Film of a red Kite sitting in her nest on Eggs

While not the best film I have ever shot, nor is there much happening, but you can see the yellow wing tag, otherwise the Red Kite would be very well camouflaged. The film was shot at some distance, so that this protected bird was not disturbed. If I can return and watch over the bird again I hope to film the chicks when they hatch too.

The Bees Knees

As today is the last day of winter, here is a a Bee resting on a flower to remind us of the summer to come.

Frog by Night

A few weeks ago I mentioned spotting a Common Frog in my back yard, well it was the Owl that drew my attention to it first. Well I film her and I have finally got the film sorted out and here it is.

A female Common Frog Rana temporaria, at night and hopping away.

Bibionidae Fly

One of the joys of watching wildlife it that I can lose myself in the moment. Sometimes my mind is working overtime, trying to work out the details that will help me latter identify a species, or by observing the subtleties of behaviour discover what this particular animal or bird is doing. But most of all, I can find myself my inner humanity.

There are many times when I do worry about the state of the planet, and there is a lot to worry about, but getting out and seeing the wonders of our world both excites and calms me. It reinforces my reason for fighting for the environment, in a small way, I have no delusions that I can or will do more than apply a sticking plaster to the wounds we inflict upon our planet. However, getting out and seeing what we share the planet with makes life worth living.

While I have covered some serious topics in my posts of late, for a while I want to just concentrate upon what is so special about wildlife. Not least because I am researching some much more serious topics for latter postings. Thus I need to have something positive to balance the negative of the acts of environmental vandalism that is going on.

So as a start, here is a film of a Bibiondae Fly, I think the species is Dilophus febrilis feeding on the nectar of a cow parsley.

Grove Snail

Here is a film of the White lipped Grove Snail. The Grove Snail, while a common mollusc has a great deal of variability in the banding on the shell so it can be difficult to determine the species. It is a scientifically important species, as it is one of the species that proves Evolution and natural selection.

The banding provides camouflage from thrushes, it main predator. The greater the variation in the banding the better hidden the mollusc is in the grass. Thus more likely to breed and hence the snails evolve to avoid predation. As agricultural practices have changed over the past century so the variation has kept pace with these changes, thus providing an example of evolution in action.

Cattle in Conservation

Because the landscape in the UK countryside is shaped by the activity of man, using domestic animals to manage nature reserves is vitally important. In the past traditional farming and agricultural methods created habitat that wildlife was able to utilise.

At Seaton Snook, a nature reserve near Tees Mouth, cattle are used as they eat the long grass. This in turn encourages new fresh growth of new grass and of other herbage that in turn provides habitat and food for the invertebrates that are the start of the food chain.

As Tees Mouth is an important National Nature Reserve, this provides food for the birds in spring and summer, while the fresh growth vegetation encouraged by the cattle grazing in turn provides grazing for migrant geese and swans in the winter.

The Flight of the Red Kite

I hope that my reader will forgive me for this ego massaging posting. Earlier I tried and failed to film a Red Kite, I went back to my cataloguing of my footage. This was a clip that I shoot a little while ago.

There is an analogy with shooting film or taking photographs with the way that a field biologist works on collecting trip. The scientist will collect specimens over a few weeks yet it will then require months of work as a result of that expedition. In effect that is what I am doing with my video film. As I catalogue the film so that I can find them again, I am also listing clips that will eventually get put together into films. Also I frequently discover that if I film other establishing shots or linking footage I can then do something justice. Even if it is rough justice.

However this clip of the gracefully flight of the Red Kite stands on its own.

I am fully aware that while my filming is not yet up to the standard of the pros, I can see where I am getting better the more I film. The trouble is that with wildlife I cant say cut and ask the bird or mammal to do that again. Their union don't allow it and its in their contract.

One of the things that has surprised me was when I looked at the number of people that have viewed my junk on you tube, I have clocked up over a thousand views. As my stuff doesn't involve gratuitous violence nor crass and juvenile behaviour, I am surprised that anyone has viewed them at all.

Well that's my ego massaged, I had better get on with some work.

Badgers and Orchids

Because of a couple of long very busy days, by five in the afternoon I found myself falling asleep. So I decided to go to bed. Getting back up at ten, once I had eaten I decided to use this time productively. Therefore I went off to check out the two new badger setts. While there is nothing significant to report with them, I am curious why these have appeared at this time.

In the normal course of events, less dominant female badgers will move to other setts and this helps prevent in breeding. Also males will be driven out from a family group again preventing these males from mating with sisters and other closely related group members. Additionally, while the family group maintains a large central home sett, that group will have smaller satellite setts where different members of the family can go off to cool off or get away from tensions. Much like the way that humans can and will avoid other members of the family to maintain harmony.

Therefore, while having one new sett starting within an existing territory is rare, it does happen. However, having this happen twice appears outside what happens normally. It could just be that it has not been recorded before, so at the moment I am working on the hypothesis that something has happened that has disturbed or disturbed another sett elsewhere.

I may never find out what has caused this to happen, and the two new setts are settling down quite well, thus while this may be a curiosity it could also be that this is quite normal. What also has me wondering is why the dominant male has allowed this? As the old Brock became a road kill in February and a younger male took over it could be that this is the special circumstance that is at the root of this. In some ways it shows just how little we know about even common animals.

This relates to other work I have been doing. I have been busy preparing a report for a site looking at what species are there, what species are missing and what improvements can be made to increase biodiversity. While much of the work is looking at what foods are there for a particular species, then overlaying these matrix networks, it is possible to work out where there are gaps in food plants or insects on a site. Therefore, it then becomes relatively easy to see where habitat restoration work is needed.

However, sometimes it is not that easy, as you can provide the right foods, the right conditions and a species that you would expect to be there just is not present. It is often what we don't know or yet understand that is the important factor.

Equally, a species may be present yet because we don't have any knowledge of behaviour or lifestyle and behaviour, to know what is needed to encourage this species. On this site there is, apparently, a rare orchid but I cant find any substantive information regarding its needs to be able to offer any real help as to what needs to be done not only to ensure its survival or how to improve the habitat to encourage its numbers. This also means that not knowing what the needs of this plant are, any other work that improves conditions for other species could inadvertently harm this orchid.

I have not yet visited the site in Yorkshire, I can not and will not reveal more than that about the location, but I hope that by seeing the site will provide some clues as to what work if any could and more importantly should be done.

While I don't claim to be an expert, there are holes in what we know about natural history that means we can not assume we have all the answers. That is why watching and studying wildlife is so exciting and fascinating.

Sex Kites and Videotape

Yesterday I had all those mundane things to do. Not very exciting but they had to be done and you cant buy a slave at Tesco. Therefore, I was not expecting that much exciting to happen today. Also when I had finished doing my chores, I had to go to the Metro Centre (a big out of town shopping centre), never my favourite place to visit.

However the weather was sunny and I thought I would enjoy watching the wildlife along the route. While the bus was trundling along a red kite came into sight. Not that unusual and as my regular reader will know any day that I see the them makes it “A Red Kite Day”. Much better than a red letter day. What made this sighting worthy of comment is the bird was flying on a parallel course to the bus. It stayed that way for nearly two minutes and it came within fifteen yards of the omnibus too. It was one of those moments when I wished I had carried a camera. Great to see though, and had the bus not had to pull up to a stop the sighting would have lasted longer.

There were three main reasons why I wanted and needed to go to the shopping centre, the first was that I needed some more video tapes for the IR camera. While I have some on order via mail order, when I did my observations of the Deer recently I used what I had. So I had to get some more. While I have plenty for the other camera, this one uses a different format. Therefore I had to spend over five pounds each on three more. Also I wanted to check on the times of some of the buses as I am planing on doing some wandering. You will need to keep reading here as if I can get the access I have something special I want to go and see and film. I also wanted to get some of the regional bus tickets that will allow me to get out and explore some of the great places there are in the North East of England.

The last thing that I needed to obtain was a new colander, that's a straining device for food. I though I had better add that as I know that I have gotten myself into difficulties with my American readers who have different meanings for words that us Brits take for granted. My old colander that I have had for over twenty five years started to split. My Exs, both thought that I was a skin flint for not replacing it years ago, but it worked well and why get rid of something that is working well.

While I was looking at the kitchen utensils, I also looked at the kitchen knives. As my British reader will know in the news there has been a lot of debate about knives and knife crime. While I don't want to see people carrying knives as a weapon or potential weapon, there are times when a knife is no more than a tool. I love cooking and I do have a couple of decent kitchen knives. However the paring knife I have is a cheep one and the handle is becoming loose. So I wanted to replace this for a good quality one. I did find a Sabatier one, not cheap but it will last my lifetime. However what made this purchase worthy of comment was just how little attention the shop paid to the need to need to carry this home in a safe and non public manner. I had to ask for something to wrap the knife in. The woman even acknowledged that she hadn't thought about that when I asked how I was supposed to carry it home.

Also while on this topic, there are times when I do have the need to carry a knife. I am sensible and do not carry it openly in public spaces, but some conservation work does require using bladed tools like a knife. There have been calls in the press for knives to be banned and the carrying of them to result in a mandatory prison sentence. I can see nothing but problems, as people who have a legitimate reason for carrying a knife, a fisherman is one that springs to mind, could end up being sent to prison for going about their lawful business. The problem is the people who are carrying a knife as a weapon Further, apparently there are some young people who think that there are safe places where you can stab someone in a fight... All nonsense and it seems to me that the real difficulty is one of education.

Coming back home, I found myself on a crowded bus. The service to the village, while it could be better, more frequent, it is not that bad. While during the day the buses are not full, they are well used. It is when I find myself travelling at peek times that the importance of these services become highlighted. Because of the number of people on the bus I nearly missed seeing a couple of Badgers that were traversing around the fields of one of the farms close to the village.

As it was only six in the evening I wanted to discover what was going on. As it is the school summer holidays it did cross my mind that it was possible that the kids had disturbed the Badgers, as it is not usual for badgers to be out at this time. While I know that some kids can be a bit of a nuisance at times, the vast majority are just thoughtless rather than bad I did not think that this was likely to be the reason why the badgers were roaming at this time of day.

Therefore, I did not even stop for a cup of tea, I was gasping, and grabbed my camera and went out to see if I could find out what was occurring. While I could have waited for the bus again, I also knew that I was just as likely to get there as fast on foot.

As I got near to the satellite sett where the badgers were likely to have come from, I encountered one of the know poachers. He has a Lurcher and Terrier, classic poaching dogs. I said hello and he seemed quite nonchalant and friendly. So I was bold, and asked him if he had seen anything that could have disturbed the Badgers. He was quite open about the fact that he is a poacher but he would not do anything to harm the badgers. But he had not seen anything that could have disturbed them.

I went off felling reassured to see if I could find the tracks of the Badgers and to see if I could find any disturbance. There was non except for some fresh digging by the badgers. I could see two sets of tracks one from a sow the other from a Brock. I followed them and they did lead to the farmers field and there was indications that they were feeding and gathering bedding. As I don't have permission to go onto that farm, I could only watch from the boundary.

This was at least an hour after having first spotted them from the bus, but the badgers were still there. Further I worked out what had disturbed them, it was hormones. While I could not see clearly, I could see they were mating. I tried to track their movements but in the long grass I lost sight of them but I was able to follow the paw prints back to the sett. I am not sure but I think the male is new to the area he looks quite young but the female is about two years old and they appear to have set up a little love nest. I will have to keep my eyes open and see if I can work out what is going on. But seeing Badgers active in daylight is very rare indeed, seeing Badgers mating is almost unknown.

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.

New Badgers on an Old Sett

Late on Saturday I got a call and was invited to do some wildlife watching the following day. As the weekend was very wet, as per the forecast I was not sure about this. But I did agree and at a quarter to four on the Sunday morning I was picked up.

As my regular reader will know, I helped with a site survey on some private land that contains a remnant of ancient wood. This lead to me being asked to help with relocating some rabbits where I saw Golden Eagles. That only happened because the wife of one of the land owners had just given birth. Therefore, in spite of the poor weather and my lack of sleep, I had agreed to go. While I too my cameras with me there was little prospect of my filming as while I can and do protect them in the rain it was very heavy rain we were having.

Anyway I explain all that as my expectations were not that high. As had happened on my previous time there, they had set up a tent that we could use as a hide. When we got there the mother and child where there already. While I didn't say anything, I did think that having a baby there was reducing an already small chance of seeing wildlife. And as can happen even when I am enjoying myself, I did think that I really should be in bed. As the tent was cramped I set up my Tripod outside but kept the cameras in the tent. If the rain stopped then I perhaps could use them. In the low light levels the slow shutter speed means that trying to use them without support was a waste of time.

Talking in whispers we had a long stacarto conversation about some of the ideas I had brought forth when I had looked at the site previously. One of them being the removal of lots of galvanised netting that had been placed around the perimeter of sections f the wood to prevent deer grazing a number of years before. This had been done and they had seen more fallow deer in the wood since. That had only taken ten days or so to create that effect. So was it the deer they had brought me to see?

Then the baby started crying, I really thought that would be the end of any hope of seeing anything. Fortunately as I was laying at the entrance to this tent, mother was able to sit at the back and feed baby G. As I lay there I could hear the noisy suckling noises and this nearly obscured the sounds of an approaching animal. Even I could not believe what I was seeing, a badger, a young Brock.

In their Forest was the remains of an ancient badger sett that had not been occupied for at least twenty years. The sett had been raided by Badger diggers in 1987, and the last badger was seen a year latter. One of the works that had recommended was where the chicken wire could not be removed, holes should be cut into it so that other mammals could gain access. I had even found a spot where it looked as though foxes were worrying at the fence. Anyway, within days of them creating holes in the fencing for the wildlife, they noticed that one of the old badger holes was being re dug. So the wife not following a conventional sleeping pattern anyway, had had the tent erected here so that she could bring the baby and feed her while seeing what was going on. There are two other young sows and an older female with cubs that have moved in too, but I only saw the Brock. At the time when I suggested the fencing removal, I had said that eventually the set would be used again. I was thinking two or three years, but this was amazing. Then in the distance we saw two fallow deer with a calf. That was all to brief as they caught the whiff of human sent as someone in the tent needed her nappy changing.

For me what is remarkable about these people is that they are quite clearly from the upper echelons of society, they do have a rather posh accent. Therefore it does seem strange them being as hands on as they are. But for them it is about ensuring they keep this bit of land and countryside healthy for their children.

That brings me to an aspect that I spoke about in a previous posting. As with all land in Britain there is an interaction between man and the landscape. This wood is no exemption, in fact the previous owner of the land, a farmer, so valued the land and the people who share it, that when he sold it he placed a covenant on it to keep it safe. He also went further and split the wood so that when the farm land was sold, no one person or company had complete control of the land. However one of the buyers, even though he had agreed to this had wanted to develop this wood for commercial reasons. As I suspected the fencing had originally been put there so that pheasants could be raised there. But the economics of shooting ensured that was not viable. Then he wanted to build on the land, but that meant acquiring the rest of the wood. Had it not been for me legal friend and his wife buying the farmhouse, stables and land, the developer could have succeeded then.

Anyway, a group of local residents got together to keep the wood safe, but their efforts were being undermined at each turn. Until it emerged that one of the group was apparently helping landowner who wanted to develop the site. This was all rather puzzling, until it was discovered that the man who had been a hand on the farm and is now retired, was struggling financially. Thus the developer had offered to buy his cottage and rent it back to him for helping him. So the layer and his wife have made the same offer to the old boy, and that has resolved that problem.

While I am uncomfortable with one man having that much control, at least for the moment this has all helped keep the little wood safe. Further, because of the fact that the site has four rare and endangered species on it, they are now able to move forward to get some form of legal protection for the site too.

I hope that I will be able to return there soon to share the beauty of this hidden gem.

Improving Habitats and Stag Beetles

While I know that some of my readers (Well I have two cats and a human that reads this) don't like me posting on political issues, they would rather I just posted on wildlife and Environment topics, but Zimbabwe is an environmental issue. To put the situation in context, my ex wife went to Zimbabwe on a School trip, in my school the best we got was a visit to the Natural History Museum, the year of their first anniversary of their independence. What she brought back was the very real feeling of hope the people had. Additionally, the country really did think that it could help feed Africa. While we now know that hope was dashed and the bread basket for the region is now facing the worst harvest for sixty years, the environmental impact of this will seriously effect the ecosystems in the region. Desperate hungry people will kill the wildlife to eat, and if crops are poor, more wild land is taken to try to grow crops.

Therefore, the environmental impact of injustice and human rights start to become obvious, so I feel justified in posting on that topic.

Anyway, back to the wildlife. On Monday, I went to visit a private wood for the owners. It all started a couple of weeks ago when I had a telephone call form someone I did not know. The call was memorable as the gentleman that called did not even know my name, and I thought it was rather fishy. Was it someone trying to sell me something? Or was it someone trying to garner my personal details? In the end I told my caller that he had to tell me the purpose of his call or I was going to hang up. It turned out that someone else had given him my number as they were looking for some help with declining wildlife in their wood.

I don't know how or why, but I seem to have earned a reputation.

What had sparked their concern was that when they had bought the wood some ten years back, they had quite a good population of birds, insects and wildlife in general. But they had noticed a decline in the birds last year and even fewer this year.

So they had contacted various people to see where they could get help from and it turns out that a former landlady had given them my number. They, the owners, had bought the wood to provide free wood fuel for the folks in the syndicate. But also they loved having the wood as a place to walk their dogs and to have gatherings, parties and barbecues.

Anyway, I had to travel to Durham to meet the to guys who were going to show me their woods. Their forest looked fine as we approached but as we walked into the woods, it struck me that there was no dead wood at all. Also, the normal under brush was missing.

What they have been doing is collecting all the fallen and dead wood for fire wood and by not leaving any for the insects, they were removing the food for the birds. Also they have been spraying brushwood killer to get rid of much of the brambles and such like, again this has removed much of the natural habitat the wildlife needs. Brambles are important as they provide cover and food for a lot of wildlife. It turned out that there had been strong disagreements about much of what they had been doing, so much of what I suggested was what they had already realised they needed to do.

What they also needed was guidance on how to harvest the wood so they were not cutting down all the trees. So I suggested coppicing some of the trees, I even ended up marking the trees for them, and it looks as though I will be going back to show them how to coppice in the autumn.
It is a shame that they hadn't sought better advice when they first bought the wood, as they do have a lovely setting. By buying their local wood they have ensured that the wood will stay. Also by utilising the wood in a sustainable way for their fire wood, the fifteen acres provides fire wood for more than twenty households, so while it was never intended to be a green project, this is what it has become.

Further, while I did not see any this time, they did have Lesser Stag Beetles their when they first obtained the wood, and if they haven't destroyed all the dead wood they could return. Its an insect that I would love to see. I have permission to return too at any time, so I left them with instructions that they have to improve the habitat so that I can come back to get pictures of the wildlife.

Chickens and the power of Big Business

This week saw the AGM of Tesco's the largest retailer in the UK. What is worth remarking on is that they receive eight out of every ten pounds of the retail spend in Britain. That is not just of the food spend, but of all of the retail spend.

Therefore it was not that surprising that the TV chef, Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall attempt to get Tesco to raise the welfare standards for the chickens they sell, failed.

By becoming a shareholder in Tesco, he was able to get a motion tabled that called upon Tesco to raise the welfare standards for the chickens sold as food. Tesco made this as difficult for him as possible, forcing him to pay eighty thousand pounds on the literature to contact all the shareholders regarding the motion. As anyone who has heard the news he got support from ten percent of the shareholders, but the motion was ultimately defeated.

While other supermarkets need to shoulder their share of responsibility in the way that animal welfare is abused to bring cheap food to the supermarket shelf, as the largest retail in the UK, Tesco should have provided a moral lead here. But they have shown it is profits at any costs that is their motivation not quality or welfare.

In tests in a food laboratories it has been shown that the so called Standard Chicken has more than one hundred grams of fat per kilo than does a free range bird. Further, free range birds have a higher proportion of Omega 3 fatty acids, the good fats that we need, than do barn reared birds.

With a epidemic of health problems related to obesity, the standard chickens that the supermarkets are offering are far from the healthy food that we are being deliberately misled, to believe them to be.

Tesco make as profit about seventy pence ($1.30) per standard chicken sold, the farmer makes only three pence (5c), from a retail price of £2.50 ($4.75). The difficulty that most people overlook at the checkout is that for anything to be so cheap someone must be loosing out somewhere. Here it is the farmer, and ultimately the chicken. This callous disregard for the welfare of the animals we choose to eat, lessens us as people.

Additionally the intensive keeping of animals for food has a serious environmental impact, as the volume of manure produced becomes a problem. In the past with the less intensive production of meat animals, the manure was a benefit that fed the land. Now it harms it.

However, the real threat from intensive animal production is that any disease problems quickly become an epidemic. In history it was only when there was a realisation that overcrowding, sewage, clean water and hygiene that were key to solving the problems of public health, that many of the diseases of the past were finally overcome. Yet we seem to have forgotten that lesson when it comes to animal health and welfare.

With an increase in the prevalence of campylobacter in chickens, we could be paying for our cheap food with the costs of treating food poisoning. Just as we made some dumb decisions that lead to BSE, who knows what problems will emerge from this.

While I do appreciate that food prices are increasing and that this effects poor people much more than it does the more affluent, but there is a hidden cost to cheap food and with Tesco's posting record profits, it clear that they are profiting from the backs of the poor.

Florida Buys back the Everglades

While I am never short of information to post here, as there is so much going on in the world of conservation, environmental concerns, and my own wildlife watching, occasionally I pick up on a story that I have to refrain from talking about. This often is more to do with protecting the area or ecosystem, but on occasion it is just that the facts are not clear. It was such a story that I first got sketchy information on about six months ago. An American agricultural company were selling off all its land because with Climate Change brining higher sea levels the company would lose all its assets.

While I dug as far as I could, I kept on coming up against barriers. While I could not confirm the story, I also could not dismiss it either. Especially as the commodity that was being grown was sugar. With the drive in the US for producing Ethanol, essentially alcohol from sugars, everyone I spoke to could not understand any part of US Agri-Business leaving the sector at this time, unless they knew something we didn't. When I suggested to my contacts that it could be because of impending Sea level rise, while they accepted that something of that sort could be the only justification for this happening, I also faced the same sceptical attitude about how real Climate Change is.

Now, today on the NPR Environment Podcast, there was a story that The United States Sugar Corporation has sold the State of Florida one hundred eighty seven thousand acres of land, thats over three hundred square miles, in the Everglades for $1.7 billion

While the slant given to the story was that this was a great boost to the restoration programme that has been going on for the last nine years, no one could understand why this had happened.

While I personally am more than happy to see this land brought back into the unique ecology of the Everglades, the state has been misled into paying a premium for the land. However, what the state of Florida has done via this land purchase is provide land that will be needed to mitigate the effect of a rising sea level. Therefore, while they may have paid top dollar now, the people in that region will come to see this as money well spent, as restoring the Everglades will help prevent the loss of homes and lives when the sea does rise.

You Meet Some Great People Watching Wildlife

Firstly, I have just been asked the question most often asked of me, that of how do I get around without a car? Part of today's events illustrate just how easy it can be. While yesterday I had some shopping to do, I had a further trip to make today to the supermarket. I acknowledge that for many people doing a weekly shop at the local supermarket is most convenient, in spite of the advertising claims, it will not be the cheapest. Thus, I shop carefully, buying on quality. Therefore, I buy my Fruit and Veg from Green grocers and Meat and Poultry from the Butchers. I have made comparisons and I frequently find that by going to good small local shops I save around twenty five to forty percent off the price of Meat and Vegetables. To give one example I can buy stewing steak at half the price in the butchers compared to the supermarkets.

However, one of the main effects that doing the shopping without a car, is you are more conscious of the weight you will have to carry. Therefore, you stop buying much of the food that gets wasted. In the UK that's ten billion pounds worth every year. I contribute about ten pounds per year to that, well even the most frugal shopper makes mistakes.

From my village there are two bus routes, one that goes to Consett, the other that goes to Newcastle. But that one goes via one of the many hubs in the region, so I can get to most places, it just take a bit of planning and forethought. Just as with the shopping, it comes down to thinking about what's needed rather than buying on impulse. That said, I always keep options open so that if I see something on a special offer, I can adjust a planned menu to include what's cheap that day.

However going back to the main point, using public transport is not that difficult. If I go into Newcastle for an evening, I just need to ensure that I allow myself enough time to get the last bus. I can use taxis too, but as its over twenty pounds for that fare, why waste the money?
Anyway, I had a trip to the supermarket today. The supermarket provides a free bus twice a day five days a week, so that adds to the ease of shopping. Had my cat been prepared to do her own shopping then I could have left it until latter in the week.

I didn't know what it was, but at the moment I seem to be a child magnet and I found another child that wanted to talk to this strange hippy that is this “Wood Mouse”. I kept her entertained by pointing out the Horses and the sheep, or clouds with legs as I was calling them.

Then on the way back, I had this same chatter box telling me all about some children's television programme that I had never heard of. And she wanted to move in to my house, I told her that she could not as I had only just trained the birds to feed at my feeders.

What's been happening is, because from the first time I used the supermarket bus, I helped the many senior users of this service with their bags, I now have a couple of the old ladies that are trying to play matchmaker and any and every single woman are being steered in my direction. That's why I seem to be attracting all this attention. Fortunately it is a village and sooner or latter they will run out of women to try and pair me with, and using the kids is not fair. I was finally told that this is what's happening. Well I will chose my own partner.

Anyway, the other thing I needed to do was send off a cheque, as I have just bought, second hand, an Infra Red video lighting system. I got it at a price I could just afford, but it will open up possibilities that at the moment I can only dream about. Will I be able to film the badgers? Watch this space.

As the weather forecast had been for rain by lunch time, I wasn't sure about going out. But as it had not yet arrived, I decided I would risk it. So with no real purpose or destination, I decided I would just see what was in my local woods.

There is a delight in just wandering around with no reason, just there to experience the delights of the natural world. While there was nothing exceptional that I saw but I delighted in taking pictures of the wild flowers that proliferate along the tracks. While I had not planned it that way, I went looking at the effects of the thinning that has been occurring. While I am pleased with the effect, I was annoyed to see that it has been happening throughout the nesting season. This will have effected the birds in general but its the impact upon the rarities that we do have here that makes this criminal.

Well I can see that I may need to speak to someone over this.

However, during my walk, I put that at the back of my mind, and just enjoyed being at one with the forest. One thing that was a delight to find though was where the deer are hanging out with the disruption of the current work in the wood. This could be the first job that I use the Infra Red light for.

I had expected to only be out for a few hours, it was nearly eight before I got home. Even that was delayed when I stopped to talk to a chap who told me of a couple of other good wildlife watching locations near by. Its one of the great things about any form of wildlife watching you just meet some great people.

Beavers in England

Recently I posted an essay on the reintroduction of Beavers into Scotland. While trying to access the data learnt about the impacts upon the environment of this, I learnt that in England for the last two and half years there have been Beavers living here. While they have been fenced in, the sixteen European Beavers from Bavaria, so like our Royal family they are German, have been living happily and without damaging the environment. In fact the improvements the Beavers made to the habitat has provided homes and habitat for thirty other endangered species. This was all unexpected.

Any reintroduction programme always faces opposition from some groups, therefore this test site was used so that we could learn what the impact would be upon the environment and more importantly the biodiversity. Thus on a five hundred and fifty acre fenced in site, the beavers were released.

As beavers will do they adjusted the landscape to provide themselves with the pools and lodges they need to live. The first aspect of their natural behaviour that was noted was by cutting down the trees around the pools on the site, it regenerated the vegetation. Wild flower seeds in the seed bank spontaneously germinated. Some were plants that were thought lost to the site, and this had the additional effect of enabling invertebrates to come in and the population of water voles, a species in serious decline in the UK, started to increase. There were also unexpected benefits for fish as the Beaver lagoons created habitat that allowed fish to breed.

The aspect that really surprised everyone involved was that during flood events, the way that these mammals had managed the watercourse greatly slowed the flow of water helping to lessen the effects of the flooding.

While I dare say there will be people that are still not convinced by the wisdom of reintroducing these animals, all I have seen thus far is a genuine win win situation. I am hoping that I will be able to take up the invitation to go and visit the site myself and get my own view of an English Beaver.

Beavers return to Britain

As my regular readers (two cats and a human) will know, back in Autumn I spoke of a project that planed to reintroduce the European Beaver back into the UK. The greatest difficulty with any project like this is in fact education as people develop prejudice against some species.

With the beaver the prejudice centred upon the damage they would do to fish and to woodlands. As Beavers are vegetarian and eat tree bark they would not damage fish at all. In fact the calm pools the create for their lodges actually benefit most species of fish as they create habitats that enable the fish to breed more successfully.

The other prejudice was, is and will be more difficult to counter, as beavers do fell trees.

However, in the control areas where captive populations have been introduced, the activities of the Beavers has actually mirrored much of the tree felling work that has to be done to preserve riverside habitats anyway. As we live on a crowded island, the competition for space has meant that many of the natural processes have been interrupted. Further because of the loss of species, or exclusion of animals, humans have had to resort to carrying out maintenance work to retain the ecology that was there in the first place.

Therefore, by reintroducing Beavers, the trees that would overwhelm river banks get felled naturally. This will save the conservation organisations, farmers and land owners millions over the coming years as work normally undertaken by volunteers, contractors or workers will occur naturally.

A further benefit that was not expected was the discovery that the root systems of the trees felled by the Beavers worked much better as erosion protection. Because the Beavers are felling the trees younger, that would happen for conservation reasons, the micro root systems of the trees retained the soils of the river bank better. Additionally, the made the rivers less prone to adding to the damage caused by flooding. Partly because these root systems acted as a better sponge, but mainly because of the slower flow rates of the Beavers created habitat meant that in a flood swollen river, the water drained away better down the river channel and was less likely to over spill.

So while some people may still object to this reintroduction, the benefits will be imminence. As the species is being introduced into a landscape that has done without Beavers for several centuries, legal permission was required from the Government. This has now been given by the Scottish Parliament, and the reintroduction programme will occur in Scotland.

All the effort in the study of the possible effects of the Beavers on the environment was important as it was possible that the effect would have been like an invasive species that would have seriously impacted existing species and habitats. However, by ensuring that we knew what the likely impacts were and most of them are beneficial, we can all look forward to a time when Beavers will become a part of the British landscape again.

My thanks to Natural England for the picture by Paul Glendell

And here's a link to the Scottish Wildlife Trust and more information about the reintroduction project.

Lapwings and Skylarks

While there are some days that I have to wait to see what happens in the day to provide inspiration for a posting here, today I could write five or six posts just from what happened this weekend. Also there is some good news I will be bringing you soon about some important conservation work that is happening.

Further, events in the news could have elicited my posting today, but as I personally am fed up of hearing bad news and I having had enough of people in my life dumping their emotional baggage at my feet, I have decided that where possible I want to try and keep this web log about wildlife, the environment and more importantly all the positive aspects of conservation. While I know that will not always be possible as events unknown may well dictate this.

Anyway, over the weekend while out walking to get some petrol, I spotted a Lapwing sitting in a field. There was in fact several there, but this one was very close. I thought that it was likely that I had found a nesting colony. So I returned today to take a closer look.

While the weather remained fantastic, and the Lapwing were still around the location, as it was on a working farm, the farmer was working on the field today. My assumption that it was being used as a nesting site and the farmer to his credit and my praise here, actually times his work to enable the birds to nest and fledge. Further, he also does many other things to accommodate the wildlife on his farm. From the information supplied he was able to guide me to a bird that is familiar and normally seen on its song flight, the Skylark.

The farmer has taken my details and has told me that he will let me know next year when the Lapwings return as he would love some pictures for his farm website. I told him that I would put a link to his from here, but he told me that he didn't want that, as it risked to many people coming down to the farm, especially as he had just had all his heating oil and his diesel stolen. Not only that but to get to the fuel they had damaged the storage tanks making them unusable. While the farmer was insured it has made him wary of strangers. While this made him initially appear quite hostile towards me when I first showed up at the edge of his field. But also had that event not occurred then he probably would not have stopped to find out who I was.

Lastly, I want to thank his wife for the lovely fresh bacon and egg breakfast that they treated me to. It is not that often that I get that sort of treatment from people whose land I have strayed onto.

One final comment I want to make, he asked me where I most enjoyed watching wildlife, I told him a on a small group of islands on the north western edge of Europe. The British Isles. While that may sound corny it is also true.

A Red Kite Day

Today has been a rather unusual day for me as I had an appointment with a Dentist. As my reader in the UK will know, here in Britain there is a serious shortage of dentists. There are plenty in private practice, but finding one that will accept NHS (National Health Service) patients is dam near impossible. I have been on several waiting lists for all of this century.

Anyway, on Monday I had an initial appointment and because I needed a filling and the Dentist had a cancellation I had this appointment today. On Monday while waiting for the bus early in the morning I could see a Kestrel hovering just over the gardens of the houses bordering the road. If ever I needed something to take my mind off something this was it.

Then Today as I walked down to the bus stop, a pair of Red Kites came wheeling over head. As I stood waiting they were criss crossing the whole expanse of sky, quartering the open ground around the houses of the village. The sight of them put a smile on the face of even the most miserable folk.

It stopped me thinking of Laurence Olivier in the film Marathon Man.

The Dentist was fantastic, for me a test of a good dentist is if he doesn't try to hold a conversation with his fingers poking around in my mouth. I even told him an old joke:

A new patent goes to the dentist after being sat in the chair, the patent grabs hold of the dentists testicles and says “We are not going to hurt each other now, are we?”

With the treatment over I had the best part of a hour to wait for the bus home. Therefore I went and got some shopping. Having just spent the last few days doing my washing, I needed to get some Washing Liquid. As I use the brand Ecover, an environmentally friendly one, I have to make the effort to obtain it. It was as I bought it that someone else from the village saw me and commented on me using this. I don't know what it is about our current culture but people seem to want to us all to be some kind of homogeneous mass?

Even after getting my shopping I still had time on my hands, so I went to a really nice friendly café and indulged in the wonderful home made cake they have and some real coffee. It is something that puzzles me why so few cafés will make the effort to make decent coffee or even decent tea?

When I got back home I went straight out to see if I could film the Red Kites. While they were still about they were up at altitude. They really did seem to be just enjoying the freedom of the open sky. I don't know if it was the dentist or the kites that improved my smile more.

Tree Sparrow

Following my filming of the Dipper, I went out to film a colony of tree sparrows. They are nesting right by the main road though (the only road) the village and I did get some funny looks while filming. “What's that Odd Ball up to now” looks. But I did get some very interesting footage.