|
Nature Notes - 2009
_____________________________________________________________________
Nature Notes - The gales have blown us all off course!
by Ian Bennett
The season of mists and mellow fruitfulness has been well and truly blown away by the gales of the last few weeks. The seas have been mountainous and have dramatically changed many of our sandy beaches for months to come. The stone pavement under the centre of PendowerBeach has been exposed and it looks like most of the sand has ended up further east towards Portloe.
One of our favourite stretches of the coastline is the group small group of coves north of Porthcurnick beach along towards PorthbeanBeach. None of them are very wide, and most are partially blocked by high ramparts of barnacle encrusted rocks and gullies at the seaward end.
 One we call HoundDogRockBay for reasons best illustrated by the attached photo. This area always provides rich pickings for driftwood that we collect and use to make lamp bases, decorative trees and other odds and ends. There are lobsters off the rocks and the waters teem with fish at various times of the year. Many of our coastal birds have had rich pickings on and off the beaches. The gales have blown many migrants off course (and the odd surfer!) and many pelagic species such as shearwaters, gannets (dozens of Gannets!) and even arctic skuas have all been pushed close to shore to find shelter.
Divers are back on several of the Roseland’s creeks and have joined with the occasional merganser and goosander to create wonderful spectacles. (No, not the sort you need to see the latest version of Christmas Carol – different spectacles entirely!)
 But, the southerly winds do seem to have kept temperatures up all over the UK and there are still many mushrooms and fungi to be seen like these we spotted a few weeks ago. The mild weather means we are still waiting for significant numbers of fieldfares and redwings to appear.
As far as my wife is concerned they would be better waiting till after Christmas so she has chance to gather some of the glorious holly berries that are still so thick on the trees. This time last year a great crop of berries had all but disappeared by early December.
Even now the first harbingers of spring are out there – lambs appeared over on Messack Point very early in November, yesterday we found some wild garlic in flower and we even know where there are violets in flower!
I hope you have a wonderful Christmas, and that you make the opportunity to get out into our glorious countryside.
_____________________________________________________________________
Nature Notes - Have you ever seen so many berries?
by Ian Bennett
 The hedgerows have been laden down with berries of so many different plants. I’ve already mentioned sloes in earlier articles, but the holly this year is also covered with great clusters of sealing wax droplets. Honeysuckle is still flowering in places, but elsewhere the berries have formed up beautifully. Elderberries have come and gone, the first to be devoured by the blackbirds and thrushes.
I am hoping that such bounty will attract more winter thrushes such as fieldfares and redwings. Heavy snow has already fallen in parts of Scandinavia and this should help encourage those stragglers wondering whether or not they needed to bother heading out over the north sea for warmer climes (can you imagine how bleak it has to be for the wintry shore of Northumberland to become attractive!
Please keep an eye out for these two winter visitors and let us know if you see any. As many will know, the RSPB have a keen interest in the birdlife of the Roseland peninsular and it will really help their reintroduction work if they know how other bird populations are doing.
With all these berries about we shouldn’t worry too much about the press reports that there will be a shortage of turkeys this Christmas – the blackbirds will probably be oven sized by then!
Back to my list, this year we have spotted (well actually we have been able to identify them this year) black bryony that magically appears draped through hedges as other plants lose their leaves. The leaves of black bryony are fairly nondescript resembling wild clematis, so they hardly break cover, but as the hedges become bare, the berries of this poisonous plant (a member of the yam family) really come into their full glory.
The other plant we have identified recently is spindle. Only nature could get away with mixing bright pink covers with orange berries.
 We don’t feed our garden birds during the summer; to my mind we should feed them when they really need it- life is not a fast food takeaway! But last week I washed out the feeders (again) and set up peanut feeders, nyger seeds and general cereal feeders. It was dusk when I finished but by the time I drew back the curtains the next morning we were back in business.
Goldfinch must be able to smell nyger seed from over a mile away! They descend on the garden 10 at a time spending more time squabbling than eating which is just as well or we would never keep up! Blue tits, great tits and coal tits are all in attendance with long tailed tits paying fleeting visits. They will spend more time here as the days continue to shorten.
The blue tits have moved back into their nest box. After raising two broods during the summer they are now partying in there as an over night roost. I watched 7 go in one evening late last week. Apparently the record is held by wrens that once managed to squeeze 44 of their number into one little nest box on an exceptionally cold night. The other visitor we have seen for the last three days is a sedge warbler.
I guess it is on passage (migrating) but just where it thinks it is going I am not so sure!
_______________________________________________________________
Nature Notes - Autumn of the Roseland,
by Ian Bennett
There is just so much going on around us all the time! This month  the returning ducks, waders and gulls have repopulated the creek and coast – much to the apparent disgust of the now resident egrets but not so the long legged herons that stalk magisterially up and down, never deigning to so much as glance at these “Johnny-come-latelies!” We have repeatedly enjoyed watching a couple of young cormorants fishing just off the rocks with no real concern that we are maybe only 20 feet away.
 Ravens have been soaring high over the creek margins, their fan shaped tails and broadly spaced pinions so diagnostic, and then that deep chuckling “Prruuuk!” floats down to us lesser, earth-bound mortals. Buzzards soaring high is another magnificent sight and sound, but over the last few weeks we have been besieged by an immature buzzard in the trees over the road that clearly thinks it’s parents could be doing more by way of a fast food service. Eventually it struggles off its perch and away in search of it’s own food, but give it an hour and back it comes! Oh well, it really is a small price to pay for the privilege of being able to cohabit with them.
I was really pleased to come across a small toad on our allotment the other day; as we are plagued with slugs and caterpillars, I encouraged it to take up permanent residence, but whether it was looking for affordable housing with free food thrown in remains to be seen. Everything comes down to food doesn’t it? The hedgerows have been laden with blackberries and sloes (our kitchen windowsill sports a Kilner Jar full of sloes and gin that is slowly turning red and headily aromatic– no, I’m not telling you where we live – make your own!) But I think it is not just us enjoying the season’s bounty – we have seen plenty of evidence (it gets a bit scatological here, you may want to look away) of fruity-poohs from foxes and badgers getting their autumnal sugar fix.
 I have heard stories of both getting drunk on late summer fruit as it slowly ferments in the late season sunshine. The main road through the Roseland resembled a charnel house the other morning; rabbits, a rat, a badger and even (sadly) a cat had all been knocked over on just the one night: I don’t drive slowly, but I can still manage to avoid the wildlife and I started to ask myself how many people take avoiding action - or “the opposite”? Badgers are moving back to their winter sets at this time of year, using routes they have used for decades. I know there is huge controversy regarding badgers and TB, but for now, most people think the jury is still out so we should be giving them the benefit of the doubt. My wife saw a badger last week on the way back from yoga (yes, now you have this weird picture in your mind of a badger wearing a headband, legwarmers and a fluorescent Lycra leotard, but it was my wife NOT the badger that had been out saluting the sun or whatever!) It moved along the roadside steadily and wasn’t panicked by the car’s approach, so she was able to go around it easily enough
Finally, a huge thank you to whoever has been cleaning up the walkways styles and undergrowth across the National Trust land between St Just and St Mawes – it is so much better than it was. Thank you!
PS. I have been asked to point out that no member of this household would be seen dead in headband, legwarmers and a fluorescent Lycra leotard. Please blame artistic license.
_____________________________________________________________________
Nature Notes - Seasons of Mists and Mellow Fruitfulness
by Ian Bennett
The season of mists and mellow fruitfulness seems to have come upon us very early this year. Last month I was dodging deer in the rain coming home late at night, this month it has been badgers and hedgehogs out on the roads in thick mist – yet again with no lights!
We have seen a few phasmids around St Just in Roseland since we came  down but this month a rather splendid example spent a few days sunning itself on the side of our house. It only disappeared into the undergrowth when the sun went in. Phasmid?? Ok, it’s a stick insect! It was about 7 inches (175 mm) long and remarkably well developed in its ability to hide in brambles, which is one of its principal food plants. If you see a phasmid there is a UK survey that would like to hear from you on line. Go to UK Phasmids and log your sightings.
Many would say that these slowly stalking magisterial beasties are very primitive, they have been around unchanged for millions of years, but then others (can I smell bra’s burning?) would point out how advanced they are. Stick insects can reproduce parthogenically – very advanced if you’re a women’s libber because this means that they have done away with the male!
They only live for a few weeks in their mature form and spend their lives chomping though leaves and travelling from plant to plant. As they go they release eggs that drop to the ground and later hatch as the weather warms up next spring. (sometimes earlier). But these eggs are in effect already fertilized. As I understand it, no one has found any male phasmids in the UK yet they have been here for over a century! Guys, maybe our days are similarly numbered!
 We have just taken up cloud collecting. Here you can see a lovely example of fair weather cumulus over Falmouth. It is only when they start to tower upwards in rising thermals that they start to threaten recirculating airways that generate condensation and rain. These innocuous clouds are associated with fair weather, but they can sometimes be transformed into the anvil shaped cumulus nimbus storm clouds
 Have you been bothered by hawks this year? There are lots of buzzards and kestrels about but the other day nine hawks were repeatedly seen over the Roseland. These high-speed flyers appear to prefer company as they stayed in a variety of formations over the Carrick Roads but they appear to have moved on. A few days later they were seen over Fowey and Dawlish so maybe we shan’t see them again this year.
 We have seen lots of different butterflies, field browns, blues, many hundreds of painted ladies and lots of red admirals.
This red admiral was getting a bit long in the tooth - its colors are muted and lots of the iridescent scales that give butterflies their brilliance are missing.
Nature Notes - Summer on the Roseland
by Ian Bennett
The summer started well, with some sunny days, but didn't it go downhill fast! We have been building a poly tunnel on our allotment, and it has taken so long mainly because of the weather.
But, all this rain and "warmth" has surely made things grow! Our pumpkins are sure to be ready with the best of them in the local shows, so watch out Nicola! The fields have been mown and grown even more lush grass for hay-lage or whatever the farmers are able to get in in between this "unsettled weather". Have you noticed how it can rain for days, but is still classed as "unsettled"!
Still, there has been lots to see. I have been privileged to see a kingfisher on the creek on a number times, but the best you get is a flash of electric blue disappearing along the creek. Not quite as rare or special as the black browed albatross seen off Gwennap Head at the end of the month. This wanderer of the Southern oceans must have really got his left and right hands mixed up, or maybe his Sat Nav needs rebooting - either way, it's a long way from home. Hopefully it will not become a millstone around some modern day mariner!
All the rain has kept the owls away from the road, but the other night I was coming home past the Lanhay turning, in the pouring rain and was startled to come across two deer in the middle of the road! Pitch dark, pouring with rain and not a light showing between them!! (Mind you, sometimes it seems as though half the cars around here can only muster one headlight at a time!)
What else have I seen? Well, the beaches are once again full of noisy, squabbling black headed gulls (and some commons as well). At the moment the black headed gulls are turning gray; by the end of the month they will be white-headed-but-black-eared gulls until the spring when they get all dolled up for the annual breeding season.
 The tops of the beaches are covered in pippits and pied wagtails, but I did also see a gray wagtail at the back of Pendower beach the other day. Gray wagtails are easy to spot because of their distinctive yellow markings!I have also noticed a lot of yellowhammers. They have been in the garden on a couple of occasions, I have also seen them when out and about with the dog. (me, not them!)
Please let us know if you see anything unusual or just beautiful on the Roseland. Very often the everyday wildlife that surrounds us can be so special - it can lift us up, and put a spring in our step for the rest of the day. | 
