Tune Into A Quiet Winter

In mid December, so the guide books say,  the natural world turns silent. Or at least it did in my younger days in the North East of England. Somerset on the 15th of December was quiet, but not silent. I like this time of year.

It has been nearly two months since I've managed to head out for an afternoon of wildlife watching.  A combination of being busy at work, very enjoyable though that is producing Radio 4's Tweet of the Day, a poorly father and other commitments meant spending time outdoors had dried up completely. However in a moment of wild abandon I headed off to Catcott to spend an hour or two observing nature. 

Rarely these days do I take much equipment with me. I travel light now. Gone are the back breaking rucksacks brimming with scopes and tripod. These days just my trusty Nikon binoculars and (hopefully) enough knowledge to remember the names of that which I observe.

And a mobile phone, such remarkable things. The image above is not perfect, but for me good enough to illustrate winter wildlife. Catcott Lows comprises of seasonally flooded grassland. It is a winter wildfowl spectacle. Wigeon, lapwing, shoveler in good numbers; teal, pintail, snipe, egret, grey heron, mallard. In summer the site is drained leaving a lush grassland often deserted, unless the determined observer, quietly observes. I've heard grasshopper warbler here, watched hobby hunting dragonflies, barn owls drifting by on summer evenings and even on one occasion a mega-drop of passage swallows in their hundreds possibly thousands one spring.

It is in winter however that I visit more frequently especially a quiet area of the reserve rarely used by visitors. An unobtrusive track which vehicles use is a good start, with mixed species in the trees, today enriched by two greater spotted woodpecker plus a smattering of winter thrush. After half a mile an old peat workings track diverges off and is home to roving tit flocks, chaffinch, wren, blackbird as I observed today. Sometimes siskin and redpoll are to be found, goldcrest and rarely firecrest too. Not today though. Today gently unfolded as a quiet walk listening to birds.

In the distance the whistling of wigeon was ever present, with the 'pee-whit' of lapwing providing the lead vocals. But in the trees family parties of long tailed tit noisily foraged the alder. A number of blackbirds tik-tik'ed away at some imaginary intruder, a heron 'franked' his displeasure on being disturbed, a bevvy of wren scolded the air, chaffinch pinked their presence, robins announced the sunset, wood pigeons cooed and members of the crow family noisily flew by calling their species name. There was neither silence nor stillness today.

I had to pinch myself it was mid December, and to be honest the 12oC temperature did not help disprove the illusion of early spring. The only silent encounter, three roe deer resting within tall grass before, having noticed me, pronked away silently to safety, a solitary chiffchaff foraging upon high and a little egret performing leg stretches. Everywhere else the signs, strictly speaking the sounds, of the natural world were evident. 

Gorse was in flower, goose grass, as it is sometimes called was growing strongly, winter gnats were on the wing, even flies buzzed nearby. And today's weak sunshine had warmth. It was a perfect day for a walk, the penultimate day before the sunset times inexplicably lengthen from the 17th. 

The track gradually narrows from a few meters wide at the beginning to at its end just wide enough for one person. In it's latter stages wet woodland flanks its route. I've never seen woodcock here but I'm sure they will be in there. In the same vicinity a Cetti's warbler erupted and a water rail recreated the victims squeal.

In two hours I'd seen many bird species but the remarkable engagement was one of quietly observing. I wasn't walking quickly, two miles in two hour will break no records, however that slower pace allows time to stop and stare. The three roe deer were an illustration of this. It was only by chance while idly scanning the field did I spy three sets of ears, ostensibly looking like those of a brown hare. One deer then raised itself off the ground, stretched, yawned then stared directly at me. Deer do this. We think we're clever, skilfull, stealthy and unobserved. In reality the deer will have seen us from a long way off well before we've seen the deer. However they do have a blind spot. 

I didn't believe the myth that you could walk towards a deer (slowly) until I witnessed it for myself decades ago. The head warden I worked with at Cragside proved this to me. I remained motionless someway off but step by step he walked towards a roe deer head on until he could only have been six feet away. Then the deer saw him and bolted into the woods. The warden told me in his younger days he controlled deer for the Forestry Commission as it was then, that experience taught him the skill of being unobserved but only if directly head on, and due to the position of deer eyes. I've not tried this myself.

I've digressed. This recollection of my afternoon walk seems to have developed into memories and encounters. Simply because I took time to observe, from water droplets on grass stems to a marsh harrier lazily quartering the assembled waterfowl. Not bad skies either.

Inside A Ring Of Peewits.

"It is not spring yet. Spring is being dreamed, and the dream is more wonderful and more blessed than ever was spring." 

A Flock of Peewits by Denys Watkins-Pitchford

Spring may be knocking on the door, but in recent days, as a result of a dominant high pressure system over Scandinavia, blistering easterly winds have buffeted Britain from the Continent. Add to this sub zero temperatures (Braemar in Scotland nudged minus 23oC) and, despite snowdrops peaking through the ground, a late blast of winter weather has enveloped the country. Most of the country has had a covering of snow, but here in Somerset despite the odd flurry we've remained snow free, the skies predominantly blue and the countryside bathed in sunshine. 

Working at home this week I've spent a lot of time looking out of the window while having the obligatory screen breaks. I've had a lot of birds come to the feeders, the colder weather always increases usage. A great spotted woodpecker was a highlight, but I love seeing the boisterous sparrows and starlings fighting over the fat balls. The resident great tits are looking fantastic in their fresh olive-blue plumage, seeing them next to blue tits on the same feeder, the size difference is obvious. I also have a resident male blackbird with no tail, which I've imaginatively called stumpy.  It is his garden and the interloper males are given short shrift if they dare to enter, post skirmish he'll tik-tik away on the shed roof in an avian triumph.

It's not just the garden where activity this week has increased. From the house I can look over two miles of small grassland fields to the National Trust's Sand Point and then the Bristol Channel beyond. Skeins of geese often use the Bristol Channel as a land-map, mute swans too, and in late afternoon gulls fly past going to roost on Flat Holm island. But it was while casually scanning this area with my binoculars  I noticed three sizeable flocks of lapwing wheeling over the Point. Each flock was maybe one to 2 hundred in number. After a few minutes the flocks merged and dropped out of sight. We're lucky here as lapwings in winter are quite numerous. A drive north up the M5 from Weston super Mare guarantees sightings of lapwings in the adjacent fields, and only a few miles away the Somerset Levels are a favoured location. But those birds seen over towards Woodspring Priory were in greater numbers than I'd seen for a long time. 

From home it is about a 2 mile walk to where I'd seen the flock, which seemed much longer in the biting wind whipping across the flat sea-blown fields around here. Only field hedges curtail these blasts which, as anyone who has stood motionless birdwatching in winter knows, I was inordinately thankful for.  At first I could not locate the lapwings. I counted about 30 mute swans, many many rooks, carrion crows and jackdaws in the fields and a solitary song thrush. Then rounding a corner I heard the first pee-wit call disappearing in the breeze, along with the birds. I'd spooked them unknowingly.

I wasn't unduly worried as lapwing are what I call a fidgety bird.  Individuals and groups will nervously fly up and down to the same spot while foraging or resting, sometimes the whole flock takes off for no reason only to return a few minutes later as if nothing had happened. But this flock was different.

Field guides will tell you that lapwing and golden plover flocks are common in winter. I've seen these many times. This flock though was something I haven't witnessed before, a mixed starling and lapwing flock. That may sound unremarkable, but what I seemed to have stumbled on was a co-operation flock. Despite the wind making it hard to focus the binoculars, I hunkered down to watch them drop back into the field.  What I observed was possibly a wonderful example of intraspecific anti-predator behaviour. Time and time again I observed the lapwings encircling the starling flock while they foraged on the grass. Not just in one field but a number around me. In the field nearest me there were maybe 200 starlings and 50 or so lapwing.  The flock would move as one organic force, lapwings leading at the front, with sentries posted to each side and the rear. And within this ring of peewits the entire flock of starlings moved as one with and at the same speed as the peewits as they foraged. The lapwings were foraging too, but at least half of them at any one time were alert, fidgety and calling what was wonderfully described by Charles Bayne "tcher-willooch-weet'. 

 

Then, and I observed this regularly, something unseen would spook the lapwings. The leading half a dozen to a dozen  would fly up in their lazy flap flap way, noisily calling. As they rose, behind them the entire starling flock alighted as one with them, the remaining lapwings following the starling chase. Being faster fliers, quickly after taking off the massed starling flock would fly past the lapwings in a fast moving murmuration, hedge hopping inches from the hedge top into a safer field, leaving the lapwings to bring up the rear as they flapped and glided back down to join them.  Once in the field previous positions would regroup. Starlings inner, lapwings outside, foraging would begin once more, with the leading edge of the feeding mass being the advance party of lapwing walking and foraging in a planned direction, followed by the starlings en-masse, with the lapwing sentries keeping watch. Time and again I'd observe lapwings take to the air, followed by the starlings and then the remaining lapwings. Not once did I see the starlings rise up first followed by the lapwings, always the lapwings first. It was beginning to get dark by the time I'd observed maybe a dozen take off and landings, and I was cold, with a walk back to warmth ahead of me. 

The following day I went back to the fields this time with a camera. If anything the wind was stronger than the day before, and that maybe accounted for the lower numbers of birds of each species in the fields, but they were there once more repeating that co-operation behaviour of lapwing sentries and starling feeders. In the course of an hour or so watching, not once, save for a lone buzzard, did I spot a sparrow hawk or other predator. The roller coaster flights of lapwings up, starlings up, starlings down, lapwings down seemingly caused by reason's unseen.  On this second visit the only difference to the lapwing behaviour was that lapwings from a field behind me flew back and forth to the fields containing foraging starlings and lapwings. Whether this was additional reinforcements or simply wandering about I didn't know. That field behind me also contained a large corvid flock, I counted over 30 carrion crow.

What I had witnessed intrigued me. Is this a common occurrence, this lapwing starling co-operation, or simply two species cooperating in winter during a cold spell. A search on the internet failed to come up with an answer, even going through research papers into interspecific flocking behaviour in winter. I decided to head into my library and spent a few hours reading through my natural history books.

What struck me in reading through these books was how often peewits or green plover as lapwings were known of old were mentioned, but how scant those references were of detailed information. It made me realise that many of these naturalists writing 50 or more years ago tuned into the beloved sound and flight of the lapwing, but it seemed that as peewits were more numerous than today these observers seemed not to register any behaviours. Hudson, Jefferies, BB, Moore, and Drabble all note the liquidity of the lapwings call, or the flap flap flight, but though only a limited selection of my own books, that was about it. 

Even that most poetic of naturalists Edward Thomas failed to provide what I'd wished for. Thomas, finding his life as a journalist unfulfilled, set out on an 8 day bicycle journey in the pursuit of self discovery and rejuvenation. Riding from Clapham in London to The Quantocks in Somerset around the Easter period between the 21st and 28th of March 1913. His book In Pursuit of Spring does reference peewits, but in passing while on Salisbury Plain 

"Next to the dead the most numerous things on the Plain are sheep, rooks, peewits and larks. The lark is most constant here  ....the pewit is equally characteristic. His Winter and twilight cry expresses for most men both the sadness and the wildness of these solitude"

Interestingly for me Richard Jefferies writing nearly 150 years ago in Wild Life In A Southern County questions why birds 'pack' as he calls it 

".. the packing of birds is very interesting, and no thoroughly satisfactory explanation of it, that I am aware of, has ever been discovered" 

He then goes on to discuss other species and of the peewit says " Peewits or lapwings not only pack in the winter, but may almost be said to pass the nesting time together" he goes on to discuss the lapwings avoidance behaviour by the nest in spring, but adds a beautiful description of the lapwing flight: 

"Then you have a good opportunity of observing the peculiar motion of their wings, which seem to strike simply downwards, and not also backwards, as in other birds; it is a quick jerking movement, the wing giving the impression of pausing for a tenth of a second at the finish of the stroke before it is lifted again"  

A lovely observance of the flight but not what I was after. I'd drawn a blank. The closest I got to answering my question and a naturalist describing their observance of lapwing behaviour was found in Sir John Craster's book Naturalist in Northumberland.

"[February 28th]... many more peewits are, this morning, going through their courtship antics, and I stand for some time watching and enjoying this very embodiment of the spirit of spring".... 

He later describes at length watching over 200 lapwing 'whiffle' in from the sky to join a few on the ground.

Maybe it is just my books, my limited knowledge, but I have found this whole process fascinating and it is why after over 50 years of observing wildlife there is still so much more for me to learn. Not least that the old term for lapwing can be spelt either pewit or peewit... I've gone for the latter except in quotes, after all it is the sound of a magical bird flap stop flapping the wing. 

I've not been to those fields for a couple of days but hopefully on my next visit the lapwing and starlings remain, and I'll continue to observe their antics. It certainly makes sense to combine forces, and observant eyes, to avoid predators during these winter months. Natural territorial hostility replaced by the need to simply survive. No doubt in a few weeks the lapwings will disperse, some flying a long way off. The starlings too, many back to Europe. The memory of this chance behavioural encounter  will stay with me a long while yet.

As an aside in the evening I asked Julie my wife if she would do a quick sketch of a lapwing to help illustrate my memory of this. An hour later I have the best Valentine's present a man could have.... It is not spring yet, but Spring is most definitely being dreamed.

References 

Bayne, Charles S. (1944). Exploring England. Collins, London

Thomas, Edward (2002). In Pursuit of Spring (first published 1914), Laurel. 

Jefferies, Richard (2011). Wild Life In A Southern County (first published 1879). Toller

Craster, John, Sir (1969). Naturalist In Northumberland

Quote "It is not spring yet" 

Thomas, Edward (2009). The South Country (first published 1909), Toller

Lapwing illustration by Denis Watkins-Pitchford from;

Warren, C. Henry (1940). England Is A Village, illustrated by Denis Watkins-Pitchford. Eyre and Spottiswood

Level best birding

By rights, I should be Christmas shopping but this last week has been a bit frantic. Last evening I was at the BBC Wildlife Photographer of the Year 08 preview, presented by Miranda Krestovnikoff, who I'm old enough to remember as a junior researcher in the NHU. I'm not sure I agree, and many a debate was under way, with the Winning photo, a Snow Leopard, which was caught by remote camera. My joint favourites were a truly spectacular shot of a Black Grouse backlit, and just a hint of steam from it's mouth by Bence Máté and Snow Swans by Yongkang Zhu. But all the photos were stunning (unlike that which follows in this posting), so if you wish to have a peek, click here.

Anyway this morning I thought, steady on Border Reiver my old son, you need some fresh air. Blow the cobwebs off, so even though it was wet and dull, on with the galoshes and away to the Somerset Levels......

This was my first stop at Mark Moor. If you notice there is a footpath sign pointing to the rhyne, I'm not sure I'd wish to walk that way. The birding began on the journey down, Little Egret, Kestrel, Black Headed and Herring Gull by the motorway, plus a lot of Starling activity.

The opposite rhyne was being patrolled by a Grey Heron and a couple of Mute Swans with Glastonbury Tor in the distance. This was quite a good spot, Robin, Wren, Song Thrush, Blackbird, Blue, Great and Long-Tailed Tit, plus Stonechat were constantly about. A little further off 38 Swans were in a field, some Mallard, and 3 Meadow Pipit.

My original intention today was to go to Catcott Reserve, but I seemed destined to stay here. While driving along a drove road, this male Stonechat flew in front of the car and resulted in this poor photo. However while trying to photo this bird from the car, a Goldcrest landed on a branch inches from my wing mirror... sadly it was off before a photo was possible, though I did see it again 3 or 4 more times.

And so on to Tealham Moor, which is actually wet grassland.

This Carrion Crow was setting up it's cheek to the swan but both finally accepted their presence and they parted friends. While I was watching this performance, a familiar call alerted me to a passing Raven. I'm a happy bunny now I've got my Raven in the log for the day. Some Wigeon and Mallard were in the main Drain, more Grey Heron (7 in total today), couplet of Moorhen, and Meadow Pipit, more assorted gulls made me realise I'd walked a long way. So it was a long way back to the car.

At the far end of the Moor, I noticed a huge flock of Lapwing from the car. Luckily here, unlike some other parts of the UK, Lapwing numbers are holding up. I stopped to get the scope out, as sometimes Golden Plover are mixed in the flock, not today though.

I was just getting the scope out when the whole flock rose together, which can mean only one thing, Bird of Prey, and more likely a Peregrine. But where was it? I was in a quandary, the Lapwing were doing spectacular flocking maneuvers, but I needed to look elsewhere, so a few record shots of the flocking birds, then a 360 scan with the bins. There it was, 100 feet away behind me, coming in low like the clappers in front of the car, more like a Merlin hit and run chase, but then it rose up, the flock split, pandemonium followed, but my witnessing a kill wasn't to be.

So the Perry landed on a tree to watch and wait, the Lapwings left. What was unusual was this Perry was calling continuously, a very strange cackling call they sometimes do.

Keeping quiet and out of the way were a pair of Buzzards, wondering what the fuss was all about. It was while watching the Peregrine that the mobile went off, Stephen Moss inviting me for coffee, as he lives just a few miles away. While chatting to him a woman on a bicycle came into view and stopped for a chat. It turned out this was Alison Everett, a fellow member of the Somerset Ornithological Society, known as the SOS. We'd never met before, but we both knew of each other from the wonderfully names SOS Message Board!! It's a funny old world birding. Middle of nowhere and you meet someone you know, even if just by name.

Anyway just because I like it, this is an arty photo of the tree the Peregrine was in, the Lapwings were to the left. I think that field needs draining !! While talking to Alison Everett, I spied in a very distant tree a weird "black shape", which is in the tree, middle of the below picture at the end of the rhyne going bottom left to horizon.

This turned out to be a Buzzard, but weirdly it was perched with it's wings outstretched, much as a Cormorant does to theromregulate. Very odd given the cool temperature. What was also odd was it stayed like this for at least half an hour. Testing my zoom lens on the camera, especially as it was being hand held, to the limit, the following 2 photos show what I mean.

I've never seen anything like this before and when I popped in for that coffee at Stephen's, he wasn't sure either what was happening, but agreed it was odd behaviour for a Buzzard. Mind you we didn't have much time to talk, Stephen had been left babysitting for a few days while Mrs Stephen enjoyed herself with friends. 3 children under 5 can destroy a house when their mother is away overnight, Stephen was doing his best to control the melee, but I know who was winning. I never knew scrambled egg could stick to a forehead before!! Great fun though.

But time to go, and the drive back also produced a few nice moments.

These Mute Swans with the Mendips in the background were a pleasant discovery, while these Starlings being lifted by yet another Buzzard, provided a very atmospheric view.

And finally a view of Brent Knoll. For 3 and a half years I lived at the foot of this volcanic outlier next the the M5. From there are stunning views across the whole area, plus it's a great place for wildlife. I still miss not living there. But a great morning, and now, back to the Christmas toil....

Sand Bay 08.15 to 08.50

After a day of driving rain yesterday, this morning was fine, but with a driving gale in off the sea. Made watching birds through a scope almost impossible as I had to cling on to the telescope to stop it blowing over. However I managed to do half an hour before heading back up the M5 to work.

Birds seen; 7 Curlew, small Linnet flock, 130+ Shelduck, 2 Juv Herring Gull, 7 Carrion Crow, Lesser Black Backed Gull, 2 Raven, 1 Redshank, 2 Starling, 3 Common Gull and numerous Black Headed Gull. On drive home saw, 23 Curlew in flooded field in Sand Road, plus 3 Pied Wagtail, a Carrion Crow and a Blue Tit. Raven flew over M5, 200+ Lapwing in same flooded field as earlier in the week, Grey Heron, small Mallard flock on a temporary pool and numerous gulls playing on the wind. Did I really have to come to work?????