Wildlife 2008

I am standing in for Neil Robinson this month so this is a much less well-informed Wildlife News than normal!

Summer made a fleeting appearance in September and then vanished, taking the House Martins with it- they disappeared without saying goodbye whilst we were away.  We miss their aerial display, their cacophony in the nests but not the mess they make.

Butterflies on the other hand seem to have made a resurgence and we have had a lot of Red Admirals in the garden.  Perhaps that is because the flowers have lasted well and despite the poor weather, the garden seems in good fettle.  Apples have had a remarkable year.  Damsons, on the other hand, were in short supply although the quality was superb.  Meanwhile Caterpillars have devastated our winter flowering broccoli!

This was a welcome surprise.  Spotted Flycatchers used to nest in the ivy above our front door but the ivy has died back and we had not seen them for a couple of years.  It is good to know they are still around.

There were two other thrills in the month.  The first was down at Leighton Moss where we witnessed, at long range, a confrontation between a stag and a swan.  The stag was determined to pass by a swan that was intent on defending its territory.  The stag succeeded but progressed very gingerly.

The second was in our fish pond.  This has one Golden Orfe, three ordinary Goldfish, one Lemon Goldfish and two Shubunkins. There used to be more but some have died and others vanished.  We had been puzzled that we had never had any babies and had given up thinking about it until a week or so ago when we thought we spotted something small moving under the water.  Two days later, I was able to confirm that we had at least two and possibly three baby Shubunkins. Today I tried to take a photo of them for this report but they are very elusive- I only saw one and it went and hid. They are about one inch long but fully coloured in red, silver and blue.  I just hope they survive the winter and the attentions of their companions.  Hopefully they are getting to big to make an easy morsel.

Don Shore, 1st October 2008

Afternote:
Such excitement in the household!  Watching quietly by the pond on a sunny morning revealed that not only do we definitely have three baby Shubunkins, we have three baby Goldfish as well.  Some of them even considerately posed for photographs.

The Shubunkins are about an inch long whereas the Goldfish vary from about half an inch to perhaps two inches.  And, of course, they are not yet gold but mostly a dark olivey sort of colour. Apart from humans, these are the first babies we've ever reared!

Writing the notes for August has been quite a challenge. What does one find to say about an August that has been virtually without sunshine?

At the beginning of the month the Swifts left early, and who can blame them? It is almost unbelievable that they will remain in flight, without touching down anywhere during their wintering over Africa, until they return to their nest sites in 10 months time. When I was first told this I simply could not believe it, but from enquiries I found that it is true. They live in the air!

At the end of the month Don Shore noted lots of Flying Ants. These are the winged males and females of the little black ants that live under our paving stones. They mate, the males die and the females try to establish new colonies, but most of them end up as food for birds or spiders.

Clusters of Buff Tipped Moth Caterpillars have been spotted in the village- they are gregarious and often strip the leaves off Birch trees.  In our garden there has been a notable shortage of butterflies . People who record them on nature reserves are reporting a very poor year.

But the Carder Bumblebees are still busy. These brown bumblebees nest above ground, often in tussocks of grass, where the workers "card" together moss to make a nest. They sometimes make their nests in the moss of planters and hanging baskets. Their colonies are slow to get started in the spring, but by August they have become the commonest bumblebee in gardens. They demonstrate how well some bumblebees have adapted to our garden plants.

In our garden their favourite is Fuchsia, an exotic garden plant if ever there was one, which they would never encounter otherwise in our countryside. But from morning till night, and even in the rain, they are always there, climbing up inside the flowers. They are the only bee visiting, apart from an occasional honey-bee, and they are not collecting pollen. The nectaries of the Fuchsia must go on producing nectar all day, and be ideally suited to the mouthparts and the tongue length of the Carder Bumblebee.

The first three weeks were characterised by the classic Swan and Flanders line:

In July the sun is hot.  Is it shining?  No, it's not!

However, the birds have been getting on with things. The Robins stopped taking food to their concealed nest and Judith saw a speckled young one in the bushes, from which we concluded they had been successful. The young do not develop their red breast until they are fully grown - otherwise they would be attacked by their own father.

This has not been a good summer for butterflies, but Judith photographed this Tortoiseshell beside the river, and as soon as our Buddleia flowered they appeared in the garden. I was surprised to find this Elephant Hawk Moth dead in my workroom; it must have flown in and been unable to escape.

It just shows how much there is around in our gardens, without being seen.

This month we have been experiencing that dampening phenomenon: the Great British Summer. The Solstice was celebrated by gales with heavy rain, followed by clouds and showers. But wildlife plods on.

Our garden has been visited in evenings by Hedgehog, which we think is one of two that reside in the garden next door, one of which has become tame enough to be hand fed. These countryside residents are perfectly at home in our gardens where they find, to our benefit, plenty of slugs and snails. Less welcome is a Grey Squirrel which puts in an occasional appearance.

A Tribute to
Neil Robinson

Natlanders will have been saddened to learn of the death of Neil Robinson.

Neil had produced the monthly Wildlife News for Natland.info and also for its predecessor village website.  

It had been a pleasure working with Neil.  He was totally professional in the production of his material and it proved to be a widely read and greatly valued regular contribution to village life.  In addition, Neil was always keen to know what was happening in the gardens of other Natlanders and ever ready to help in the identification of unusual wildlife visitors.  He will be much missed.

Neil's obituary can be viewed by clicking on The Westmorland Gazette

Don Shore,
17th October 2008

If you click on the
photos in the reports, normally an
enlarged picture
will open in
a new page.

Wildlife Archive
Follow the links to see the earlier articles:
Wildlife 2008
Wildlife 2007
Wildlife 2006
Wildlife 2005
Flora of Natland
(and the Vegetation of
Helm Common). 

After an ignominious Spring, May, with warm, dry weather, suddenly catapulted us into Summer. There is abundant evidence of successful breeding by our local birds. Jude Hodsall sent these two delightful photos of baby Long-tailed Tits waiting to be fed in her garden.

We have had nothing so spectacular, but two fully grown Blackbirds were pestering a male to feed them on our bird table, when they were obviously capable of feeding themselves, as was shown when the adult flew away. We have also had a Great Tit feeding young and a family of young Dunnocks. These inconspicuous little birds have remarkably complicated social lives. Most of the year? They are solitary, but in the breeding season they come together, often in strange combinations (I mean, in terms of sexes): sometimes two males with one female, or two females with one male, on even several of both. Whole Ph.D theses have been written about the matrimonial misdemeanours of the Dunnock!

But we are particularly pleased that Robins have found the nest box we intended for them. This is an open-fronted box on top of a cut-off birch trunk.

Judith has seen it several times since but, so far only a single, although there is a pair of Oyster Catchers frequenting a shingle bank, where they may nest.

The House Sparrow which commandeered one of our tit boxes has been sitting outside of it cheeping hopefully to attract a mate, without success so far. Blackbirds are nesting, but there are still arguements about territories. One day two males were doing their Tweedledum and Tweedledee performance along our garden wall, but in this case it did resullt in a real Battle, which took place on our drive.

In my photo, at an early stage, the younger (lighter coloured) bird was on top, but by the end of the bout it was the loser, and definitely worse for wear. The males are singing beautifully around our house. Their intonations invite setting words to them. One, to our amusement, whistles: "Say Pretty Polly", while another sings: "This is my place!"

We are pleased to report that Neil Robinson is now back in action.

Snow showers around Easter (the latter at an exceptionally early date) and much wet weather to follow has meant that Spring has had difficulty in announcing itself. However, Celandines and Dandelions are flowering in our verges, and February Gold Daffodils in our garden. It is an interesting point that most of our wild spring flowers, and garden ones derived from them, are yellow or white. The explanation traditionally offered is that in Spring there are fewer flowers (and pollinators) and the plants have not needed to evolve more coloured flowers to compete for pollination.

We have also seen our first bumblebee: a queen Buff-tailed, which has emerged from hibernation and must now establish a nest and rear some workers to support her. Buff-tails are usually the first to emerge. Who will see the first Red-tailed?

A Blackbird is often singing beautifully in our crab-apple tree; we hope that it is going to attract a mate and nest in the garden. A pair of Blue Tits has been investigating one of our nest boxes, but so also has a pair of House Sparrows. The hole was originally large enough only for Tits, but they have the habit of pecking around the hole and enlarging it, so they may have done themselves out of a home.

Meanwhile, down beside the river, Judith has seen a Chiffchaff, but there is no way of telling whether it is an early arrival or one that has over-wintered, as a small number are now doing. And on the river, as well as the resident Goosanders, a drake Goldeneye has been seen several times on a deeper stretch, where it can dive for food.

Wildlife News for February 2008 has been produced by Judith Robinson.

While Neil has been unwell (he is now out of hospital and improving), the winter has started to give way to spring. Snowdrops flowering beside the River Kent, just upstream from Hawes Bridge, are not native wild flowers, but the first dandelions are showing in Helm Lane and many bird species are now in pairs.

The fall of snow on February did not lie long enough for photographs but on the cold bright days in the middle of the month there were icicles in places where water runs into the river.

On a large log beside the river, two sorts of fungi are growing: on one side many small brackets, known as turkey-tail, and on the other a patch of oyster fungus. Neil says the turkey-tail is tough enough to grow through the winter but the oyster fungus is more delicate and shows just how mild it has been.

The goosanders have not been around on our stretch of the river at all frequently, although on the first of February this drake was swimming up and down, near to an overhanging tree which might make a good nest site. Since the weather turned colder, they have again been absent - perhaps joining those which hang around at the north end of Kendal. I heard that they are quite tame and will come to take bread offered to the mallard, although goosanders are fish-eaters and usually quite shy.

When on our part of the river, they behave more like wild ducks and can be quite difficult to photograph, probably because they breed here, as we saw last year (see last May?s wildlife notes). The moorhens too, which are tame in some places are very surreptitious on the river here, rarely allowing good views.

A Happy New Year to All Our Readers and Contributors.

My Wildlife Notes are now rebranded as Wildlife News, because an increasing number of people are sending me reports of what they are seeing in their gardens or around the Village. So, if you have any interesting observations, photos or questions, please keep sending them to:  .

Birdwatching in January has been very much a matter of watching bedraggled Sparrows on our bird-table, and occasionally spotting an equally bedraggled Goldfinch amongst them. Judith has not been down to the river at all frequently; the Kingfishers are not to be seen when the river is in spate, though the Dippers are flinging themselves in with their usual determination. 

Nevertheless, we have had some interesting visitors to our garden. In my December 2007 Notes I asked if anybody was still seeing Bullfinches? Behold, on New Year's Day there was a female at out bird-table and then a male the next day - but none seen since. Rhian Peters had a Siskin and a Blackcap at their feeder in December. In January we started to get single Siskins, but then on the 16th I was delighted to see a flock of 15 Siskins high up in our Birch tree, picking seeds our of the catkins. But we still have not had a Blackcap or any Redpolls yet. And who will see the first Brambling?

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