Badgers, Butterflies and a Muck Heap

Following my sighting of Badgers mating I went to an elderly man who lives in the village who has been watching Badgers for years. I knew that he too had seen this years ago. I know the reaction that he had when he told others, as I have had the same reaction that of not being believed. Myself and this gentleman share that experience but also the experience of seeing remarkable behaviour.

One of the interesting things I have discovered is that this man is nearly eighty. He has never revealed his age before, but as he is beginning to really feel his age, he is starting to think that he no longer has to try and protect the Badgers single handed. Something he has been doing for years.

While there are fewer people with the understanding of the natural world that are prepared to endure the difficulties and inclement weather to keep these badgers protected, there are enough to feel that the local population is not at serious risk. That said, the North East of England always tops the league when it comes to act of animal cruelty. Further, there are still plenty of failed laboratory experiments that feel that activities like Badger baiting is still worth carrying out. Even though it is illegal, people (these failed laboratory experiments) are still a serious threat to the Badgers. That is why I am careful about not revealing to much about locations.

That was why I was worried that the sett had been disturbed. But as I found, it was in fact that two badgers were setting up home. The Brock appears to be an outsider. Males will get driven out of the sett by the dominant male, the Old Brock who has the mating rights. So it is a logical assumption that he has been travelling looking for a new territory. Also young females like this Sow, who is about two years old, I have seen her grow up from a cub, has become attracted to this new male. This movement of males and pairing with young females is one of the ways that ensures that close relatives don't breed. While it does happen, that normally only happens when there is small isolated populations.

One of the evolutionary aspects that have enabled Badgers to be as resilient and successful as they are, is that the female can and will delay the implanting of the fertilised egg(s). The gestation is normally about four months, but badgers always give birth at the end of February beginning of March. They give birth as the food supply starts to increase, if they gave birth in the grip of winter they would have problems digging for the earthworms that form ninety percent of their diet from the frozen soil.

I will be watching the sett carefully over the coming weeks and months as it is likely that other young females could well join the group.

As well as this checking that I did today, I went out trying to film butterflies. I did get some interesting footage and one that I personally have not seen before, I will have to check my books before trying to name it, but I doubt that he is called Fred. The location where I saw the butterflies is new for me. I had asked permission to venture on to the land for something else, but it took time to get that permission so the original reason has passed. However, the land owner told me that the pasture was also rich in wild flowers and insects. Therefore I took some time today to see what was there. Within ten minutes I had seen eight different species of butterflies as well a numerous insects. Indeed the place is as rich as promised. The only problem that I had was that the sun was high, full and hot that meant the butterflies were very lively. That makes it impossible to film. Well for me. I will return and see what else may be lurking there.

Latter in the day as I was thinking of home, I went via a footpath that goes through a farm that keeps horses. Because of this and the fact that they have a nice muck heap, its a great place for insect eating birds. Indeed the sky was full of Martins. I did stop to see if I could film them in flight but I need to work out a plan to do that as they are to fast to do that ad hock. But I did stop to see if I could film the Pied Wagtails. This required me stopping right at the muck heap. As one of the people at the farm said; “that's no bed of roses” Oh the joy of filming wildlife.

Deer, Butterflies and Village Life.

Well the last week has been rather busy, tiring and stressful for me. By Friday last week I was tired but hearing that I had obtained my IR camera, a farmer friend asked if I was willing to help him discover the numbers of Deer that were on his land. Near part of his farm are a small number of houses, and they have been complaining about the plants in their gardens getting eaten. Initially they blamed the cattle, but as he had to stop dairy farming when Foot and Mouth happened, (that's when I first met him) that clearly was not the cause. Then the owner of the majority of these homes, they are owned as holiday lets, realised that it was deer that were getting into the gardens and nibbling the plants.

However the owner(s) were not willing to put up deer fencing as it would spoil the view and reduce the holiday letting income. Thus the owners of the cottages wanted to have the deer culled. This has been on going for a number of years. The farmer doesn't feel that there is a problem, and when I have looked I cant see what the problem is either, what damage there is is minimal. The reality is that the owner of the holiday lets gets more money by keeping the gardens pristine and he wants them to look picture perfect all the time.

So I was asked to see if I could count the number of deer that are going into the gardens from the farmers land. No matter what is said about farmers in general, there are more that care about the land the wildlife and landscape than don't. Anyway the farmer set up in a copses of trees a hide for me. It was raised of the round so that my scent was not detectable, but once there I was stuck there all night.

Now as anyone will know, it poured with rain last Friday night. And I was in danger of evolving gills. I got the information required and I saw fourteen deer, five Roe and nine fallow. As well as many other animals, including a fox that found shelter under the hide and did not leave until morning when I was released from my wet prison.

Now I must say with all this effort being put into warming the climate, for us to be having all this rain someone is not trying hard enough! I am sure that there is some one that can switch on another appliance or drive around aimlessly in a bigger car so we can get the Mediterranean climate we all seem to be seeking.

Flippancy over, exhausted I went to bed, satisfied that the Farmer now had independent proof that the Deer numbers were no where as high as the Holiday cottage owner was implying. Further, only two of the Deer had gone into the gardens and they were the gardens of the residents who are not worried or complaining about the deer anyway.

When I woke up though, I was feverish and not feeling well at all. So I thought that I would take a few days off, let my body heal its self. And this was going to plan, until on Sunday just as I was getting out of the bath, the phone goes. Now in my own house there are times when I don't bother with clothes, so I was not self concious of my state of undress. I had dried myself and as the call had come on the mobile I was expecting it to be a short one. I was wrong.

Since last year I have been helping a volunteer group put together a proposal for turn some derelict land into some allotments and a wildlife area. I was initially contacted by the group via my old 360 blog as they had gotten a grant to pay a consultant to put together the proposal and grant bids. But through delays they missed out on two important grants they were hoping for. Therefore they asked me to act as a mediator and advisor between them and the consultant.

What I first found looked to be a bit of a mess as the plans drawn up by the consultant were incoherent to say the least. And the vision the community had wanted appeared to have been ignored. So with a series of site visits I got the people involved to work out what they had in terms of species living there, and we worked out what work needed to be done as well as what species could be attracted if certain plants were introduced. The main emphasise being upon attracting butterflies and moths.

Well all this had been worked out and sent off to the consultant by email. The call on Sunday was from one of the women involved in the group. As there was a strike by Local Government Workers on Wednesday and Thursday this week, the meeting that had been planned for the Wednesday had been cancelled However that was not the problem, the consultant had gone off on holiday, and knowing that the Wednesday strike had cancelled the meeting had not submitted the detailed document to the council. The problem was the local authority had offered them a new meeting on Monday or Friday.

So this community group were desperately trying to get a plan, a document together. The problem was some people had information on one computer other information was on another computer, and as no one had the same software it was all becoming a mess.

The problem was exacerbated by the fact that there were holes in the information, little details that mattered. So I spent an hour looking things up in books and on my electronic library all while on the phone. When I had finished, I look up and there are three children trying to peek into my living room. I quickly shut the curtain, I have a voile up as well but I am no exhibitionist either.

The following day, still feeling grotty from getting wet and chilled, I get another call from the community group while they had gone to the local council meeting on the Monday, the council were not happy with the presentation document. So I was being asked if I could re type it and put it into the format that the council needs. Plus I only have three days to do it in.

Realising how important this all was, I agreed to do it. When I saw the document I realised why the council were not willing to accept it. Even though I have dyslexia myself (I don't suffer from it other people suffer from my dyslexia), I could spot many spelling mistakes and the grammar and punctuation made it difficult to read. Now I am now typist so I got all the content emailed to me from the different contributors. Another aspect had been the number of different fonts and sizes used. That way I could edit it and use DTP to make it all look presentable.

With many telephone calls and emails latter I was able to get it looking good, and clarify parts that seemed to contradict each other. I even had to go and get the ink to print the documents out, and yes they will be paying me for that.

Then on Friday they called and told me that the council had accepted their plan and the council will be giving them a lease for the land. So that was a brilliant result. I suggested that they write to complain about the consultant who has let them down so often, something that the officer from the council also said they should think about doing. However, with the land secured they can get cracking with some of the work, as I know they are doing this weekend, While they await their grant applications. But even if that grant money doesn't come through, there is still a lot they can get done. I was just happy that I was able to help guide them along the way.

However, there is a twist to this as when I went to get the inks for the printer, I was stopped in town by a fellow villager and relatively near neighbour. I say relatively near as she doesn't live that close, but had the cheek to complain about my curtains previously and was questioning my movement when she had obviously seen me wandering about at “odd hours” as she put it.

Well she had heard that I had been seen wandering about naked. I told her that if I was seen I was in my own home and remaining very polite I did tell her that it really was none of her business. She then told me that there was a tale going round the village that there was a convicted pervert living in the village. Now I too had heard this and about the time I first moved to the village. I have no way of knowing if its true, but while people need to careful about who their children associate with, there is a nasty atmosphere developing here. One of the aspects of this village that makes it endearing is that it always has had a fair smattering of eccentrics living here. But of late it seems that anyone who doesn't fit into some stereotyped box is seen with suspicion. This suspicion is being generated by a minority who seem to have their own agenda.

This village has suffered from drug problems, alcohol problems and crime for many years. While those problems are still here they are far fewer incidents that was happening even three years ago. Yet when I first moved here I was told that all the problems were from people who moved to the village, from outsiders, but I have lived here long enough to have seen for myself that more of the problems here are as a result of indigenous wrong doers than from outsiders.

I told this woman quite clearly that I was not the convicted pervert, as I have had to undergo “Criminal Records Office” checks I have documents to prove that, and what ever her problem was with me she needed to get over it.

When I told the woman who lives next door, she was shocked that this near neighbour had said anything. As previously the same woman had said I must be Gay as I don't have a girl friend, my ex wife could quickly disprove that one. Further, this woman is apparently telling every one that I am a peeping tom, why else do I always seem to have a camera. Also she is apparently anxious to know who all my visitors are.

Now I know that my lifestyle is not a conventional nine to five one, but I can not understand why this woman has so taken against me. I have done nothing nor said nothing to harm her. But some people seem to just want to be nasty. Well I just have to continue to ignore people like that as I have better things to do with my time.

The Bank Holiday

Yesterday, Monday, was a bank holiday. But unlike a normal bank holiday we had brilliant sunshine. Well we did in the north (Self satisfied Grin), in the south it was torrential rain. So it looks as though the south got the weather we were supposed to get. As nature often does though we are paying the price today. (Drip, drip)

After having a nice long lay in today, over the last two weeks I have been surviving on just four to six hours of sleep, I indulged myself. I only really had some shopping to do, and this enabled me to follow my diet and indulge in a Coffee and Cake. I say follow my diet as I have lost three inches off my waistline so I need to put on some weight so that my clothes fit me.

Yesterday, I went out and stood watch over an area that the Kites regularly visit. However I did not see the Kites at all. It may well be because of the number of people about enjoying the sunshine. I did however, get this short clip of film of a Wall Brown Butterfly.

Early in the morning I was trying to check my mail and such like, and I saw a procession of birds visiting my yard. The prettiest of them was the Collard Dove.

Later I was able to put up my do not disturb sign and watch the start of Springwatch on the TV. I can report for my overseas reader, that the Ospreys have two chicks!

Painted Lady and Red Kite

I can always tell when I've been neglecting my wifely duties, as is normally manifests in the running out of underwear. So while I was out this morning, and knew I had to return fairly early so that I could get some washing ton. Therefore, I was in the House to hear the radio four programme World on the Move. While I do listen to this as a podcast, it is rare for me to be able to catch it as a live broadcast.

I have mentioned in previous postings about this programme, and I dare say it will again, as this is quite inventive of the BBC to broadcast such a project. However my reason for mentioning the programme today is that of the two of the species that they're asking listeners to track, one of them I have seen already just three days ago. While sitting at the computer when I noticed something fly past the window, I looked out expecting to see a bird, and there was a painted lady butterflies sitting on my window ledge. I quickly grabs the video camera, but in the time it takes for the electronics to warm up the butterfly has flown off. Had I got the film of the butterfly I would have mentioned it at the time here, as I thought it was early for this species. Yet by listening to the programme today, I realised that the butterfly painted Lady is at least two weeks early here. Another effect of climate change.

While my wildlife watching this morning had not yielded up much that was worth reporting, it is still been pleasant to be out. And it was wild if I was having a cup of tea following a late lunch, that out of the living room window and saw one of the red kites fly over.

My poor neighbours must wonder what goes on in my place at times as I ran straight up the stairs to grab both video and still camera. When I got back downstairs, the red kite was no longer incite. But awaited as I know from experience, when they are all about they tend to fly in a pattern where there quartering the fields looking for false or shoes or beetles. My decision to wait was rewarded as into a very clear expanse of sky the red kite gracefully gliding over.

After taking the still images, I waited at longer to see if that kite returned but it is policy flown off. However it did find it rather amusing that one young mother returning with her child from infants school, had to, mildly, chastise the child after it said something mildly rude about me that was obviously a repeat of something that an adult had said, previously in the child's hearing. Personally I don't worry about what the neighbours think, if they think I'm eccentric then so be it. The one thing I haven't lost as an adult is the ability to see the world as a child, with wonder and excitement.

A Link to the World on the Move Website

Planting A Native Hedge

As people will know in the UK there has been snow this Easter. As this year Easter is very early in the calender, this should not be such a surprise. However, with a changing climate causing much of the wildlife starting to breed earlier in the year, this late snow will have an impact upon the fauna and flora in Britain.

While in the UK there are already serious pressures on wildlife numbers, most birds, mammals, reptiles and Amphibians are in serious decline, weather like this could seriously inhibit numbers for another year. Last year while the picture was not a clear image of decline, the patchy breeding success was not good news for the long term health of more than sixty percent of the natural populations.

Therefore, it is good see that there are people actively seeking to help the natural world. Not just seeking to, but actually doing more than a little bit to aid wildlife. The HOP Garden is a perfect example. This Easter they started planting a hedge of native species, Hawthorn, Blackthorn, Holly, to name a few. All around an area that is going to be converted into a wild garden that is designed to encourage butterflies.

While this plot of land was being used by some wildlife, enhancing the land in this way will make an important additional habitat for wildlife. Further, previously it had only been used by a few inconsiderate dog owners who instead of taking their dogs for a walk would just let their dogs use it as a lavatory. Now this community project will turn this in to an educational and community resource.

While it has taken a long while to get the permissions from the local council, now that has been granted the help given by the local authority includes the donation of the whips to plant. It shows just what a community can do when a lot of effort and a great deal of dedication is put into a project.

The HOP Garden Blog

Speckled Wood Butterfly

I was nearing home on my way back from walking in the woods when I saw a butterfly on the wing fluttering from flower to flower in a bramble thicket. The fact that in October we still have wild blackberries trying to flower is a sure sign of climate change, but I was more interested in the butterfly. While I was in need of getting home, I stopped and watched until I could get a good clear observance of the butterfly. As you can see from the photograph it was a Female Speckled Wood Pararge aegeria. tircis

Understanding Conservation

Conservation is a complex subject area, as often the question is, what is it we are conserving? As the landscape in the UK is all the result of human intervention, we are often conserving something that is a human construct anyway. Therefore a better question should be what is the purpose or effect of this conservation work. Only by understanding what the desired end result should be, does the purpose of the work undertaken in the name of conservation, start to make sense.

Far too often people assume that doing nothing and leaving an area of land alone and letting whatever are the strongest plants grow, is all you need to do. However, because we have been impacting upon the land for so many centuries, we can’t just leave an area of land to just go wild.

In previous generations, and we only need to go back three or four generations, it was the land management for agriculture that provided the UK with its rich, varied and colourful tapestry that is the British countryside. With the advent of industrial farming in the last sixty years, there was a dramatic effect upon the landscape. Traditional farming had helped support the diversity of habitats and hence the wildlife that lived within these diverse landscapes. With these changes to land use, the impact upon the populations of many species was devastating. I can sit and read books about the countryside written in or from the firsts half of the twentieth century and see just how much we have lost.

Therefore the challenge for conservation is to carry out work that provides the correct condition for many endangered species to live. However, this does present a difficulty as often this can and does mean destroying another form of habitat.

This dilemma was perfectly illustrated in the Conservation task that this mouse was involved in on Tuesday. Along side one of the burns (a stream) in the area, is a ride of thickly growing trees. These are mainly pioneer species like Silver Birch, Rowan (Mountain Ash), Elder and the dreaded sycamore. But there were also plenty of Oak, small leaved Lime and Ash as well. The ride was being opened up so that butterflies would benefit from the open glades that will be created alongside what will become a bridal way. Dealing with the sycamore is not a problem, it is prolific and invasive, it shades out other trees and if allowed to would take over. The Silver Birch while a beautiful tree, is one of the pioneer species that establishes its self very quickly, but would eventually die off naturally as more longer-lived mature trees of oak took over. But here they are trying to take advantage of the open glades and needed to be reduced in number. The Elder, while it to would eventually die off if this were full woodland, needed to be removed totally. They will return but in their present numbers they would have prevented the insects, butterflies and moths from re-establishing themselves. And while it will cause a small impact upon food for small birds in the short term, in the long term the greater the moth and butterfly populations the more food there will be for the birds, especially at breeding time.

The difficulty starts to occur when dealing with the Rowan and the Ash. They are useful trees as well as being beautiful, but while there were many young trees there, they mainly were growing in the areas of the glades. That meant they had to be removed. It is never an easy decision to cut down a tree, but it was only happening because of the long-term goal of creating areas where insects, moths and butterflies could live and breed.

The wood from these trees was deliberately left so that insects like beetles could bore into the cords, as well as providing hibernation sites for all manner of animals.

What made the work so poignant though was the fact that while working I received a call about growing trees and replanting work that will be happening in my normal stamping ground of Chopwell Wood. The difficulty is getting people to understand that sometimes to preserve a habitat sometimes we have to destroy what’s already there.

Small Copper Butterfly

While walking home yesterday, I noticed the flash of colour of a small orange butterfly dancing upon the breeze. As anyone who has tried to watch or photograph butterflies can tell you it is not always easy to get a clear view, and I had to spend about half an hour patiently moving slowly to get close but after spending that half an hour dancing along the ride, skipping from Dock to Dock, I got this picture of this Small Copper Lycaena phlaeas

Red Admiral Butterfly

While out the other day I spotted this newly emerged Red Admiral butterfly Vanessa atalanta, although it could fly, it was still drying off its wings near the top of a young oak tree. Until recent years I could have positively said that it will soon be travelling all the way down to the Mediterranean to over winter, but this butterfly could over winter somewhere closer because of the milder winters. It will not breed until the spring.