The Spring Equinox Rooks

 In a non scientific way I have counted the rook nests in the village for a number of years now. In previous years my count took place in late February or early March, after which a couple more nests invariably appeared. This year I delayed my count slightly and waited until the spring equinox, not just because it was the warmest day so far in 2025, but also the first day of my retirement. Until this moment I'd been too busy finishing my career, and work, at the BBC.

The afternoon was warm. The thermometer in the greenhouse nudged 40oC, outside it was around half this, not bad for the 20th of March. With little wind and visually perfect blue skies I set off walking the half mile or so to the village to make my count.

First the site I refer to as the bend in the lane. This is interesting. In previous years there have been one or two nests in the far right tree. This year there are nine spreading across all four trees, themselves around a quarter of a mile from the main rookery. Why the expansion here I can't say, but I hope this is a sign of a healthy population expanding their territory.  

Walking further towards the village, the two core trees as I like to think of them, on the left have, as in previous years, hosted the bulk of the nests in the village, nineteen in total this year in the main tree and five in an adjacent one. The trees to the left (and below) at Cypress Farm, have increased nest numbers too, with nine this year, quite interesting to see poplars being used.

I spent a little time near to and under the main core trees. I've mentioned this before but it never ceases to surprise me that they nest over the lane, now covered with sticks. They're safe in the trees of course but this is a busy commuter short cut from Weston Super Mare to a major road, plus a busy agricultural area with thunderous tractors passing through. Not a quiet spot then but as it is host every year to the core rookery structures, they must like this spot.

Not far from the core area, three nests have appeared in what I can loosely term a new site by the holiday cottages, only a sticks-throw from the core. Three nests here, but room for more.

That's a good total then, 9 on the bend, 9 at Cypress Farm, 19 plus 5 in the two core trees and 3 at the holiday cottage = 45 if my sums are correct. That's two more nests than in 2024. 

Not a bad way to spend the first day of my retirement, messing about in warm sunshine watching the behaviour of rooks in the village.

Spring is not quite here, close though...

 There is always a sense of great excitement in me at this time of the year. I'm like a child sometimes. Yes it is still winter, yet spring is very much beating it's own emergent path towards winters closing door. After weeks of rain followed by a lovely but very cold spell, today felt almost no coat weather. I said almost.

I was on the Avalon Marshes area of the Somerset Levels, Shapwick Heath to be precise. I've not been here for months, and today Mrs Wessex_Reiver and I had not started out in the morning to come here. It just happened by chance, and as that chance would have it I didn't' have any binoculars with me. More on that later.

Following an errand in Weston super Mare we decided on the spur of the moment to visit Shapwick. After the obligatory drink and snack at the Hub, it was simply lovely having a walk along the central path, the former route of the railway line which once carried peat dug hereabouts to the rest of the country. A bit of fresh air and some gentle exercise. There were some visitors about but for once it was fairly quiet. Not having my binoculars with me meant I had to use my other sense, hearing. First up a few fieldfare were raucously chak-kak-ak-ing in a nearby shrubbery, silhouetted against the sky but unmistakable with that call. As I listened a song thrush beyond gently repeated its phrasing adding a songster's lead vocal to the fieldfare's rhythm. A nice start.

Other sounds emanated as we walked along. The ubiquitous mallard quacked away, or at least the females did, a flotilla of Canada goose honked as they flew over. Great tit called, not the classic teacher call, but the two note contact call, repeated before falling silent. Not everything made a sound, over the reeds at some distance a male marsh harrier quartered silently, its blue-grey wings flashing its presence to a number of duck species who rapidly rose and fled as it arrived. A great white egret stood silently at the edge of a pool. I find this amazing as it is now almost impossible to visit the Somerset Levels without seeing at least one great white egret or a marsh harrier within a few minutes. In truth on the walk back an hour later, three marsh harriers were together in one eye line. Having no plan for the day, my destination was Mere hide, simply because after 30 minutes walking I needed a sit down. I said goodbye to Mrs Wessex_Reiver who went for a longer walk. Crossing a bridge, the approach to this hide is through a small wet woodland, from which two jays erupted with their harsh call and flew over my head. I do love jays. In many ways the expectation of wildlife watching can overshadow the reality, and today Mere hide lived up to its reputation, for me at least, for having absolutely nothing to see, well not upon first entering it.

I was lucky as a family and then a couple were exiting the hide as I arrived, presumably they'd seen me coming. I always do this, but on arriving at the door of a hide I open it very slowly, gingerly even, as if a demonised phantom was within waiting to scare me. I love hides, they have a unique atmosphere but they are mysterious. One never knows who, or what will be found when the door is opened. Fling open that door with a loud crash followed by a 'Hello I'm Here' boomed out in a thundering voice and the volley of  'SHH, SHH, SHH's' from camouflaged middle aged men will return to you like machine gun fire, at which point you are trapped. Which leaves a dilemma, do you find a seat and carry on as if no one has noticed your entrance, or turnaround and exit the hide quickly. 

The one aspect of hides I find quite bothersome is when I'm seated quietly in there and someone comes barging in and immediately asks "anything worth seeing?". My immediate thought is to suggest some rare vagrant in a nearby tree and then enjoy the chaos as the they unpack all their gear in readiness to take that award winning photograph of the greater striped zebra-sparrow. It happened today, a couple who were visiting the Levels for the very first time, before they'd even come through the door said, "anything interesting". I wish I'd said I was from the north and not being able to afford binoculars I was counting the number of reed stems which I found helped my mental problems while I am on day release. I didn't, just mumbled something about it being quiet, and actually they were a charming couple (complete with campervan from Exeter). But why don't people just come in and sit quietly and look out the hide windows for themselves. Tribal acceptance I suppose. Sometimes visiting a hide is hilarious.

I once entered a hide on the Catcott complex nearby. With me was my friend Rob, we were on a between Christmas and New Year escape the indoors day and had walked here from Shapwick hoping for a quiet few moments scanning the wetlands. Not to be, as I opened the door we were greeted with a sea of late middle aged ladies surrounding a bemused gentleman in a fedora hat. "Come in, come in, there's not much room, but you can sit on our knees though" one lady said with a giggle, with another adding "we don't bite.....much". My friend and I found a space no larger than a postage stamp and squeezed in between our new friends, who I'm sure reduced the space as we settled. "Would you like a wine gum" one said. We took up the wine gum offer, fearing refusal may find us kidnapped and turned into domestic slaves, never to be seen again outside. We needn't have worried as in the end we had a riotous time. It turned out they were a ladies nature and birdwatching group from somewhere near London on a girls mid-winter weekend in Somerset complete with binoculars. Once they found out we knew what some of the birds were, the questions came thick and fast. "what's that duck there?" "Is that a pigeon?". The fedora hat wearer feeling somewhat miffed and ostracised I suspect said loudly "Ladies there's a garganey over there...". Given this was mid winter Rob and I sprang into action, "really? where?"... "there" fedora said pointing to a gadwall. We didn't say anything to avoid a possible lynching and death by wine gum, but ever since then Rob and I have called gadwalls, GargGadanywalls. 

Today however as I peered around the hide door the building was empty, save for the new logbook. Hide logbooks are another fabulous item of birdwatching culture. If well used, they invariably contain within their pages at least one, if not all of the following; 

a) a three page seriously compiled list of all birds seen, including taxonomic grouping, recorded during a three hour visit, signed and dated by someone called Kevin, self proclaimed ornithologist and RSPB love-child

b) a note in capitals that someone has pinched the pen - AGAIN, with the writer having to resort to his or her own pen to write this complaint

b) the word DUCK, TIGER or COW written in three inch letters, often in green ink, often with a drawing of something which may resemble the said animal, but the jury is out

c) or some lovelorn teenagers, outpouring of passion complete with words of Anglo Saxon origin relating to hoped for recreational activities later that evening

I love logbooks, though sadly this one was reasonably new, and sensible, with just a few species listed as having been seen today. Sadly no cows or teenage lust. I settled down then to gaze across the reedbeds and listen.

To my amazement I could hear many invisible species, and without the aid of my binoculars saw a number too. A couple of marsh harriers were simple, a cormorant too. In the distance some ducks alighted, by their size and flight teal were among them, and wigeon confirmed by their whistling calls once they'd resettled. Then as I sat I heard the unmistakable drumming of a great spotted woodpecker, that's a first this year. Then the squeal of a water rail. Not having binoculars was sharpening my hearing, a coot called somewhere, to my right a wren's song erupted, more quack quack from a passing flock of mallard. 

It was while listening that I noticed movement at the bottom of the reed in front of the hide. Two birds, one following the other skulking at the base of the reeds but in the open. Brownish grey nondescript plumage, pale grey underneath and looking quite 'warblery' if that's a word. I couldn't be 100% sure but immediately I thought Cetti's warbler - I've not seen one for years, although I have heard them many many times, they're fiendishly difficult to see. Quickly checking the ID via my phone somewhat confirmed my suspicions, but by the time I'd looked this up, the birds had disappeared back into the reedbed and as they never called absolute confirmation remains sadly elusive. I'll mark this as probable, possible, well I think maybe so. 

The remainder of the listening and watching took place to the right hand side of the hide within some wet woodland. Blackbird, blue and great tit, wren again, a chaffinch 'pinking' away somewhere and flitting along delicate branches high in the trees what I'm assuming were chiffchaffs, if only I had my binoculars to see these a little closer. A grey squirrel wafted about on the ground and a moorhen messed about in a water filled ditch which was nice to see, a much overlooked bird. 

Not too many species, but sitting there quietly watching and listening was a real joy. The sound of the breeze through the reeds was especially evocative.  

Retracing my steps the only additions were a long tailed tit, a male stonechat, a few starling, rook and carrion crow, a grey heron and somewhere over in the far distance a bittern was clearing its throat and ushered out two half hearted 'ho_oo_ops'. I've often heard them boom here at the end of January but it is in February that they'll really begin, when if you visit the Levels they are everywhere to be heard, a real success story.

So spring has not quite arrived, but all the signs are gathering, not least this thrown-out-of-the-nest starling egg I spied on my neighbour's path when I got home. Not long now.

Singing Blackcap

Like many people at the moment I suspect, I'm up early listening to the news from Ukraine. This morning however I turned off the newsfeeds to listen to a blackcap singing. Not just any blackcap but the male which has been resident in the garden all winter. 

What I'm thinking now is with his starting to sing to set out his territory and attract a mate, will this chap and the female with him all winter, actually stay here to breed? UK wintering blackcap normally come from north-central Europe and return there to breed, being replaced by the north African blackcap who over-summer in the UK.  But a small percentage of blackcap (and their relatives the chiffchaff, one of which has also been here over winter) have become truly resident. 

The issue I have then is that of proving this bird is resident. Blackcaps are notoriously uniformly bland in appearance. Don't get me wrong I love these males and their sooty black cap, but my overwintering one doesn't really have any other distinguishing plumage. Except that looking at some images I've taken over the weeks he does has a slight kink in the back of the cap and his white lesser covert somehow always sticks out just a bit. Hopefully that's enough to go on if he and the female remain here in the breeding season and I can prove it is this pair that have chosen to stay here all year round. 

More keen observations then, but even if they depart soon and are not resident, that wonderful song this morning enriched the garden during these dark days.

February comes a knocking early?

Many people have noted in recent years that clearly defined seasons seem to be a thing of the past. Whether this is a long term change or simply weather related is still debated, though reading through nature notes from the past mild winter conditions do seem to be common but irregular. Here in Somerset it certainly has been a mild winter so far, just a few days of light frost and no signs of snow. On New Year's Eve the first of the early daffodils flowered, and as I write three are in bloom as they poke out from the lawn.

Overnight, on January 28th, I read the weekly update by the RSPB from their Ham Wall reserve on the Somerset Levels. In the preceding week no less than 6 bitterns had been recorded 'booming'. Great spotted woodpeckers had been heard 'drumming', great crested grebes had begun to do their mesmerising 'weed dance' and a grey heron had been seen 'moon pointing,' a not often observed piece of breeding behaviour. The author of the blog also noted that bird song had increased over the week despite it still being January. 

I too have noticed this week that the birds have become a lot more vocal. Working from home most of the time allows me to take short comfort breaks and stare out the window, often with my binoculars. But it was while working away hard on the laptop that I heard a woodpigeons' 'take two cows, Taffy' call (I've never quite got that association but I guess it helps remember).

Nothing unusual in hearing this familiar bird but then it struck me that I'd not heard this familiar refrain for a few weeks. Gazing out the window, three woodpigeon were in the garden, two following one in their plump waddling way. No specific behaviour was seen such as mutual preening or the male flying around displaying, just three woodpigeon out for a bit of a stroll. One of them must have been the calling individual, but not while I watched. At the other end of the garden there were three male blackbirds and a single female scurrying around the shrubs.  Two species doing pretty much the same thing, following each other in the hope of spring to come, though whether these male blackbirds were local or from a-far, even the Continent, I don't know.

Birdsong really has increased on the rare sunny days here, much more to do with increasing daylength than higher than average daily temperatures. It has been quite noticeable. The starlings who roost in the roof space have begun chattering just above the office window, a constant melee of calls, cackles and wheezes. Unlike the woodpigeon who can breed all year, starlings tend to be faithful to the longer days of spring, which in most years here means I find an egg shell on the path anytime from mid March. House sparrows are noisy now, competing with the starlings for roof space. The roosting jackdaws who fly past the house morning and at dusk now noisily herald their presence with their jak-a-jac calls, passing in numerous pairs or loose family groups within the larger cohesive flock. 

It has though been the great tit which have been the most vocal, their 'teacher teacher' call has been almost as constant a refrain during daylight, much as the robin, who seems to have an endless supply of energy from dusk to dawn. Blue tits too have increased their czzzzr chzzr call as they flit to and from the feeders. It was while watching the latter I spied a couple of part-obscured fawn shapes foraging in the shrubs beyond. One was a goldcrest, the other a male blackcap. I watched the goldcrest for a long time, it began on a buddleia, inspecting the underside of every leaf on a number of branches, before moving on to the fir tree and thoroughly inspecting every needle and branch, working from the middle to the outer tips. Spending 10 minutes watching a single bird foraging really allowed me to observe the efficient way it inspected every inch of the tree. I've seen goldcrests a number of times in the garden but don't think they have ever nested in the fir tree. Maybe this year.  

Overnight this week a vixen has been really vocal. Around 2am on Wednesday morning I thought she was in the garden as the call was loud and close, but I think she was behind the garden wall, as after a few minutes, the call drifted away as the fox moved away. It's such a startling call that I remember the first time I ever heard this as a child I was scared that something untoward was happening. I couldn't hear the dog calling but no doubt he was nearby as we have a healthy population of foxes here.

We are of course a few weeks off the beginning of the breeding season proper but this relatively mild winter has brought some of the classic signs a few weeks earlier, though not with our snowdrops. The soil here is a high clay content clay soil. When I first moved here we'd get water pooling on the lawn in winter. Years of soil improvement has stopped that, though the soil remains very heavy and cold during winter. Consequently despite liking moist conditions the mid-winter coldness has meant that snowdrops have never done well. Only last week I looked for any shoots but there were none poking through the lawn. On Thursday however I was rewarded with a single flower, not more than 2cm above the ground, with more shoots pushing through around it. Elsewhere in the area snowdrops flower from early January, but here it is always mid February before they get going. I'll never have a carpet of snowdrops but that single white bulb on a grey weather day lifted the spirits somewhat.

My spirits were also lifted earlier in the week by a friend of mine in Northumberland who sent me a wonderful video of barn owls. Her sister had been out on the farm where they live and spied a barn owl quartering the equestrian complex which is part of the farm. Not one, but two in vision at the same time. The first bird after quartering the slopes by the schooling ring, flew right over her sister giving beautiful views as it headed to a fence line where another barn owl was quartering the tussocky grass area beside some gnarled ash trees. Having two barn owls in the same view and so close is a real treat, I'm so pleased my friend sent that to me and looking at the rough grassland the owls were over it proves that if the habitat is there, the wildlife will come.

Still image taken from the video I was sent of a pair of barn owls in Northumberland. 

RSPB Blog post for January 28th 2022

https://community.rspb.org.uk/placestovisit/hamwall/b/hamwall-blog/posts/recent-sightings-and-news-from-rspb-ham-wall---28-01-2022

Composting Sunday

January in the sun kissed South West has been, weather wise, as depressing as a depressed thing under the weight of the World. Dull days, damp days, hardly a day of sunshine. Of course it IS January and the winter is in full force, but constant grey skies make me a grey person.  But this morning despite the light drizzle accompanying the grey skies, I hot footed it out into the garden as a well overdue job was on the cards. Compost spreading.  

We love compost. It is like alchemy. Every day we hurl stuff from the kitchen into the green bin and for 6 months no matter how full the bin seems each day, 24 hours later there is a good six inches of space, with hundreds of brandling worms wriggling in the light, alongside woodlice, millipedes, centipedes and all manner of beasties. Eventually though even this legion of devourers can not cope and it's time to spread all their fabulous produce. Unlike some gardeners who work on a 6-8 week cycle, turning compost regularly to afford a quick product, we work on a 6 month slow compost route. We do put garden waste in the plastic composter but most of this goes into the wooden one next door, again on a 6 month cycle. 

First job then to strip off the top layer of material still waiting to the broken down, that'll make a lovely base layer when it goes back in. Then the black gold as many call it comes out. Three wheelbarrow loads from the wooden bin and nearly three from the plastic composter. We don't grow vegetables, purely an ornamental garden and wildlife friendly - it's never had chemicals. The ornamental perennials, biennials and annuals are mostly grown for pollinators with the odd exception for a bit of riotous colour. But that's in May or June when the first summer flush is dazzling the neighbourhood.

But in late January it is the spring bulbs that will dazzle the neighbourhood. Ours at least. These Iris reticulata were planted in September and I remember us packing the bulbs into the pots thinking, spring is around the corner. Of course it was months away, and these only flowered yesterday, but that riot of blue did really brighten up the grey day...by the time the photo was taken it was drizzling even harder.

Snowdrops of course are now coming into their own. Although they have sporadically been out down here in Somerset since the first week in January, the massed Galanthus show is just coming into its peak. Yesterday while heading into work at Tyntesfield the massed snowdrops by the quarry wall seemed incongruous, beacons of light in the mist, like miniature headlights in the gloom. I love snowdrops and have a few in pots which I look after all year like these Galanthus woronowii, known commonly as the giant snowdrop; not so much for the size of the flowers, but the leaves, more bluebell leaf in shape and rich green colour than the spear like sage green leaves of our 'native'  snowdrop. Look closely and the colouring inside the flower is just sublime.... Every One A Winner on these grey January days.

January blues fading away each day

It was Monty Don talking last night on Radio 2 which has inspired this short return to the blogging typos-phere. Speaking on the Simon Mayo show Monty discussed amongst other things January, and that while it is a bleak month in many ways, day by day, little by little, things are changing in the garden, and of course the wider countryside.

Monty on Simon Mayo  (about 1 hour and 9 minutes in)

I've just returned from a lunchtime walk - while the northern half of the country is blanketed in snow, here in Clifton, Bristol it is sunny and a balmy 6 degrees. Three weeks ago I lay in my sick bed. Aussie Flu wracking my body into oblivion. Dark by 4pm, I felt the woes of midwinter terribly. This lunchtime however my walk rewarded me with a couple of occasions of wonderful scent from winter shrubs. Where these shubs were I could not say, but their sweet scent filled a small patch of air. Robins sang lustily, at the Cathedral the early daffodils I've mentioned many times on this blog are at their very best (our pot daffodils were out in December). 

In a garden not far from work is a huge magnolia, under planted with spring bulbs, bulbs that are often out a week or so earlier then elsewhere. Snowdrops a plenty, a couple of crocus, and joy of joys a splattering of winter aconite.  Celendines are out in the garden back at at home and the many corvid pairs around the village are in the trees, twigs in beak. And it is still light at 4.30 in the evening.

January can be a bleak month in many ways, however I'm with Monty. Day by day, little by little, things are changing in the garden, and of course the wider countryside. 

Abandon hope all who enter here

Nature can both enrich and destroy.

Today it's capacity for failure has been aptly demonstrated by the abandonment of the blackbird nest I wrote of recently. Two weeks ago I sat in the garden enthralled by to-ing and fro-ing of the female blackbird building a nest in the garden. Two weeks ago the promise of new life into this corner of Somerset was all around us. Today after not seeing any activity in the garden or around the nest by either the male or female blackbird I checked it with my camera on a pole - 5 beautifully marked eggs but no bird. I gently felt the eggs, stone cold and they plus the nest were soaking wet after the frost we had last night. Having not seen the female around the nest for 4 days now, I fear that's that. There will be no new life in this corner of the West Country this year.

In a way I'm not surprised, just saddened. On Tuesday, the last day I saw the female an unknown black cat had come into the garden and was looking up at the nest hidden in a clematis. It then walked along the fence the clematis is attached to and peered in before leaving the garden following my protestations. But I have often seen this and another cat in the garden by the bird feeder. Was she killed by a cat maybe? I can't say the cat had anything to do with the abandonment but the female blackbird was especially tame and would hop around the garden while we worked in it. She'd happily fly into the nest too seemingly unaware we existed. Too trusting possibly?

 

We also have regular visits by magpies and carrion crows, in fact a crow has just arrived on the shed as I write this, all sleek and glossy, a killer king in a black mantle? Maybe but often they would rob the nest of eggs, rather than attack the parents. The eggs are still there, cold as stone, jewels hiding their macabre story of abandonment. We do have a regular sparrowhawk too, but there is no evidence of blackbird remains. Why then the nest was abandoned? I just don't know.

I've long loved nests and eggs. Since a child that joy of discovering a nest and peering carefully inside to see perfectly formed spheres of creation. In many ways finding nests in the winter is just as thrilling. I remember discovering a long tail tit nest in a dense blackthorn hedge in the middle of a snowy walk in December. That beautifully crafted tennis ball dome stood out as a reminder of warmer days which felt a lifetime ago. Gently pushing my finger inside the dome I could feel the soft interior, which possibly housed ten or 12 pompoms of life all squeezed in tightly vying for space as the warm spring sun warmed within.  

Rooks nests out of season fascinate me too, they look so precarious on the outer branches of trees, just a ragtag and bobtail structure of sticks swaying in a winter storm; but no matter the weather they remain relatively undamaged all through the year often to be repaired and used again in the following March. Even in the height of nesting season, winds can whip the trees into a flagellating frenzy but the nests remain; although in severe gales at this time of the year young can be hurled to their death below. The illustration below from The Collins Guide to Nests and Eggs I have mentioned before fascinated me as a child as it simply illustrates the differences. Rooks, social and build on the very edge of the tree, which is of course why the nests are stable as the branches are a vertical foundation structure to the nests. Carrion crows build lower down, singly and usually in the more stable Y or fork of the branch - their nests being more of a platform. And magpies. I love magpie nests one of the few instantly recognisable nests with it's mezzanine floor above the main nest to protect eggs and young.

 

 

The complexity of nest building in the birds world is fascinating, and all from a beak and a bit of avian design flair. Not all birds build nests of course, the cuckoo just pops by like a difficult older sibling while you're out, raids your nest, leaves a present you didn't really want and disappears until next year. The guillemot and many other seabirds just lays an egg on a rock, the egg itself is the wonder, designed to roll around not off the cliff face. But as with the unhelpful term seagulls to describe anything white and flying along the coast, the term nest fails to enthral the casual observer.

 

Rightly nests and eggs are protected by law from destruction, harm or wilful disturbance during the breeding season, I only checked this nest being certain it had been abandoned and after days of discrete distance observation. But later in the year when rebirth has been completed on that country walk, if you find a nest, stop and take a closer look at the miracle of its building, it's form, structure, shape and function is unique. As is every species' nest.

 

All is maybe not lost. As I sat here writing this memorial to avian abandonment a dark shape caught my eye. It is a female blackbird carrying nesting material from the garden and over the wall into a shrubby area next to the lane. In the time it has taken me to write this she's been back and forth half a dozen times. The male blackbird is perched on a shrub beside where this female is flying in and out of. To be honest this female looks darker than the one nesting in the garden who had a distinctive pale ruff across her chest. Is this male blackbird one with female blackbird 2? Only one thing for it, to stop writing this, make myself comfortable and as all naturalists do, sit quietly and observe.

 

Observation is what enriches our understanding of nature, and, maybe there will be new life in this corner of the West Country this year after all.

Corvid Cornucopia

It's been a cold grey old weekend, ideal for staying indoors and watching the rugby yesterday. Today however I began to develop cabin fever, just as the clouds parted. Blue sky began to eradicate the grey blanket and sunshine filled the early evening sky. Thus just as the clock struck 4pm I headed over to the village for an hour.

 

I've been meaning to do this for a week or so as the rooks are in full nest building mode now. They're moving about the village this year, not sure if they've been disturbed or just fancy a change, but some quite young trees are being colonised quite rapidly. Driving through every day to work I've watched five nests occur in trees over the road in just a week and a couple of singles now occupy outlying trees, like sentries to the main garrison. I have a soft spot for all corvids and in those brief minutes as I cycled around the village, camera and binoculars swinging precariously, I managed to spy a good number of rook and jackdaw, carrion crow, 6 magpies together in a flock and a raven, which took me by surprise. We don't get many jays in this part of Somerset as most trees are ash and sycamore on the wet moor grassland but no matter, I was in my element.

 

There have been two rookeries around the village for years, about half a mile apart. One by the village hall (above and below) and one by Cedar Farm. A lot of activity today, jostling, calling, flying in with twigs, back out again to plunder,  with about half and half rook and jackdaws in the trees. I was surprised to see so many jackdaw pairs in amongst the rook nests but they offer mutual protection and as the jackdaws aren't nesting yet, why go elsewhere. Conserve your energy.

 

There were ten nests here and it was lovely to see the jackdaws noisily wheeling over the rookery too.

 

 

Just a few hundred yards away the new nests are being built and as I stopped my bike underneath the trees which can only be 20 years old, they noisily chastised me for disturbing them.

 

I cycled on into the village and passing Cedar Farm I hear a strange guttural sound, almost like someone is being strangled call. I recognised it instantly over the rooks relentless caw cawings... a raven. I watched a pair of ravens repeatedly barrel rolling last weekend over a copse at Tyntesfield and can therefore only assume they are nesting more frequently all around this area now. Ravens were always present in winter as they loafed about the coast a couple of miles away but in spring usually disappeared to the Mendips or South Wales both about 15 miles away as the raven flies.  Anyway this one was in the huge cedar that stands guard over the farm. As I listened the more familiar cronk cronk emerged from the dense foliage and it was off over the fields - just time for a quick record shot before it headed over to the coast. I heard it again ten minutes or so later but didn't see it. That cedar would be a perfect nest platform for the raven, whose nest is absolutely huge. My fingers are crossed.

 

Cedar farm is to the left of this image and the rookery, if that's the right term for a succession of nests that straggle out over three trees in the hedge line to the right (one of which as seen in the second image below)

 

What a lovely way to spend an hour on the Sunday of the Spring Equinox. In total I counted 33 rook nests. Back home I quickly sketched a map to show their location. The two single nests intrigue me as they are both about a quarter of a mile from any other nests. Outliers? young birds unsure of their position in the flock? I hope they do okay as one in particular had a carrion crow observing it. It's safety in numbers now that spring has arrived.

A busy wildlife week

Spring is always like this. We go through winter longing for something different to happen each week, then spring arrives and it's 0 to 100mph in a few days. New species coming in as migrants, everything is emerging faster than it can be counted and this week as many of you bloggers also know, soft southerly winds have made the days feel like summer, at last.

I have been all over the place for work and pleasure, so a busy time, but never too busy not to be thinking about a blog posting or two. So herewith a short synopsis of the wildlife this week (Even Milton Keynes on Monday produced a few birds on the journey, red kite was good - but that's the last I'll mention that town here).

This morning, after a well earned farmhouse breakfast at Cobb's Farm Shop near Hungerford, I headed off to Wiltshire Wildlife Trust's Ham Hill.

This is a small linear reserve on the Berkshire / Hampshire / Wiltshire border. I'd read about it a while back and one evening a week or so back located it. Its main attraction is that it is a Saxon sunken walkway through chalk downland. Absolutely fascinating to think people have walked this way since Saxon times.

The site is well known for orchids later in the season, including the rare musk orchid and the Duke of Burgundy butterfly. It isn't too bad in early April. I watched a male and female blackcap singing their wonderfully melodious song, other passerines were about and on the downland next to the scrub skylarks serenaded newly arrived swallows.

Not bad views either back towards Wilton and Marlborough

Quite a few plants were on the move in the warmer weather including this unusual Moschatel (Adoxa moschatellina). Nothing else looks like this, as when in flower, there are 4 tiny flowers in a square and a fifth on top.

Quite a few cowslips and violets in flower too, although the latter were starting to turn. Sadly I didn't seen any Duke of Burgundy caterpillars feeding on this host plant. I'll make sure though to return soon and attempt to see the butterfly itself.

At a separate location in Wiltshire I came across a Raven nest this week. I'll not say exactly where it is, but I was sitting in the car planning to leave another area of chalk downland when the familiar cronk of a raven alerted me to its presence, then the calls changed and I realised it was the male call as it came in to the female on the nest. This nest was on a clump of Scots pine and with a bit of searching through the binoculars I found the nest (the dark mass in the middle of this photo)

The male spent a lot of time flying between this clump of Scots pine and another about 300 meters away.........

..........from where on the latter tree he set up a continuous cronking (can you see him on the tree below?), probably because I was there, so after a few minutes I made my retreat to leave them to it and then watched them for a while longer from within the car.

Earlier this week I was in Devon looking for oil beetles. And what a glorious day it was too. There is something fantastic about standing on a Devonian cliff and watching swallows fly in over the sea and over one's head. They must have got a shock seeing me as their first piece of England at the end of their migration. But I was happy. It was so special to witness their arrival, as well as painted ladies as they came in over the English Channel on a soft warm breeze.

Back to the oil beetles. We'd set ourselves a task of seeing all 4 oil beetle species in the UK in a day, the black, violet, short necked and rugged. The short necked is very rare and indeed only found in one location on mainland Britain. And the rugged is unlike the other 3 in that it is an adult in the winter between October and late March, but we thought we'd give it a go. However I was optimistic as with me was one of the UK's best field biologist, John Walters who is studying the ecology of these beetles for Buglife.

We began in unimproved meadows near Dartmoor, where almost immediately we saw a male violet oil beetle (poor photo from my blackberry) - males have kinked antennae, though not 100% diagnostic. The host plant of these is celandine where the complicated life cycle involving celandine's, solitary mining bees and hitching a lift take place.

In a simplistic way, oil beetles have a very complex life cycle. The emergent female after mating lays thousands of eggs in an underground chamber. These hatch as minute larval clones of the adult. They then climb onto celandine flowers and wait for a passing insect. Any flying insect can be the vector, but only certain solitary mining bees can play host to the next stage of its life cycle. Anyway a flying insect lands on the flower, the larvae climb on board and are carried away.

If the flying insect is a solitary mining bee, they are taken into the bee's burrow where the larvae detach themselves, eat all the eggs of the bee, pupate and then emerge in a few weeks or the next spring, depending on the species. So a true parasitoid. This is a very simplistic synopsis as the life cycle is under researched, so John is learning as he studies them.

Eventually we found a black oil beetle too, which was fabulous as this meant 2 down 2 to go.

John has also been trying to discover the mating of these beetles and to do so has been collecting females and then introducing a male to them in a Tupperware box. All a little bit too voyeuristic really. But it is all legal as he's working on a research site and the beetles come from and are returned to the same area, hopefully to lay eggs successfully. The male in this photo (on right) grabs hold of the female by her antennae (which is why his are kinked so he can get a good hold), they have a tussle and then mate. The photo below was just after mating.

So after that excitement we headed down to the coast where at a secret location we found the short necked oil beetle, which for some reason I didn't photograph. That was three species found, just the rugged to go, which is known to be in this dry stone wall.

We looked and we searched but there wasn't any rugged oil beetles to be seen. Just too late in the year we think. We did however see a lot of common lizards which were taking advantage of the warm spring sunshine. Just goes to show if you stand still long enough, and look long enough, wildlife comes to you.

But the best was left to last. We'd been in the field for 7 hours and just about had enough energy to head back to the car. However John thought he'd seen some violet oil beetles making holes in a pathway last week and wanted to check if any were being used for egg laying. We hunted for about 20 minutes and then lo and behold, a female violet oil beetle was in the actual process of laying eggs. Just her head and one antennae were visible out of the soil, with her body completely buried. Absolutely fantastic to see this happening there and then. A great way to end an fabulous day in Devon.

Sadly not great photos as I still can't get my new Lumix to be pin sharp on the macro setting. I think it needs to be on a tripod. But there she is, egg laying with abandon.