Vole Nest and updates

A week or so ago when I started hearing a male Cuckoo calling, I endeavoured to find him and film him, but as the sound carries, I struggled to see the bird. Then finally I did spot him. Far to distant to film, I returned the following evening but to late as I have not seen or heard him again. I have also been trying to watch out for the Wood warblers nest that the Cuckoo is most likely to have laid the egg in, but as the potential nest site is on private land and I have been refused permission to access the land, all I can do is watch from a far.

Therefore I have refocused my attention on the Polecat that I spotted drinking from the dog bowl that serves as a bird bath. Sophisticated set up that I have here. While indistinct, in the sand I scattered to pick up any paw prints, it looked as though the Polecat was visiting occasionally. So last night I set up the Camera with the IR light and waited in the house ready to record directly on to the hard drive of the computer any activity. With the window of that view open I was able to sit and write as well, as it can become less than interesting watching a screen with little or nothing going on.

As some rain had been forecast, the camera set up was well rapped in plastic and weather proofed as much as was possible. When the rain came, this all seemed to be working. Then the heavens opened and the rain fell in torrents, then suddenly the camera cut out. No picture, no sound; so mad mouse dash and grab the camera back inside. The camera was not wet and had the rain not been as heavy it would have worked, but it had got into the cable feeding the signal to my computer.

Undaunted I kept watching from the office (back bedroom) window and saw something even more remarkable. From a bag of compost that is in the yard a vole emerged carrying a pink and new born kit. I think they are called kits but don't shoot me if I am wrong. Where the rain was so heavy it had effectively flooded the nest the vole had made, in the compost in the plastic bag. As it was still dark and raining when I tried to film the IR light was just reflected off the window. I waited, in the rain outside to see if she returned but did not.

I looked once the light of dawn had come and there were no more young to be collected and no drowned kits either. But that was an unexpected sight. Talking of unexpected things, when I was out the other night watching, but not seeing, Badgers, there was a sound, a bird call that baffled me. While it was one that I had heard before, admittedly from a CD of calls, I was struggling to name the bird. So I went though the calls on the CD and what I heard was a Nightjar. Now this is a bird that I have never seen and this is the first time that I have heard the bird too. Having taken the time to read up on the bird, it will probably be using the same perch to sing from, if the Nightjars call can be called a song, so I may be lucky and see it. But with the breeding season coming to an end, I may have to wait until next year.

There is a vast diversity of wildlife out there and often it is there right under our noses. By feeding the birds in my back yard I know that I get to see more than most people do. While the most regular visitor in my back yard is the House Sparrows, and some people dismiss them as being common. In reality they have declined in numbers by sixty percent, to me it shows that even feeding relatively common species is important. There has been a bit of remarkable behaviour that I have seen with the Sparrows too, and had they not been regular visitors I would not have worked out what was happening.

At times I would see a bird flying, almost orbiting the feeder but not always landing on the perches. I have tried to film this and I do have some footage that I will deal with when I can find the time. Through observation I started to realise that the birds that were doing this were newly fledged and while they could fly very well, but they were doing this orbit as they lacked the confidence in landing. I know for sure that they were newly fledged by them begging from the parents when they landed on the wall.

One of my neighbours also puts food out for the birds, but gets very few birds. So I was asked what they could do. As their yard is bare and lacks the plethora of weeds that I could win prizes for, I suspect that it is the lack of safe cover that mean the birds feel to vulnerable there. I have suggested getting some plants in pots, but they are worried about soil getting washed into the drains. Unfortunately if they want the yard to be immaculate it is unlikely that they will get the birds in the yard. As my prize collection of weeds home all the invertebrates that keep the birds coming.

On that score, I had a human visitor today, a gentleman from the council. One of my neighbours had made a complaint. The chap from the council was apologetic and said that as a complaint has been made they, the council, are obliged to investigate. The complaint came in two parts; the first was that I was putting bread out for the Jackdaws and this could attract rats. As I was talking to the council officer, another neighbour called round, as the neighbour that had made the complaint had told her that the Environmental health officer had called and that would stop me “Throwing Rubbish” in the back lane. As this other neighbour was the one putting the bread out for the Jackdaws, that was quickly cleared up. The feeding neighbour did this outside my gate to avoid conflict with the complaining neighbour. She can still feed the Jackdaws, and I have no problem with her feeding them outside my gate as I get to see the birds too.

The other complaint was that I was releasing or allowing a ferret to wander about freely. I do not own a ferret, and I explained that what the neighbour had probably seen was a Polecat, and had I been successful in filming it I could have shown him the proof. Again, there was no problem there. Another issue that came up again, I have been reported for this before, is that I do not always put by bin out for collection every week. Quite simply I do not generate enough rubbish to justify putting the bin out. As this lack of rubbish means that I have less going into landfill and I try very hard to recycle all that I can, often if I put the bin out with so little in it there is a risk that the bin could get blown over in high winds, something that is not uncommon here. Yet again the council chap was happy with what he found. My Jackdaw feeding neighbour said what everyone was thinking; why cant people mind their own business. The council officer also let me know that the complaining neighbour also does not like my curtains. I am just glad that we don't have fashion police as I would get arrested every day for those offences.

Latter on when I went to buy some milk, I had used more drinking all that coffee trough the night, I saw the newly fledged chicks from the swallows whose parents I had been filming in flight the other week. They were on the telephone wires with the parents still feeding them. This is a process known as branching, and is where the phrase “Branching Out” comes from.

Well I think that I need to find a phrase from nature that suites me, at the moment hibernation looks favourite.