Swallows and Swifts make the summer

I look forward to seeing my first swallow of the year.  Usually in the London area they arrive around the 15th April – an astonishing feat of punctuality when you consider the vast distance they travel. Some however get it wrong; I once saw a single bird hawking over Connaught Water in Epping Forest in thick March snow, and wondered if swallows mightn’t be better off if they had evolved the ability to hibernate as people once believed they did, in the mud at the bottom of lakes.

They’ve been around the south of England for over a month now, the screeching daredevil Swifts arriving not long after. In truth it is swifts we see most often in my part of London – exhilarating and rowdy they mob and scatter between the house roofs, impossible to catch on film, for me at least. And to tell the truth I don’t even try, the clue to the pleasure of watching swifts is in the name.

Once I was lucky enough to be doing a bit of work on a local nature reserve when a gigantic mixed flock of swallows and martins swooped in and wheeled and twittered in their thousands over the water – the site comprises grassland and a disused reservoir. It was exhilarating, beautiful and it was my first day there – in my eagerness, I’d turned up early. I thought that every day would start like this. When the ranger arrived he told me I’d been lucky, because I’d actually seen the birds arrival from Africa – it was indeed April 15th.

Last September when camped on the Isles of Scilly, we watched the swallows in their restless gathering as they prepare for the gruelling journey back to Africa. Sitting on a hot deserted beach on the tiny island of Gugh, we watched as twenty or more arrowed back and forth across the sand just a few inches above the ground, effortlessly changing course over stationary and moving obstacles as they hawked for sand flies. I aimed my camera at them as they flashed past and caught nothing but blurs, but then again, sharpness isn’t the point. Frozen perfection would never get across how it felt to watch these mercurial creatures.

To read more Nature Notes, why not visit Rambling Woods – in fact, why not write a Nature Notes post of your own?

Related posts:

Town Fox, Country Fox

We’ve always had urban  foxes passing through and spending time in our garden, but there seems to be an excess of vulpine activity in these parts of late.  Their fine sense of just how long it’s safe to stare at the stupid human before flowing silkily under or over the fence to safety displays a magnificent comic insolence.  And now that their activities have taken on a destructive and faintly macabre air I feel like the slow witted butt of many a foxy joke. It’s almost like Wiley E Coyote is getting his own back in a small suburban English garden, and I am the one who’s playing the straight guy.

They’ve always dug the occasional hole in the grass, and they’ve always dumped bones in the flower beds. We have become blasé to their eerie nocturnal shrieking and if they eat an occasional bird… well, they are only making a living after all, and I bet they eat a good many rats, too. We rub along together pretty well. But last week I was astonished to find a whole sheep skull under the rosemary bush looking at me through empty eye sockets like a prop from a remake of Lord Of The Flies.  And yesterday our neighbour in the flat downstairs (who is a strict vegan) found two large meaty bones abandoned on her back doorstep. Presumably someone is feeding them, or they are raiding illegally dumped food waste. I’d love to know where this stuff is coming from, but the foxes aren’t telling.

They’ve dug up our carrots and they’ve strewn Kentucky Fried Chicken boxes around like a bunch of truanting kids. They pulled up a tomato plant, just for fun. There is nothing they like better than gnawing at and playing football with our flowerpots, and they especially love my old workboots which I planted with geraniums; I never know where I’m going to find them from one morning to the next. They treat our garden the way rock stars treat hotel bedrooms. And I would love to see them doing it.

But oddly, the best sighting I’ve had all this year was of a wild country fox, hunting voles in a lush spring meadow. Country foxes are warier beasts all together, so I guessed all we’d get was a brief glimpse before it saw us and vanished into the long grass. But we were screened by a thick hedgerow and the wind was in our favour – the fox had no idea we were there at all.

It combed the meadow, listening intently for a sound that might betray a rodent or bird.  It was a lesson to see how it went about it’s business, calm and patient yet utterly focussed, and it wasn’t long before we saw it pounce and eat some small unlucky thing.

It came closer and closer as it quartered the field, I still can’t quite believe it came so close that I could get these pictures with my humble point-and-shoot camera. I’ve hesitated to photograph wild animals before, out of respect and and a desire to not spoil a moment with the clattering of the shutter, but watching this creature go about it’s daily business did not feel intrusive. A lesson in methodical patience, it went about the chore of feeding itself with a relaxed unhurried alertness and I tried to do the same as I recorded it.

We must have watched it hunting in the sunshine and long grass for ten minutes or more and I would have gladly stayed longer, but we were only half way through our walk and needed to keep going if we were to make it home before dark.

As we continued to walk along the field edge the fox continued hunting, its beauty glowing bright in the sun. If I ever felt the slightest irritation with it’s city living cousins those feelings got melted utterly as I looked over my shoulder and watched it, still stalking the long grass, till it was out of sight.

To read more Nature Notes, why not visit Rambling Woods – in fact, why not write a Nature Notes post of your own?

Related posts:

Beltane and Bluebells

For May eve we camped out in a little East Sussex wood; we wanted to be out in the fresh new green and jump over our own mini Beltane fire to bring in summer. Also, the area is renowned for its bluebells, of which I am something of a connoisseur.

The weather was cool and damp, the humidity intensifying the depth of the colours  and general sense of lushness and rampant growth. Birdsong seemed astonishingly loud, the only other sounds a constant dripping and the babble of running water.  I felt I could almost be in a high altitude cloud forest anywhere in the world if it were not for the familiarity of the trees and vegetation around me.

There are so many wildflowers all blooming together right now, the harsh winter having telescoped the seasons down until the first late winter flowers stand shoulder to shoulder with summer blooms. And everything is giving it’s best after that winter, including the bluebells.

If you are lucky enough to have been in a bluebell wood in full flower you will know well the extraordinary sensual overload that this can provoke.  You walk along thinking that you’ve already seen it all, it couldn’t possibly get any bluer. Then the trees open out a little more and they are swimming in an astonishing violet mist of overwhelming voluptuousness. This, I can tell you, you have to experience for yourself.

It’s not just the colour, the scent is vivid  too – heady and exotic for something so British, but with a coolness that makes it bearable, like lilies crossed with violets. Sometimes you can smell the flowers long before you see them.

I remember my first sighting of bluebells as a child, and the wonder I felt at their unexpected beauty. My mother wisely told me not to pick a single one, they could never look better in my hand than standing exactly where they were and I understood and did as I was told. Coming back from our walk we saw a family who had not been so wise; they had greedily picked as many as they could carry and were already making disappointed sounds at how swiftly they had wilted. They bore my mothers rage with baffled indifference, but if they learned nothing that day, I had learned plenty.

To read more Nature Notes, why not visit Rambling Woods – in fact, why not write a Nature Notes post of your own?

Related posts:

Helping The Early Birds

Something was different today as I opened the back door to check the bird feeders and fill up our makeshift bird table – all along the back fence sat a row of little birds. They were waiting! Almost overnight it seems they have taken to using the bird feeders, almost emptying the seed feeder in the space of 24 hours. Robins, wrens and blackbirds fidgeted impatiently, and whizzing through the air blue and coal tits cheeped and twittered. I’m sure I saw a song thrush too, but it was extremely shy and flew behind the fence when I appeared. Not so the robins, who could barely wait and had already stormed the table before I’d reached the fire escape.

Robins are highly territorial birds and they are extremely bad at sharing – the fact that these two were able to tolerate each others presence shows just how desperately hungry they were. Eventually the bird on the right muttered “get lost” (which to human ears sounds like an incredibly sweet and lovely song) and the bird on the left, losing it’s nerve, flew into a rose bush to wait it’s turn.

I’ve only recently begun to feed the birds and it’s suddenly feeling like quite a responsibility, having all these small lives dependant (to some extent at least) on me. But it’s also an honour, the thought that I can actually help. Seeing that little fidgeting group of birds waiting in the thickly falling snow brought home to me their plight, and how easy and simple it is to do something about it.

RSPB bird feeding advice

Feed The Birds:- my do’s and dont’s list

…And don’t forget your fellow humans

As I have just written about the responsibility of saving lives I feel it would be a crime if I signed off from this post without mentioning the terrible earthquake in Haiti. If you don’t feel moved to feed the birds, please do not forget your fellow humans in their hour of need. If just one person who reads this feels moved to donate, that could mean a human life saved.

Oxfam Uk Haiti Earthquake Appeal

American Red Cross

Unicef

To read more Nature Notes, why not visit Rambling Woods – in fact, why not write a Nature Notes post of your own?

Related posts:

Summer on the wing

At the risk of being corny, I’m amazed at how time flies. Two weekends ago (it seems a lot longer somehow) I spent a perfect summer afternoon investigating a small bramble hedge in the middle of Hampshire. Who knows how long I spent there; I was utterly absorbed, but I do know that I could barely see past the butterflies. There were clouds of them! I was astonished at how intently they foraged, as many fiercely territorial species sat calmly together and drank deeply from the bramble flowers. Perhaps it was the heat, perhaps it was the end of the breeding season; maybe it was just that they were getting drunk on good nectar, but I’ve never had so many butterflies sit so patiently for me.

First up was Polygonia c-album, or the Comma, a lovely amber coloured creature with attractively raggedy wings. Wondering how it got that name? Look at the bright marking on the underwing in the picture below – you should be able to tell!

At first I thought this Argynnis paphia, or Silver Washed Fritillary was a Comma too, but its larger size and calligraphic markings gave it away. Although this particular individual is very much past its best you can still see what an impressive and beautiful creature it is.

Let’s take a closer look at its wonderful green and orange furred body and spotted eyes

A little further along I found a Pyronia tithonus, or Gatekeeper – these sprightly butterflies were very active and though I saw many in the hedgerow this was the only one that would sit for me. I think it’s a female.

Time passed, and I realised that most butterflies had drunk their fill and moved on. I stalked the perimeter of the field and found nothing else that would sit still for me. Time to try the garden (we were staying at R’s parents house) which has many plants beloved of butterflies. Sure enough, there was an Aglais urticae, or Small Tortoiseshell on the lavender.

And the Gonepteryx rhamni, or Brimstone butterfly looked well on this striking blue flowered shrub. They particularly liked this plant, which seemed quite poetic given how the fizzy yellow of the butterfly looked against the improbably blue flower.

I had been anxiously hoping to find some Inachis io, or Peacock butterflies, having seen a colony of their caterpillars on nettles much earlier in the summer. They couldn’t all have been killed, surely? It seemed wrong that I hadn’t found an adult yet. Then, on a trespassing bramble I saw this…

What a showstopper! It was worth a bit of mild anxiety just to see this glorious insect – a male, fresh and glossy and presumably just emerged from its pupa.  I intend to write a little more about peacock butterflies, but I’ll leave that till another time.

Related posts:

Next Page »