Lose Ends

I know that I have been very remiss about posting of late. But I have been busy, also I have not really had that much to say. I am sure that my long suffering reader would have got very bored with me just saying it raining yet again. While the village is over 2000 feet above sea level, I have been expecting the beach to arrive any day now for weeks.

However, the moist weather has been good for amphibians. I have seen far more Frogs and Toads about than I have seen anywhere. Part of that could be that the insects that would normally feed them have been lacking simply as when it is wet and raining the insects can not fly. Therefore the extra moisture makes foraging easier for the frogs and toads.

Another effect of the wet weather has been the number of slugs and snails that I am seeing on the paved path alongside the road when walking between villages. It was while walking there on Saturday morning, I was keeping an eye on the path. While mainly to ensure I did not end up with my shoes coated with slug purée but also because the species mix here is different to the mix where I used to live. While walking I had to double back a couple of steps as I realised that what I had initially registered as another slug was in fact a tiny newt. By tiny I mean the body length was less than an inch about 20mm. It was the slow realisation that the slug had legs that made me realise it was actually a newly emerged newt.

While I was looking at this, a car slowed down and stopped and someone I vaguely knew asked if I was all right. I think it was a look of pity I saw on their face as they drove off. I already knew that my interests and personal attitudes were not shared by some in the village, but I was told I should just step on it and get rid of it.

Perhaps my reader will understand why I have been slow in posting here, when I have attitudes like that to contend with.

On a different topic, the Ring Ouzel. For my American reader, they are migrants from Africa that nest here. They are very similar to a Blackbird, but with a longer body, kind of like a blackbird with a long wheel base. Also the male has a bright white ring around the throat. They are also quite shy, so while distinctive they are not always that easy to see. The name Ouzel comes from old English and means Thrush. Therefore its actually a Ringed Thrush.

On a serious note, the rain that the shifting of the gulf stream has brought to Britain is an effect of the changes that Climate Change will be bringing for many Decades. If the folks in my local pub is anything to go by, I am alone in understanding that the climate is changing. As this is a farming community, I would have thought folks would have been better informed. But all I hear from them are the same old arguments peddled by polluting industries and the Right Wing Press. Yet when I suggest that they only need to look at the weather patterns and the extreme levels of rain, but this doesn't change their minds. As the village is located in the middle of a wind farm, I would have thought that people would at least be more open minded, but the beliefs are entrenched.

Curlews And Kestrels

I know its been a while since I posted here, but there is a good reason for this, the need to protect a rare nest.

As my regular, well only reader will know, I moved to an upland area nearly two years ago. I arrived in the Winter so the first spring and summer I was just finding my feet here. As the landscape could be used to film Wuthering Heights, it should tell you exactly what it looks and feels like. Also where the village I live in is rather exposed the default setting for the weather will uncombe your hair the moment you step out of the door.

I rather quickly discovered that there were Curlew in the area. This is a bird of concern and the RSPB estimate there are less than one thousand pairs nesting in the UK. So this spring when I realised I was seeing at least a couple of pairs that appeared to be nesting, I started to investigate.

While the weather has been less than clement this summer, the spring started out as being rather good. Therefore, early in the year I was rather surprised to find three definite nests and another possible nest. But then came the rain, and a bit more rain, and more than a bit more rain, so much that I was waiting for someone to open a beach resort here.

When I was able to look again, I discovered six Curlew nests. With its curved beak made for probing in wet mud, the rain had delayed breeding but it also made spotting the Curlews feeding rather easy, and tracking them back to the nests was relatively easy. So I had over a half a percent of the British breeding population on my doorstep.

However, while looking for one species of bird and its nests you inevitably notice other things too. The Lapwings and the Hare being two of the most numerous sightings. But sight is not the only sense used and I was hearing a bird that I could not identify. I am always cautious about identifying any bird just from its song or call, as Starlings can and do mimic.

The effect of the weather, had its effect most noticeably on the Kestrels as the rain was effecting the activity of the mammals they feed on. They moved to the higher parts of the land and locally that is often the road verges. After having had several days of rain, walking into the next village and back, I saw three individuals hunting over the verges. Then the following day, while on the top deck of the bus retuning from a food shopping trip I had a close up view of a Kestrel that had to manoeuvre out of the way of the bus. It was a brief sighting but a spectacular one. When a week latter I saw a Kestrel drop to the verge, I thought of that sighting and I thought I would never see anything closer than I had on the Bus. But as I crested the hill and walked along the road I saw the Young Kestrel covering, trying to hide its meal from me, with its wings as I walked past it less than four feet from the bird.

It was possible to tell that it was a newly fledged bird as it still had the last traces of the gape visible and there was another Kestrel very close by that could have been one of its parents. It was when I had passed this that I heard the call that I had been wanting to identify again, but this time actually seeing the bird. A Ring Ouzel.

As I had things to do I could not stop and watch but as I walked back I kept my eyes and ears open. It was funny, but that day I had three offers of a lift back to the village that I had to refuse. I am glad I did as I did see the bird again. He was picking caterpillars off the vegetation at the road side.

I did try tracking the bird but lost sight that first time. But over a couple of days I repeatedly saw him and what I latter realised was the female, and discovered where they were nesting. It was because of this nest that I kept quiet here, as had hoards of bird watchers descended on the area, the nest of a very rare bird would have been disturbed, as well as the nest sites of the Curlew. Further, by keeping quiet about this until “The Glorious Twelfth” as I was asked to do by the Farmer, across who's land I had to cross to get close to the nest, I got to see a seventh Curlew nest as well as a Little owls nest too.