced ecology and we simply do not know what the loss of a bunch of flowers could cause.  Remember the countryside code and if you need reminding, it is shown in full here. But I like the shorter version “Take only pictures, leave only footprints”.

 

Lots of animals are on the move (as well as emmets!). Badgers have moved from their winter to summer quarters but a ranging far and wide as they feed young families. I have seen lots of deer around and about, in fact sometimes I think the A3078 should be closed till say 0700!

 

Birds are also hard at work tidying last year’s nest up, looking for new quarters or in some cases feeding young. Tawny owls breed very early in the year, which is why now is a good time to spot them as they are hunting for large babies that are almost ready to fledge and fly the nest. The adults are being run ragged at the moment, so keep an eye out for them on fence posts or low branches along paths. But please pass by quietly- they are trying to catch a few moments shut eye!

 

As I said earlier, you shouldn’t be reading this! Get out there and go for a walk, but please remember, “Take only pictures, leave only footprints”.

 

 

April 2011

 

The end of March is upon us and we can all congratulate ourselves on surviving the infamous ides of March. Spring is well and truly sprung and we can see spring flowers blooming everywhere. Primroses haven’t formed the great swathes of colour we saw the year before last. As I understand it primroses take two years before they start to flower in the wild, so last years bad winter, coupled with the one we have just had (maybe not so harsh but seemingly endless) will have set their numbers back for several years to come.

 

Although the pace of life is picking up I am going to be sorry to see all the birds that have flocked to our feeders disperse, either locally back into the fields and woods to breed or on migration to their summer quarters. We have had three bramblings and a pair of siskins in residence over the last 6-8 weeks and they have really livened up the garden. At the time of the RSPB Big Garden Watch we were able to record 26 species of bird in the garden over a period of just one hour.

 

Bramblings are quite rare down here, siskins even more so. Fortunately I was able to confirm the siskins to our local RSPB guru by photograph and was pleased to learn it was only the third recorded sighting on the Roseland. But migration throws up all sorts of oddities. Some are passage migrants heading through a region that are thrown off course, maybe by an unseasonal gale, whilst others simply head the wrong way and become known as vagrants.  We are lucky here to be on the British west coast flyway, although we may be a little too far west for the main north south routes. Birds come north from Africa and cross the Mediterranean either via the Middle East, the Italian peninsular or across the straights of Gibraltar.

 

Our migrants can come from any of these gateways, depending on species and where a local sub population spends its winters. Crossing France they head for La Manche and cross where their peers show them to cross. This tends to be further east than we are because then the crossing isn’t as short and  such a crossing also leads them naturally to the west Britain estuaries, which are such important feedibng stations. The Bristol Channel, the Dee, the Mersey, the Ribble and Morecambe bay are all service stations programmed into a migrating bird’s Sat Nav.  But as I say, some get it wrong and may head east not west, south not north and so on.  I have been sent some exciting pictures of very rare birds (for the Roseland anyway) that a local resident was lucky enough to spot and capture with a digital camera recently. I have to say I have never seen any of these in Britain, let alone Cornwall so I am very jealous! So, a simple question, “What are these three species of bird called?” My Thanks to Averill Pool, the real local expert on these matters; I know she knows what they are!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

March 2011 

 

Some months go by and you can hardly see a difference from start to finish, whilst other rush by in a blur of change. February was just such a month; we started in the depths of winter but at the end are emerging into a glorious spring, full of blossom, catkins and spring flowers. I have never associated spring with such a bronze pallet as we are currently witnessing, but as winter held things back, everything of spring seems compressed into a a much steeper curve. One result of this is that the hazel and alder that can dominate some of our hedgerows have come out together and are smothered in bronze, golden green and amber catkins. When the (somewhat intermittent) sunshine catches such a spectacle it lights up the fields and creeks around it. Alongside my ever-present campion we have seen great swathes of snowdrops come and go with dismaying rapidity but have been delighted with the defiant show they have put on.  The blue bells are showing fresh growth through all our woods and in the copses and spinneys that divide our beautiful countryside up into the delight that it has become. The first primroses are showing themselves, dubious of the guarantee of fine weather to come, and violets are peeping through in the sunnier hedgerows that remain sheltered from the westerly gales.

 

We have had several lovely walks this month although some of them have been spoilt by the appearance of graffiti and laminated litter over so many of our stiles. The first (walking 2 miles with the dog each morning does not count!) was round Nare head from Pendower beach. A sign telling us the coastal path was closed sent us up the road towards Veryan where we saw how much damage the floods had caused to verges and roadside embankments. Once we got through the fields back to the coastal path we saw sea birds beginning to repopulate the cliffs; Kittiwakes, fulmars and great black backed gulls were hunkered down in various nooks and crannies with herring and common gulls tracking breaking waves up and down the beach.

 

The seals are out in good numbers on the way to St Anthony’s Head from Porthtowan beach. We counted 10 one week and then 16 at the very end of February. I don’t know seal natural history at all well, but it was obviously a well mixed group with a couple of large males, a good number of females and several immature seals, possibly from last autumns births. If you know where they are go and see them before they disperse to sea again. As we left and walked back towards Portscatho we were amused to be watched in turn by three seals who seemed just as curious about us as we were about them. Each time we paused and turned to watch them, there they would be, swimming just beyond the surf and keeping us firmly in view. I have to admit that on land seals are not the most prepossessing animals, but in the water they are so beautiful and agile, I can stand and watch them for hours.

 

Yesterday we visited them again as we walked all the way down the headland to Zone point and round to Place then back via Bohortha to the car. This is a fabulous walk with open ocean coastline, sandy beaches and headlands giving way to the Percuil River where you can enjoy some of the best “Ferry Views” of St Mawes. The little church with its wonderful monuments to various Admirals is a very calming and special place. As we paused to admire their accomplishments and the skills of the masons, a shaft of sunlight pierced the gloom through a quatrefoil stained glass window and illuminated the main monument with a vivid splash of glorious reds and golds. The Church Conservation Society deserves all our support for maintaining these idyllic little gems. As you approach the church there is a row of beehives and we were pleased to see how active the inhabitants were. The spring sunshine must have worked its magic and there were lots of bees coming and going. I wonder why I admire bees so much (especially bumble bees) yet I cant tolerate wasps and hornets. I guess with bees a sting is the price you pay for nature’s bounty, whilst with a wasp all you get is pain!

 

 

February 2011 

 

Happy New Year! Our New Year started well as far as Mother Nature was concerned. At the beginning of the month I got to re stack my older (oven ready) logs to make space for some new ones. Strict log rotation is called for to allow logs to age well before they contribute their all for our comfort, so the log stack got turned over. We supply bug boxes for all sorts of creepy crawlies to over winter around our garden, but the log stack is far and away their favourite place. We have often brought logs in and missed a sleep wasp pr hornet that was sleeping away the winter months when suddenly- spring appears, as if by magic and a flurry of magnolia walls before meeting a crushed end under a swat of newspaper. I really have no qualms about killing wasps et al!

 

Back to the log stack: so, apart from wasps, we can also follow quite a deep and complex food chain, with larvae and wood lice dining out on cellulose but in turn being snapped up by ants and beetles in mind boggling array.  Slugs hoover up around the base of the food chain as well, which all funnels up to dormice, field mice and voles with first names I have never sorted out.  At the base of the stack there is an air channel that fills with dried leaves and which is open at the ends. This fills up (so it seems) with toads, lizards, and even the occasional slow worm although they spend most of their time under the compost bins right next door to the logs. Maybe we have so many under there that they are having an overspill crisis- I hope so.

 

Given the long cold winter we are “enjoying”, it is hardly surprising that there is little to see by way of wildflowers out there. I was worrying that my 36-month record of campion spotting was about to be broken. I have seen pink campion in the hedgerows at least every month for the last three years and actually for the time it took me to realise how stubborn this little gem actually is. But although I had seen it in early December, I was only able to spot it right at the end of this month and had begun to give up hope.

 

Anyway, there it was on Monday morning, just showing new flowers and all the hope and perseverance of spring. We have some snowdrops out and the wild (naturalised) ones down on Porthbean beach are well started. You can tell how hard the winter has been by the number of winter migrants that have ventured this far south and west. Starlings from Russia and Scandinavia have been joined by much larger than normal numbers of fieldfares, wheatears, redwings and even saw-billed ducks like merganser and red-breasted goosander. (Saw-bills, as their name suggests have teeth like notches along their beaks (bills) for gripping and eating fish that they surface dive for).

 

Last week I was walking home along one of our lovely greenways when a bird that was instantly recognizable as a kestrel flew up from the ground a short way ahead and flew off from me. What I could not work out was what it was carrying and what it eventually had to drop to make good its escape from me. I carried on along the bath and Nolly was quick to find what had been dropped- it was a well on the way to being dismembered fieldfare! A fieldfare is quite a big bird, easily as massive as a kestrel, so this hunter was certainly feeling proud of himself. I left the bounty alone and walked on to the next bend. After a few minutes wait the kestrel came back and eagerly started ripping its meal apart!

 

One other highlight that you should try listening out for over the next few weeks are the woodpeckers. Even in the depths of winter they have started drumming to proclaim their territorial boundaries and to give the good news to any female that might be out a-wooing! Greater spotted woodpeckers are quite common and are most often the ones you will hear drumming, but I have also heard a couple of yaffles in the margins of woods around and about. They do drum, but it is their call (which gives the green woodpecker its local name in the southwest) that you will hear from now all through the summer.

 

 

January 2011 

 

There have been lots of exciting visitors to the Roseland over the last few weeks as the cold Nordic weather has swung south over the British Isles. Redwings have been seen and, as I mentioned last month, masses of fieldfares have joined our resident population of blackbirds and those at the bottom of the migration chain, to strip our berry trees. These birds breed up in Scandinavia and swing south when driven out of there by cold weather, so we only rarely get to see them in their breeding finery, but even in the depths of winter they are still striking. But, bright as they are, they pale into significance when compared to our latest visitor- the waxwing! Waxwings again reside high up in Scandinavia and the northern steppes, and it could be said that they are not truly migratory as they will only head south (and west) when forced to do so by severe winter weather. If Scandinavia has a mild winter then the UK can say goodbye to any hope of a “Waxwing winter”.  I don’t have a photo of a waxwing to share with you but click on the link above and you will be taken to the RSPB’s waxwing pages. This winter has already seen the onset of arctic weather in Cornwall, so can you imagine what it has been like in Nordic Europe. Colleagues in Tampere in Finland have reported huge snow falls (and yes, their airport did close and their roads ground to a halt through lack of investment, so it isn’t just us!) and daytime temperatures as low as – 25°C. Have a look at today’s forecast for Tampere! No new snow, but think how long it lasts at these temperatures!

 

Anyway, back to the waxwings; it is quite a few years since we had a good waxwing winter this far south and west, If you have a look at this map you will see how most sightings are on the east coast as you would expect of a bird driven south and west towards us. What can also be seen is just how lazy these beautiful birds are- they will only go as far as they need, which is good news for us this year, because, although I haven’t seen one on the Roseland myself, they have arrived!

 

So what was that about chain migration? When we think of migration we think of birds, and mammals crossing huge distances, in the case of birds, spanning oceans and continents as they move back and fro, living in almost perpetual summer, but chain migration is a much more local effect. What happens is that a local population living say, on hill sides up north, is forced to move down into the local lowlands by encroaching winter weather, but still only locally. By the time they get down the hills the weather has improved enough for them to stay put. But, the local birds that were living down on the northern lowlands have also been thinking that things were getting thin on food, or a little parky (it means chilly as well as being a Yorkshire interviewer and chat show host!), so they head a wee bit south, maybe to the coast, but just somewhere a little mo re hospitable, and so it goes on with local populations all moving south, or at least to where the living is seen to be easier, but nothing moving very far overall.

 

I hope you have been enjoying the crisply cold weather we have had over the last few weeks. Our Tibetan terrier has given up on hunting down a Yeti in a snow bank but she still loves the snow!

 

Happy New Year to everyone.

 

 

 

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