We hope that Society members will send in articles for publication to this page. These articles can be about any wildlife-related topic that they would like to share with other members.
We haven’t had much success recording wildlife this month as the weather has been dull and stormy, but we have enjoyed trying to photograph a Water Rail (Rallus aquaticus) which is over-wintering along the stream that runs beside Rushmere Park. This is ideal for the Water Rail as it is well vegetated and fenced off from the path. It is also perfect habitat for a Nightingale which Rob dreams of one day finding here. I have failed to capture anything other than the scene from which the bird has shot off. Rob, on the other hand, has only managed to get a blurred record shot so, for the first time, I have used an image from another county, year and month to illustrate my article.
Water Rails are sought by birders because of their secretive nature. They are a freshwater wetland bird and are in the same family as Coots and Moorhens, but much smaller, daintier and with more attractive markings. They have a comical pig-like squealing call which is mostly heard in the breeding season. When we glimpse ours, out in the open, it will instantly lift up on its long legs and scoot across the water’s surface at great speed like the cartoon character, Road Runner as it heads for cover.
I am also enjoying winter walks through the wood when it’s beginning to get dark. It feels so magical at this time particularly when the mist is falling and the Tawny Owls are calling. My dog and I will take a moment on each walk to just stand and listen to all the many sounds that can be heard around us. At these times, I also like to watch my Collie’s huge upright ears pivoting, as they follow the directions of the rustles and the diurnal birds’ last calls before they go to roost.
MKNHS members may find this article about Oxley Mead to be of interest. It is about management of one of MK’s SSSIs and written by our member, Carla Boswell. It’s published on the Floodplain Meadows Partnership’s website.
A regular article written by Julie Cuthbert for The Brickhills Parish News
I usually never find the perpetrators of the scuffling noises in the undergrowth but on this occasion I got lucky. I was walking down the path into Rushmere Park, off Cuff Lane, when I first heard the rustling sounds amongst the fallen leaves and nettles. As I crouched down I instantly saw, by the side of the run-off stream, a Bank Vole Myodes glareolus. My collie and I remained unnoticed by the vole because it was so engrossed in devouring a freshly caught slug. It clutched the slug in its delicate hands and rolled it around whilst munching intently, like a leg of lamb in the hands of Henry VIII at a banquet. I could hear the slurping sounds from its tiny jaws as it chewed. Then, after having its fill, I watched it return to hunting for a while before disappearing down a hole.
On another of our autumnal walks through the wood, I found this beautiful caterpillar coyly curled up round a twig. It was out looking amongst the leaf litter for somewhere to pupate. When I researched it later I found it to be a Pale Tussock Calliteara pudibunda caterpillar which would transform into a subtle brown moth with a really woolly body, head and legs.
As always, Rob has been very busy recording the birds on Autumn migration. He reports to me each morning the highlights of his count from the early morning dog walk. Bramblings, Siskins, Linnets and Redwings often get a mention but this year’s star in the UK has been the Hawfinch numbers. So far Rob has seen 12 flying over Great Brickhill, which is a fantastic count for North Bucks.
I wrote the article below for our local parish magazine in rural Suffolk, as I felt it would be of interest to many in the parish, a benefice of five churches in five rural villages of different sizes. I was invited to the launch meeting after doing a simple water survey of our local river, the Glem, as part of WaterBlitz on 22 September 2024. This was an international survey of water quality. They supplied a simple kit to test for nitrate and sulphate in the water.
It involves the Suffolk Wildlife Trust, working with DEFRA and with some Government funding, to implement re-wilding projects at landscape level in an area around Sudbury, Suffolk. It’s being called Connecting Constable and Gainsborough Country, after two famous local landscape artists. This project takes re-wilding efforts beyond nature reserves only, involving 60 farmers in two established clusters, assessing their carbon footprint, planning what they could do in their own context, and seeking funding from both government and alternative sources.
I found it very encouraging to see that this work is going on and thought MKNHS members might be interested too. We hear so much about the problems, and here is a creative solution at landscape scale.
All the best, Alison Peace (MKNHS member, now based in Suffolk)
Connecting Constable and Gainsborough Country
On 22 October 2024, there was a launch meeting for this ambitious project, working at landscape scale, involving over 60 farmers in the Wool Towns Cluster and the Stour Cluster, and led by Suffolk Wildlife Trust.
DEFRA has provided significant funding for a 2-year development phase for this 20+ year initiative. The aim of the project is to enhance habitats and create connectivity corridors across the landscape for biodiversity and the benefit of wildlife, and for carbon sequestration, essential for reaching climate change mitigation goals.
The project is also supporting farmers to – reduce carbon emissions from farming – improve water quality of streams and rivers, and – increase the resilience of their farming business
Completing individual farm carbon audits will help the farmer or landowner assess the carbon footprint of their enterprise, examining both inputs and outputs, carbon used in production, and carbon sequestered in the soil, hedgerows, or woodland. Methane quantities will also be calculated. This will provide a baseline from which the farmer’s possible choices or changes can be considered.
It is proposed to fund improvements by a mixture of public and private finance, with the suggestion that in the near future there will be a demand for investment in ‘tradeable units of biodiversity’, like carbon credits, which can be proven to benefit the environment, by providing investment in the landscape. DEFRA has rigorous monitoring requirements. Both public and private investment could be involved in plans to sequester carbon.
Other outcomes could include improvements to existing public rights of way and increased attractiveness of the area to tourists, bringing benefits to local towns and villages.
This is the beginning of the journey, and I look forward to keeping readers informed on developments.
Recently Rob came home with a very dead looking, 2-metre high, Holly tree stump. He was sure that we could resurrect it if we gave it some love. I wasn’t convinced but planted it in a large pot and hoped for the best too. Every week we scoured the stump for signs of a bud breaking through but it stayed unchanged, gnarled like elephant skin and tinged green-grey with lichen.
While we were performing one of our inspections, Rob suddenly noticed the tiniest blip near to the top of the trunk and said excitedly, “It’s a bud!” When I went in closer with my glasses on, I could see what looked like a scuffed-up mound of lichen around the size of half an apple seed. While I was studying the area, it suddenly raised up and then started running about. “It’s definitely not a bud. I’m getting the cameras.”
Once we had our macro lenses focused on the strange alien thing we were amazed, as we had never seen anything like it before. Its body part was amassed in Lichen and tufts of bristly hairs. It had fierce red pincers and ran about like crazy. After some research we were able to identify it as a Common Green Lacewing larva Chrysoperla carnea and learnt that they cloak themselves in anything they can find to deter predation. Lacewing larvae will use plant debris, lichen, insect shells and anything else they can find; these they cache on their back bristles.
I have always appreciated the delicacy of the adult Green Lacewing and remember them to be everywhere when I was a child, but I rarely see them now.
It’s unlikely the Holly will come to life this late in the season, but it has still acted as a good host to this creature. It’s also had several Toadflax Brocade caterpillars Calophasia lunula marching up it, searching for somewhere ideal to pupate, so maybe we’ll be keeping our dead Holly tree after all.
At the Summer Review meeting on 3 September, our first evening back at the Cruck Barn this autumn, Martin Kincaid showed a photo of a Snakefly he had seen while away in Scotland. Locally, these insects are not recorded often but one has been recorded from Little Linford Wood and Tim Arnold has had one ‘come to light’ when he has been moth-trapping.
These are strange-looking insects with two pairs of long oval overlapping wings that are translucent but with slender and intricate black veins, rather like the shape of wing of Lacewings. The wings extend well beyond the body and the female has a long slender ovipositor (egg-laying tube) extending even further back than the wings. At the front, the Snakefly has a very long black pronotum (prothorax) with a head that can rear up, looking like a miniature cobra ready to strike.
They have a four-stage life cycle of: eggs, larvae, pupae, adult (‘holometabolous’). The adults are active in the day, mainly in woodland, are significant predators of aphids and mites and their larvae are also carnivorous. The adults are food for woodland birds such as treecreeper, great spotted woodpecker, wood warbler, and nuthatch.
Snakeflies are not Flies (Diptera): they are in a separate Order called Raphidioptera (rahpis = needle. pteron = wing). Species recognisable as from the origins of this Order appeared during the Early Jurassic (201-145 million years ago) and were most diverse during the Cretaceous (145 to 66 million years ago) since when they have declined considerably.
There are four (and a possible fifth) Snakefly species in Britain. Three of these are south of the Scottish Border: Oak Snakefly Phaeostigma notata, Small Snakefly Xanthostigma xanthostigma, and Scarce Snakefly Subilla confinis. One, the Pine Snakefly Alantoraphidia maculicollis is in Scotland and in southern England & Wales. The possible fifth species, Raphidia ophiopsis occurs widely in Fenno-Scandinavia and Central Europe so may yet be found in Scotland. The Oak Snakefly is the largest of the British species with a body length of 10-15mm and wingspan of 20-30mm; the smallest is the Small Snakefly with a body length of 7-9mm.
There are photos of all four species of Snakefly in Paul Brock’s field guide ‘Britain’s Insects: A field guide to the insects of Great Britain and Ireland’ (Princeton University Press: WildGuides 2021). That book is worth every pound for 608 pages at £25, but mostly at under £20: it covers 1,653 species of insect of the 24,000 British insects but is about the best-illustrated field guide you can get in a single volume and will cover most of what you are likely to see.
Peter Barnard, a member of the Royal Entomological Society, has written about Snakeflies that ‘Adults are not often seen as they spend much of their time high in the tree canopy; newly emerged specimens can be found at lower levels, and the females descend to oviposit, but otherwise any snakeflies seen by the casual observer have probably been dislodged from the canopy by strong winds.’ (Peter Barnard, RES Book of British Insects, 2011, p.317).
In Milton Keynes we are in the area for the largest of these species, which is the Oak Snakefly, and the smallest, the Small Snakefly which inhabits Oak woodland. There is a record of Oak Snakefly Phaostigma notata on the National Biodiversity Network website map at Little Linford Wood and another north of Finmere Wood between Romer and Balmore Woods. Could they also be in Linford Wood and Howe Park Wood?
This year I was determined to spend at least one night out of doors observing wildlife. I was delighted therefore to read about the Higgs/Redford mothing night on the MKNHS website. My knowledge of moths was minimal and dated from childhood when they were viewed as inveterate and alarming pests. I remember on hot summer nights when doors were left open and lights switched on, giddy monsters would hover around lightbulbs casting huge terrifying shadows on living room walls.
When the day came (20th July) I anxiously observed the weather hoping for a dry evening. It had been quite warm all day, but overcast. As instructed, I packed a torch, a camping chair, some water and a sweater for later in the evening. Instinctively I added my raincoat, a necessity on almost every outdoor event this year.
As I drove away from my home around 8.30pm I was dismayed to note some spots of rain on the windscreen, but happily nothing more sinister materialised. Reaching the rendezvous point I got a warm welcome from a member of the Bucks Invertebrate Group, this event being a joint venture between themselves and MKNHS. Then it was a slow drive up a narrow lane to reach the chosen site, a small clearing in College Wood. I parked up and after saying hello to the select group already assembled, I got out my camping chair and sat down to wait. It was still light and I was glad I had bought my book to pass the time.
There were several moth traps set up around the site, consisting of white cloths lit by lamps. Another more sophisticated type consisted of a tent-like structure with a light in the middle designed to attract moths from all angles.
Soon after sunset my first moth presented itself. It was Epinotia tenerana. (Although encouraged to use the Latin names, as a novice I found the colloquial names both charming and easier to remember). Epinotia tenerana is otherwise known as the Nut Bud moth, a beautiful little creature with forewings the colour of a hazelnut. After this initial sighting, the moths came in thick and fast and, overall, I was introduced to twenty-three different species, many quite stunning: Deilephila elpenor – the Elephant Hawk moth, for example, with its big colourful splashes of golden-olive and deep pink, or Leucoma salicis – White Satin with its soft, glossy white wings reminiscent of a sumptuous hooded cloak. Not only was each moth uniquely interesting to observe, I was captivated by the variety, the subtlety and the fragility of these frequently overlooked invertebrates. As an added bonus I saw my first ever glow-worm!
The evening went all too quickly and at around midnight it was time to say farewell. This was a night I shall always remember, and I am very grateful to those present willing to share their time and expertise with a keen but very amateur MKNHS group member. A list of the moths I had the pleasure of getting to know is given below.
Joan Hughes
Nut Bud – Epinotia tenerana Garden Grass-moth – Chrysoteuchia culmella Drinker – Euthrix potatoria Chinese Character – Cilix glaucata Brimstone Moth – Opisthograptis luteolata Dark Umber – Philereme transversata White spotted Pug – Eupithecia tripunctaria Red Twin-spot Carpet – Xanthorhoe spadicearia Large Yellow Underwing – Noctua pronuba Green Oak Tortrix – Tortrix viridana Oak Knot-Horn – Phycita roborella Clay– Mythimna farrago Yellow Shell – Camptogramma bilineata Clouded Border – Lomaspilis marginata Elephant Hawk moth – Deilephila elpenor Buff Arches – Habrosyne pyritoides Black Arches – Lymantria monacha White Satin – Leucoma salicis Bordered Beauty – Epione repandari July Highflyer – Hydriomena furcata Spectacle– Abrostola tripartite Coronet– Craniophora ligustri Burnished Brass – Diachrysia chrysitis
See also Andy Harding’s report of the evening, which includes a link to the full Species List prepared by MKNHS and BIG
On the evening of July 20th we held the annual (weather permitting) mothing event in memory of George Higgs and Gordon Redford. As was most appropriate, Frances Higgs and Rachel Redford were both there. This is a joint event between MKNHS and the Bucks Invertebrate Group (BIG) and has traditionally been held in College Wood, Nash. Martin Kincaid and I, the MKNHS trappers, were outnumbered by the BIG trappers of Phil Tizzard, Martin Harvey and Neil Fletcher. The night was hugely enhanced by their contribution since Martin brought an amazing trapping ‘tent’ of overhead height and Neil had a large vertical and horizontal sheets, both of which allowed terrific views of both moths and all the other flying invertebrates which throng the wood.
So it was most unfortunate that only two other MKNHS members turned up to enjoy these new features. Perhaps last year’s cancellation due to very poor weather and a discouraging weather forecast, which included a thunderstorm, three days before this year’s event, contributed to the low attendance.
Fortunately the latter forecast proved completely erroneous and the moths really did the business with about 60 macro species and 50 micros and counting. There was no doubt which species was numerically dominant: Drinkers were everywhere, crashing about sheets and in traps. There were a few of the much larger and yellower females to compare to the very numerous males. Other regular crowd-pleasers were Black Arches and the commoner Hawk-moths. Mere Wainscots are common nowhere, but several put in a welcome appearance, even if not the most visually exciting. Seeing moths in immaculate condition sometimes allows easier observation of the important identification features, which virtually disappear in worn individuals. This was the case with 3 or 4 White-spotted Pugs in excellent condition.
One which did its best to hide its features was a near-melanic Engrailed. Two slightly scarcer species attracted much interest. A Small Rivulet was nice but the star was arguably the Kent Black Arches. Until the 1980s this moth was ‘Nationally rare category B’, but has gradually spread north from a few south coast enclaves. It is still not common, since I’ve not yet seen it in my Old Stratford garden.
So, a really excellent night and early next morning. Thanks are due to the Woodland Trust for permission to hold the event in College Wood, and to Linda Murphy for sorting out all the paperwork with the WT, to the BIG trappers who were absolutely essential for the viability of the event, and particularly to Neil Fletcher who undertook the species list, to which there is a link below. Given the interest among MKNHS members in a wider range of invertebrates, than just moths, Neil has compiled a more comprehensive list than usual, which consists of:
155 species so far, of which 110 moths, 59 macros + 51 micros. – The Gelechid, Birch Grey Carpatolechia alburnella was new for me, there are less than 20 county records, a first for College Wood.
45 non-moth species of the total 155 (c.30%) is a very good count.
9 bees/wasps is very good, not had anywhere near that many this year. – Several rarely recorded species, including Cratichneumon flavifrons and Lissonota lineolaris which appear to be new county records.
As well as the list link, here is an interesting footnote from Neil Harvey: ‘One of the Craneflies, Diogma glabrata, is currently listed as ‘Nationally scarce’, although to be honest it is quite widespread across the UK. But it isn’t common, and the only other Bucks record I can find was from near Rushmere Park in 2005.’
Finally, may I apologise for the tardy appearance of this piece, but less than twenty-four hours after I left the wood on Sunday morning, my wife was taken to hospital, and has returned home only two days ago: that has been my priority.
Andy Harding 20 August 2024
Another perpsective on the evening, see Joan Hughes report here.
This is a book full of unusual photos. They are all of bird nests and bird eggs, but there is not a bird to be seen. It is not an ecological study, but it has ecological insights. It is not a history of egg collecting but there is fascinating history within it. The variety of nests illustrates the extraordinary variety of life: different shapes and a wide range of materials, displaying the skills of their nest-builders.
The book is almost square. Each double-page is about the nest and eggs of one bird species. Each spread has one large photo with text alongside it providing the common name, scientific name, followed by a caption to photo & text, with the main text above. Each page spread tells us: the size of the nest, the species’ egg clutch size, when, where and by whom the nest and egg/s were collected, the conservation status of the species, and more. There are over a hundred pairs of pages, each for one species. The sequence is taxonomic, starting with Syrian Ostrich and ending with White’s Thrush, followed by a Taxonomy list of orders and families which mentions the common and scientific name of each species found in the book. Jonathan Jackson’s photos on every page are sharp and beautifully presented.
All these nests and eggs are held by the Natural History Museum. If you have walked its galleries in London, you will not have seen this collection because the bird, nest and egg collections are held at the Natural History Museum at Tring in Hertfordshire. Some of the bird nests and eggs in the book belong to extinct species, and you will find out why. Others are of ‘Conservation Concern’ and some explanation is given. There are species commonly found in the UK such as Blackcap, Dunnock or House Sparrow, but most are not British species: some are very uncommon, others are extinct.
Many nests & eggs were collected in the age of worldwide exploration, when unknown plants, animals, birds and their nests and eggs, were brought back to Britain by collectors. Some of these have significant historical connections. There is an egg of the Emperor Penguin that was collected by members of the 1910 British Antarctic Expedition led by Captain Scott. The Brown Noddy is represented by nest & egg collected on Ernest Shackleton’s final expedition. The ‘bag’ nest of an African Broadbill was collected by Sheffield Airey Neave, whose son Airey Middleton Neave was an MP, killed by a bomb in his car at the House of Commons during Margaret Thatcher’s time as PM. I was curious about another collector, who brought back nest & egg of a Red-faced Mousebird. He was William John Ansorge. His name is unusual, so I was not surprised to find that it was his son who was the renowned Buckinghamshire amateur entomologist, Sir Eric Cecil Ansorge, whose macro-moth Ansorge Collection is held by Buckinghamshire Museum. This information is from captions and text in this worldwide-ranging book.
This is a book you can dip into or deep dive into. It is not necessary to read it from end to end like a book of chapters, though you may find yourself working your way right through the book when you discover the fascination of the information it presents. I would have liked an index by common names, so I could re-find The Brown Noddy without having to remember its scientific name, Anous stolidus stolidus, essential as that is for sharing information internationally and for biodiversity records.
It is worth reminding ourselves of the good and bad aspects of egg-collecting. Until the UK’s 1954 Protection of Birds Act some bird watchers still collected bird eggs to ‘blow’ them empty, so they could display these in an egg collection. Since Oology became illegal, a few persistent egg-collectors have been caught, tried and subject to substantial fines. But the study of eggs collected before 1954 have enabled important scientific breakthroughs. The conservation value of being able to study eggs was shown when Derek Ratcliffe found a connection between use of pesticides such as DDT and Dieldrin and the thinness of egg-shells of Peregrines and other birds of prey, contributing towards their rapid decline. This, alongside Rachel Carson’s book Silent Spring informed the growing resistance to the widespread use of damaging pesticides. Perhaps a future edition of Douglas Russell’s book could set the value of historic egg collections in this context.
What this book does is open a window on the era of scientific collection, in which Charles Darwin and Alfred Russell Wallace and many lesser-known scientific explorers played significant parts. It is a treasure trove of moments in the lives of pioneering naturalists and the growing body of natural history knowledge and wonders. They were part of the centuries of rapid increase in scientific knowledge of nature and wildlife. But the accounts in this book make clear how many species have gone extinct and how many others are declining. The extraordinary number of ways in which birds made their nests is shown by this book, as is the large variety of their eggs.
Interesting Bird Nests & Eggs – Douglas G D Russell The Natural History Museum, London: 2024 ISBN: 9780565095529 Hardback only £12.99 Available now from The Natural History Museum https://www.nhmshop.co.uk/interesting-bird-nests-eggs.html Available through other retailers from 26 September 2024
Four moss species new to Pitsford identified by MKNHS member Frances Higgs and fellow bryologist Rachel Carter
The latest edition of BCN Wildlife Trust’s e-newsletter contains an interesting story item about the identification of 4 moss species new to Pitsford Water Nature Reserve in Northamptonshire during a survey day in May
The two bryologists, Frances Higgs and Rachel Carter, discovered these four species new to the site: Hypnum jutlandicum, Polytrichyum juniperinum, Thuidium tamariscinum and Pleurozium schreberi. The last of these hadn’t been recorded in Northamptonshire since 1899! Many of you will know Frances as a long-standing MKNHS member.
It’s been a few months since I finished my Practical Conservation Traineeship at the Yorkshire Wildlife Trust’s Spurn National Nature Reserve. I came to the area determined to use my newly-gained conservation skills and knowledge back home in Bucks but I soon fell in love with the area and admittedly was not prepared to leave it so suddenly in October 2022! Fortunately though, with thanks to the Yorkshire Wildlife Trust, I have been able to return in 2023 to lead some of their Bespoke Birding Tours across the Spurn area.
Spurn’s Bespoke Birding Tours are tailored for small groups of up to 6 people, spending the day on the lookout for the many birds the area has to offer while providing guidance and tips on their identification, by sight and sound. With reserve transport for part of the route, the entire length of the Spurn area is covered, including the Spurn peninsula and its neighbouring reserve, Kilnsea Wetlands, from 9.30am to 4.30pm. You can find out more about them, including upcoming dates for the autumn tours here: https://www.ywt.org.uk/bespoke-birding-tours
My first set of the tours this year took place around mid-April, with a mixture of winter stragglers and newly arrived spring migrants spotted across the area. Dark-bellied Brent Geese, one of Spurn’s familiar winter visitors, were very slow to leave this year, with them still being present past mid-May. They gather here in the hundreds every year, mainly between September and early May, spending a lot of time feeding around the mudflats of the Humber estuary before heading back to their breeding grounds in Siberia. A lone Fieldfare was seen feeding near the southern tip of the reserve and a late wintering flock of 7 Pink-footed Geese were seen landing at Well Field, near the northern edge of the reserve on 18th April’s tour.
As a few remnants of winter lingered, small numbers of Yellow Wagtails and Sand Martins were a sign of warmer times ahead, while some of the remaining Bar-tailed Godwits around the wetlands were gathering their stunning fiery breeding plumage. By early May, many of the familiar summer migrants had returned. Common Whitethroats were singing across much of the Spurn area, while a few Wheatears were still dropping in on passing visits. Whinchats seemed thin on the ground this spring, so it was good to point out a couple in the last week of May, one at Parade Ground near the southern tip of the Peninsula and another by Well Field at the northeast corner of the reserve.
A photogenic oddity in the later tours of the season was a suspected Gadwall x Wigeon hybrid at Kilnsea Wetlands, seen side-by-side with a male Garganey on spring passage on 30th May. All other birds on 31st May were overshadowed by the arrival of Spurn’s 6th Great Snipe, which was spotted landing in Clubleys Meadow by Jacob Spinks, a short distance from the Spurn Discovery Centre. A rare vagrant for Britain more likely to be found in northwestern Europe, it soon attracted a crowd. There couldn’t have been a much better end to a birding tour with it still being on show in the late afternoon, favouring a small pool where it continued to delight countless more birders from the local area and further afield to 3rd June.
Great Snipe, Spurn 31.05.2023 – Harry Appleyard
Not quite of the same calibre as the Great Snipe but mid-way through my last spring tour on 15th June I spotted my own rarest Spurn bird, a Nuthatch! It was given away by calls as it flew over Burrow Pit at the north end of the reserve, mobbed by 2 Meadow Pipits as it made its way south. Though they are a familiar sight in many of our landlocked woodlands, they have so far generated less than 25 records in the Spurn area, making them an even rarer visitor than some of the more exotic migrants like Hoopoe and European Bee-eater! It was re-located shortly afterwards by two others at the Warren Cottage but not seen to leave.
Some of Spurn’s other inhabitants took the spotlight throughout the season. It was a productive year for the Green Hairstreak butterfly, which are plentiful across the Spurn peninsula but a few were also present further north near Kilnsea Wetlands this year. Several species of odonata were on the wing on the warm sunny afternoon of 16th May, including a male Red-veined Darter which was the first recorded at Spurn since 2021. Initially looking like a very early Ruddy Darter at first glance, its suspiciously blueish lower eyes were apparent in a low fly-past and its identity was quickly confirmed by Adam Hutt and Tim Jones, who also noted the subtle reddish-veins in the wings from my images. It is believed to be both a resident and migratory species here, with this one possibly being a recent arrival from continental Europe.
This spring certainly didn’t disappoint, with a wide variety of both Spurn’s regular and scarcer species being on show. You can never quite fully predict what you will find on these tours, so there’s always a thrill in pointing out a species that has just arrived or is not often found there. It’s always a pleasure to talk about the area, the changing landscape and the conservation work in its many forms being undertaken to maintain it. Again, many thanks to Yorkshire Wildlife Trust for bringing me back to this amazing little part of the world and the Spurn Bird Observatory for their hospitality and local knowledge.
The Big Meadow Search (BMS) is a citizen science project which aims to encourage people to record plants in an area of grassland of their own choice. The idea is to get them outside, to look at what they’re walking through, and to learn to identify the plants they find, thus raising awareness and interest in grasslands and their importance. It began in 2021 as an initiative by the Carmarthenshire Meadows Group in West Wales, and was at first only intended to be carried out within our county; but it generated interest beyond Carmarthenshire and beyond Wales too, so we soon expanded it to cover the whole of the UK.
The BMS species tick list is based on the National Plant Monitoring Scheme grassland indicator species, plus additional species of interest from meadows and grasslands – but all plants found should be recorded, whether on the BMS species list or not. Any type of species-rich grassland can be searched; meadows, churchyards, road verges, amenity grassland. Obviously, if it’s not public access land, make sure to get permission!
To take part:
Select your grassland
Record the location name, grid reference and date
Walk around and write down all the plants you can see
If you aren’t sure on a species, take photographs from multiple angles of the flower heads, basal and stem leaves, upper and lower leaf surface, leaf base shape and either post on our social media or email to us and we will try and help to identify the species
Enter your results on our website and once we have finished our BMS analysis, we will send them on to your local environmental record centre (LERC)
You can find lots of information on our Facebook page Big Meadow Search, or on our Twitter account @bigmeadowsearch, or you can get in touch via email on bigmeadowsearch@gmail.com.
We have produced a book based on the social media posts containing ID tips using vegetative features for plants on the BMS tick list, and information on some of their associated invertebrates, galls, and fungi. It’s available by mail order and costs £10 plus £2.70 p&p. If you would like a copy, contact us on bigmeadowsearch@gmail.com.
Our website (www.bigmeadowsearch.co.uk) has lots more information, and you can enter your findings directly on the website. This year’s BMS will run from June 1st until August 31st.
Which spring flowers can you expect to see during May?
Spring flowers in May in woodlands, hedges and beside paths [AWI stands for Ancient Woodland Indicator]
First, a cautionary note: When you are examining or photographing flowers, especially less common ones, please avoid creating a trampled path, because this makes them more vulnerable. If you must get close, please reach them by an indirect, more concealed route. Better still, consider making do by taking your photo from further away. Last week, in one of our Ancient Woodlands, a heavily trampled off-path route was created through vegetation, which has drawn excessive attention to a small and declining number of an uncommon flower, putting them at risk.
Herb paris Paris quadrifolia (AWI)
Herb paris is a strange-looking almost ethereal plant. Mostly, it has four (occasionally 3 or 5) broad leaves, almost diamond-shaped, slightly-rounded but pointed and dark-green. All the leaves are towards the top of a slender, hairless stalk and lie flat. In the centre of the leaves a spike holds an unobtrusive, small, single, greenish flower which looks more like a double whorl of pointed leaves. It has eight slender long pale-yellow stamens, at the centre of which is the ovary, a small purple bauble. ‘Is that it?’ you think, when looking at such an understated flower: yes, but that is its mystery. It is largely found in Ancient Woodlands, in MK in Linford Wood in particular. It is a ‘shy’ plant, often partially hidden in the underwood and at edges of woodland rides and there is a delay before the flower shows above the leaves. Paris in the name is not about France but from the Latin ‘par’ meaning equal, which is probably to describe its symmetry. It is in the Lily family (Liliaceae) which has other one-offs, including Lily-of-the Valley, Snakeshead Fritillary, Butcher’s Broom, and Grape-Hyacinth Muscari neglectum; this or its garden-escape version Muscari armeniacum, has also been on show in MK grasslands through April into May.
Yellow Archangel Lamiastrum galeobdolon (AWI)
Think of a white Dead-nettle and imagine it with yellow flowers, but the Yellow Archangel is a far less common Dead-nettle and is mostly found in Ancient Woodlands. The leaves are oval and pointed, with coarse teeth. There are several flowers with each pair of leaves up the stem, Each flower is hooded and with a lower lip. They are bright yellow, with slight red or orange streaks on the lip. The plant’s presence can tend to indicate old woodland banks or ditches. I know only a couple of patches of this in Linford Wood, and they are next to the wood’s boundary banks and ditches. You may also find it in Howe Park and Shenley Wood. One potential confusion is a garden-escape which is very similar but with variegated leaves: Lamiastrum galeobdolon ssp. argentatum (if you know heraldry terminology you may recognise that argent = silver, which is the colour of the streaks on the leaves). I have seen a few of this sub-species on the west bank of the Loughton Brook, in Bancroft valley. It is well worth submitting records of either of these plants, with their exact location. [To know how and where to submit a record of this, you can check the MKNHS website Reference section and click on Recording.]
Herb-Robert Geranium robertianum (AWI)
Herb-Robert comes into flower usually in late April or early May, but the leaves emerge well before that and sometimes remain through the winter. Although it is an Ancient Woodland Indicator it is also common more widely by hedges, in woods and on disturbed ground. It is in the Geranium family (Geraniaceae) and the leaves have a strong mousy smell when you get close. It is one of the Crane’s-bills, so-called because the shape of the seed-head is like the beak, narrow head and long neck of a Crane. Its stem tends to be dark red and hairy. Its flower has five pink petals which have a smooth edge all around. The anthers in the flower are orange or purple. Who was Robert? Probably ‘Robin Goodfellow’ aka Puck, the mischief-making house goblin of Shakespeare’s The Tempest. A different account is that it used to be called St Robert, or St Robert’s Wort, after an 11th Century monk who used it medicinally.
Lords-and-Ladies Arum maculatum Here’s another strange, one-off plant. You have probably been seeing its large shiny green leaves ever since January, beside paths and in woodlands, sometimes in dense clumps. Lords-and-Ladies has three distinct stages, so you may not realise that they are one and the same plant. A single, broad, large and pointed, shiny, arrow-shaped leaf springs upwards from ground-level, and some plants have dark streaks on these leaves. The leaf remains without flower for months until late April and early May when a paler leaf-like structure called the ‘spathe’ emerges and, within it, its purple ‘spadix’. This is stage two, followed by a third stage in July or August, when a cluster of orange-red berries emerge on a spike, from which the spathe and spadix have gone. This flower emits a slight odour that attracts insect pollinators: birds also carry its seeds away. It is a common plant in damp and well-drained shady places and usually numerous where you find it. An old name for it is Cuckoo-pint, but it has many other names, mostly innuendoes. It looks poisonous and it is.
Bugle Ajuga reptan There are quite a few plants that look a little like Bugle: bluey-purple with quite small leaves, so this one needs careful attention to several of its features. Some people assume that identifying flowering plants is all about the flower, but other parts of a plant are just as necessary for identification. With Bugle, try starting at ground level. Here, its lowest leaves (known as ‘basal’ leaves) are in a circle (‘rosette’) around the base of the plant, and these lower ones are larger and have long stalks. The leaves up the stem are in opposite pairs and are smaller than the basal leaves and tend to be dark-green. None of the leaves have toothed edges. When the plant first emerges, it is scrunched up before the stem stretches fully and the pairs of leaves become spaced out from each other. The stem is distinctive, so feel it. It is square and is hairy on only two opposite sides. The flowers are grouped in stages on the upper sections of the stem. Beneath each group are small leaf-lookalikes called ‘bracts’ which tend to be more purple-green than the leaves further down. The flowering parts (‘corolla’) are usually powder-bluey-purple, but occasionally these are pink or white: their colour has no significance. The shape of the flower is of connected lips, with a tiny top one, two-lobed side ones and a lower lip which is longer. Because this plant spreads through runners, it tends to be in clumps. It is usually in damp and shady grassland or in damp woods or by hedgerows. If you check each of the features above you will be able to avoid any confusion with other plants such as Self-heal, the Woundworts, or the Dead-nettles.
May Spring flowers of grasslands, waysides & grid-road verges
Common Bird’s-foot Trefoil Lotus corniculatus If you don’t know this plant, it is worth getting to know as you can find it in some meadows and other grasslands in MK, including on some grid-road verges. It is popular with bumblebees and other pollinators, and a sign of good grassland management to benefit wildlife. In this instance, the colour of the flower is significant to distinguish it from other species. The flowers are a rich, deep yellow and often with a tinge of red or orange, which is why some people call it ‘eggs & bacon’. The plant is low down because its habit is creeping, with its stalks lying down, and the stems are solid. But there are other Bird’s-foot Trefoils, including a taller one, Greater Bird’s-foot Trefoil Lotus pedunculatus, with longer narrower leaves; and a variety in some commercial seed-mixes Lotus corniculatus var sativus which stands up more but has a hollow stem and lacks the red or orange tinge to the flower. So look at a good identification book to check for these similar species.
Bird Cherry Prunus padus Although Bird Cherry Prunus padus is an indigenous shrub or small tree, it is native mainly in northern Britain, but has been widely planted in towns and cities further south, including Milton Keynes. Perhaps it is popular because its long white clusters of flowers follow, in late April or early May, the other white-flowering spring shrubs of March and April such as Cherry Plum Prunus cerasifera and Blackthorn Prunus spinosa. The shape of the Bird Cherry’s white flower clusters remind me of the general shape of the mauve flower clusters of Buddleia davidii, but the proper description of such clusters is ‘raceme’ and these ones either droop or stick out sideways. The leaves of Bird Cherry are elliptical and have fine saw-teeth. Its black cherries emerge in July, but don’t try them, they are bitter. Our member, Alan Birkett, suggests that this is why ‘bird’ is in its name as birds do eat these. [See Alan’s Field Guide to the Trees of Britain and Europe which has several photos of every tree, showing more of their features than most other tree guides.]
Lesser Stitchwort Stellaria graminea Lesser Stitchwort Stellaria graminea tends to flower in May, which is later than Greater Stitchwort Stellaria holostea. Lesser Stitchwort tends to prefer more open woods, grasslands and rough grass area. It is the smaller of the two, but a critical feature to look for is that the five petals of the flower divide well over halfway down. Take care not to confuse this with other five-petalled white flowers such as Chickweeds or Mouse-ears which are also in the Campion family (Caryophyllaceae). This is where a good field guide is needed so you can see illustrations of these similar plants and compare the descriptions of their features. Just comparing photos is more likely to confuse you. If you search the MKNHS website under Reference and click on Identification Guides, then on Plants, you will find several recommended field guides to flowering plants.
The following should also come into flower in MK during May, in grasslands or beside paths and some in woodlands: Ragged-Robin Lychnis flos-cuculi Red Clover Trifolium pratense Lady’s-mantle species. Alchemilla vulgaris agg. Self-heal Prunella vulgaris.
You can let MKNHS website Sightings know where you see these. Just send a note, and photo if you can, to:sightings@mknhs.org.uk
Winter locally was generally mild with East Anglia having the third warmest November on record. In December, however, we experienced icy weather for half the month, similar to January. In March we suffered one day of snow which changed to rain and created floods. Varied weather conditions throughout – so how did it affect our wildlife locally?
Mammals:There were records received for otters at a variety of sites around Milton Keynes including one photographed walking on ice during December at Willen Lake.
Oher sites during winter where otters were recorded included the Floodplain Forest, Caldecotte, Stony Stratford Reserve, Linford Lakes Reserve, Stony Stratford Mill and Loughton Brook. A Chinese Water Deer was noted at Magna Park.
Insects – The first butterfly recorded in 2023 was a brimstone observed in a member`s garden at Stony Stratford. One interesting record was from a lady living in Wolverton who discovered a caterpillar in a cauliflower she purchased in February from a supermarket. She placed it in a jar and fed it cabbage until it changed into a chrysalis. Mid-March it emerged as a moth, dark brown with black spots. Any ideas?
Plants – The first signs of spring were records of snowdrops early February beside Little Linford Wood and at the same site in March there were signs of primrose and celandine in flower. At the end of March cowslips were noted at Caldecotte.
Birds – Throughout the UK birds have been affected with the avian flu and the RSPB have reported that over200 million birds, and at least 60 species, have died from the infection. There have been reports of three mute swans found dead at Caldecotte Lake and several geese at Furzton.
There was a large murmuration of starlings performing over the `Mutual Fields` at New Bradwell from mid-February to mid-March at 5 pm to 6 pm, and enjoyed by many of my neighbours
Whilst there has been an understandable lack of items to report on insects and plants during the winter months there has been an abundance of sightings of unusual bird species locally. Here are a few:
November – Floodplain Forest: pair of Egyptian goose, Willen Lake a pintail duck and two ringneck parrakeet, Linford Lake Reserve a long-tailed duck, and Tattenhoe Park a great northern diver in flight.
December – Linford Lakes Reserve: a bitten; Flood Plain Forest: great white egret, goosander, and pintail duck; Tongwell Lake: a short-eared owl, and 8 goosander; Emerson Valley: a willow warbler and 2 chiffchaff; Willen Lakes: a hawfinch and black swan; Mount Farm: Mediterranean Gull; Furzton Lake: a Caspian Gull; Linford Manor: 2 ring-necked parrakeets – and the highlight, a Siberian chiffchaff at Tattenhoe.
January – Floodplain Forest: a little owl, great white egret, goosander, 17 snipe, and a garganey; Willen Lake a Mediterranean gull and woodcock Furzton Lake and Blue Lagoon a Caspian gull and Magna Park a peregrine falcon.
February – Floodplain Forest : a Caspian Gull, peregrine falcon, little owl, great white egret, pintail duck and oystercatcher; Linford Lakes Reserve: a barnacle goose; Furzton: Cetti’s warbler; Little Linford Wood: 5 marsh tits: and Tattenhoe: 2 common cranes in flight.
March – Linford Lakes Reserve: goldeneye, a ruddy duck and a shelduck; Caldecotte: scaup and a pair of mandarin ducks; Howe Park Wood: a Firecrest; Tattenhoe Park: a chiffchaff and stonechat, and at Willen Lake: sand martin.
Just outside the Milton Keynes boundary two waxwings were photographed at Cranfield and a wheatear was recorded at Great Brickhill during March.
The sounds and signs of spring are now upon us so, as a task, try and observe the 6 most common bumble bees locally. They are buff-tailed, white-tailed, red-tailed, early, common carder and, the once rare but now very common, tree bumble bee. But as usual, look out for all forms of wildlife and observe, record but most of all, enjoy.
Which spring flowers can you expect to see during April? When you see these, how about letting MKNHS website Sightings know where you see these come into flower. You can send photos too: sightings@mknhs.org.uk
April Spring flowers in woodlands, hedges and by paths
We have three ancient woodlands within the City: Linford Wood, Howe Park Wood and Shenley Wood and they have many of what are known as Ancient Woodland Indicators (AWI). The usual March ground flora have come into flower in these woods, but it has been a slow and lingering Spring, so some plants have bided their time. For instance Wood Anemone Anemone nemorosa (AWI). The leaves of these started emerging in early March, but only recently have they begun to flower in quantity. These plants are mainly on the sides and edges of ditches alongside paths, but also deeper into the woods. But do remember that their flowers close up in the evening and need sun on them to open up. Its flower is a star-like spread of six (or more) brilliant white petals, with a light splash of pink beneath. This plant spreads by creeping rhizomes so is in dense patches. There will be bright carpets of them in Linford and the other woods as they all come into flower.
Primrose Primula vulgaris(AWI)
Some Primroses Primula vulgaris have been flowering in the woods since the end of February, but there are more now and they are ‘lasters’ so we can enjoy them in their isolated clumps for many more weeks. The ancient woodlands are where to see them at their best.
Barren Strawberry Potentilla sterilis / Wild Strawberry Fragaria vesca (AWI)
If you have Strawberries Fragaria ananassa in your garden, it will be months before you can pick them. But in our Ancient Woodlands you can find two species of wild Strawberries, and both of them are indicators that a woodland is likely to date from before 1600. You can find them most easily in Linford Wood, beside main paths and on the edges of ditches. Neither of these are as large as garden Strawberries but they look like them. They are Barren Strawberry Potentilla sterilis which flowers earlier than the other, which is Wild Strawberry Fragaria vesca.
Later on you may see a tiny red strawberry fruit on Wild Strawberry, but Barren Strawberry lives up to its name and bears only a tiny dry fruit. Before Wild Strawberry fruits, what distinguishes these two species are that: Barren Strawberry is a smaller plant, with short runners; it has smaller flowers in which the petals tend to be well separated from each other, while the petals of Wild Strawberry overlap; there is a subtle distinction between the leaves of these species: the end tooth of a Wild Strawberry leaf sticks out, but on the Barren Strawberry it is slightly set back from the adjoining teeth; finally, the Barren Strawberry leaf is matt, not shiny, and a dull bluish-green, while the Wild Strawberry leaves have a longer stalk and look glossy green. Perhaps distinguishing the two of these would be a good test of the reliability of any App you may use?
Wild Strawberry is in the Potentilla family, which is mainly Cinquefoils. Barren Strawberry is in the Fragaria (Strawberry) family, together with the Hautbois Strawberry Fragaria moschata which was introduced to gardens from mainland Europe and has become naturalised in the wild. As far as I know the Hautbois Strawberry is not present in Milton Keynes, which is helpful as it is sometimes wrongly identified as one or other of the native species.
Bluebell Hyacinthoides non-scripta (AWI) Hybrid Bluebell Hyacinthoides x massartiana Spanish Bluebell Hyacinthoides hispanica Everyone knows what a Bluebell Hyacinthoides non-scripta looks like, with its deep blue colour and drooping flower-head. But the thicker-stemmed Spanish Bluebell Hyacinthoides hispanica was brought to this country, escaped into the wild and hybridised with the native as Hybrid Bluebell Hyacinthoides x massartiana. So it is possible to see all three in the wild, though Hybrid Bluebell is much more common than the Spanish Bluebell. All three species have occasional variant colours of pink or white flowers.
Key points about the native Bluebell Hyacinthoides non-scripta are: the flowers are straight-sided and do not gradually widen out; all the flowers are on the same side of the stem and droop down; their anthers are cream (but some of the hybrids’ are too); the leaves are slender and their tips are hooded, a little like the prow of a slender boat.
For the next most common, the Hybrid Bluebell Hyacinthoides x massartiana, look out for: broader leaves; flowers spiralling around the stem; blue anthers (or cream in the white form of this flower); the tips of the petals are slightly curled back; and the stamen is fixed to the inner side of a petal half way up.
The Spanish Bluebell Hyacinthoides hispanica is similar to the Hybrid Bluebell, but: the stamen is fixed to the inner side of a petal low down; and the tips of the petals are not curled back.
You can find plenty of Bluebell Hyacinthoides non-scripta in our three Ancient Woodlands, along a few hedgerows, and in few grid-road landscapes. The leaves have been emerging throughout March, ready to flower later in April and into May. Why drive all the way to the Chilterns to see Bluebells when we have fine displays in our local Ancient Woods, including Little Linford Wood?
Early Purple Orchid Orchis mascula (AWI)
Our Ancient woodlands will have the earliest of our common orchids coming into flower during April. Early Purple Orchids Orchis mascula should appear on some ditch edges, beside paths and under trees. One identifier to look for is dashes of dark blotches running up the leaves. Apparently at night they smell of tom-cats. You can download a guide to all the British orchids from the Natural History Museum website, the ‘Orchid Observers Identification Guide’: https://www.nhm.ac.uk/content/dam/nhmwww/take-part/identify-nature/orchid-observers-id-guide.pdf
Greater Stitchwort Stellaria holostea (AWI)
The crisp white flowers of Greater Stitchwort Stellaria holostea should be emerging soon. The five petals are divided to half-way or less, and are on a slender square-shaped stem with slender pointy leaves in opposite pairs, with each pair of leaves at right-angles to the next pair up the stem. Lesser Stitchwort Stellaria graminea is a smaller plant and tends to flower in May, with its petals divided more than half way down.
Cow Parsley Anthriscus sylvestris Soon the leaves of Cow Parsley Anthriscus sylvestris will be accompanied by the tall stems, crowned by umbels of creamy-white flowers, so characteristic of roadsides, edges of ditches and damp slightly shaded places. There are many other white umbellifers, so do check identification (i/d) in a good field guide. Don’t confuse it with other similar species such as the deadly poison Hemlock, or Hemlock Water-dropwort or Fool’s parsley. When you are sure of your i/d, it is worth searching where side-branches meet the stem. You may find quite a large round black leaf beetle Chrysolina oricalcia whose larvae feed on Cow Parsley. I have found the adult on Cow Parsley by the Bridlepath that runs alongside Old Farm Park and would like to hear of them in other MK locations, as they used to be known as rather scarce, but perhaps they were under-recorded because they hide rather well on Cow Parsley.
Ramsons / Wild Garlic Allium ursinum (AWI)
Ramsons Allium ursinum tend to grow on calcareous soils, such as over limestone. In MK this is largely a narrow band along our northern edge and in a few parts of the Loughton valley. They can be seen in a couple of our smaller woods and few other places in MK. If you see anyone collecting these in large quantities, please let The Parks Trust know, as I have heard from a resident that some people have been collecting them in quantity, perhaps to sell them commercially. You can just enjoy the garlic smell (if you do) as you look at their cluster of delicate white flowers on top of a long stalk, surrounded by two or three tall, straight bright green leaves.
April Spring flowers of grid-road landscapes, waysides and grasslands
The following should also come into flower in MK during April, in grasslands or beside paths and some in woodlands:
I have been here for nearly six months now and I still have to pinch myself that I am actually living in this beautiful, dramatic part of the country.
As I am writing the cold weather has returned and the snow is falling outside. But overall we haven’t had a bad winter up here: one wet windy couple of weeks and that lovely cold icy period before Christmas with snow on the tops.
I walk nearly every day either down in the valley and along the Lowther river or up onto the fell behind where half an hours trek up hill on good paths and you reach the wonderful view down along Ullswater to the mountains at the end, the highest being Helvellyn. Looking north you can also see my favourite local mountain Blencathra with its twin peaks and east across to Cross fell and the Pennines.
Autumn saw the beautiful colours in the local woods which are a mix of parkland trees of lime, beech and oak and the native woodlands of ash, oak, scots pine and hazel with alders and willow along the rivers. The woods are full of roe deer which are regularly seen as well as the beautiful red squirrels. We seem to be on a dividing line here where red squirrels predominate but there are the occasional greys around which are shot by the local ranger – sad but necessary.
I completely missed the salmon going up the river to spawn but did see them as they came back down afterwards, sad fungal-covered monsters lurking in the side eddies of the river waiting to die. But they had accomplished their mission and hopefully the tiny fry up in the headwaters will continue their lineage for many years to come.
When the rains came Haweswater reservoir gradually filled up and during one particularly torrential storm it topped the dam and the river below became a raging torrent for a few days. The local dippers must retreat to the side streams when this happens.
The valley is full of geese in the winter, mainly noisy greylags flying around in the fields near the river but occasionally the pink footed geese fly overhead in their V shaped skeins calling out with that lovely wild musical song. Lets hope most escape the bird flu which is in the local poultry flocks up here and has been seen in the wild birds at Ullswater recently.
The other sound of winter is the local jackdaw roost which is huge! Every evening they congregate in black clouds of noise cackling settling in nearby trees until they dive down en masse into the conifer belt just above the village. Then all goes quiet for the night until early the next morning when they are up and off to the local fields to forage for breakfast.
The snow when it came was so exhilarating – not enough to make travelling impossible but enough to entice me up onto the fells behind to crunch through the icy crust and breathe in the cold crisp air. The jagged outlines of the distant mountain were breathtaking in the silence of the morning and when the local fell ponies came over for a nose rub I was in heaven!
One of the moorland ponds was fascinating in that it had iced over just after a very wet spell when the ponds were brim full, however as the snow and ice lay there for a few days the level in the pond slowly dropped causing the ice to sink almost two meters and crack along the fault lines.
Spring is not far away now the snowdrops are up and over and it’s the turn of wild daffodils and pungent wild garlic now.
Which spring flowers can you expect to see during March? How about letting MKNHS website Sightings know when and where you see the first of each of these come into flower and include photos too: sightings@mknhs.org.uk
Early Spring flowers of woodlands, hedges and beside paths In our three ancient woodlands within the City – Linford Wood, Howe Park Wood and Shenley Wood – the Spring ground flora have started to come into flower.
Dog’s Mercury Mercurialis perennis One of the earliest Spring flowers to emerge is Dog’s Mercury Mercurialis perennis which began to flower here in February. Although there are extensive lines of it alongside woodland paths and dense swathes of it on the woodland floor, it tends to be overlooked because its flowers are unobtrusive and it is only the dense patches of dark green leaves that stand out. It is worth a closer look because the male and female flowers are not on the same plant (‘dioecious’). If you search for Dog’s Mercury online on the wildflowerfinder.org.uk website you will find a sequence of photos: of the male flower opening up and on separate stems the female flower, part-hidden by leaves. Dog’s Mercury also spreads vigorously by rhizomes, and it can compete for space with Bluebells Hyacinthoides non-scripta, which come into flower later. Dog’s Mercury is poisonous and amongst other effects is an emetic. Some dog-owners seem to think that the flower’s name is because dog’s like it, which is not why some wildflowers have ‘dog’ as part of their common name. Even so, some dogs are said to seek it out and eat it.
Wood Anemone Anemone nemorosa A later arrival in March is the Wood Anemone Anemone nemorosa. It’s ‘show’ can be almost as impressive as that of Bluebells. There are path edges in Linford Wood where it covers the ditch edges and spreads into the woodland. The flower is a star-like spread of six (or more) brilliant white petals, with perhaps a light splash of pink. This too spreads by creeping rhizomes.
Primrose Primula vulgaris Another that flowers mainly in March is Primrose Primula vulgaris. Although we tend to see cultivars of these first on the banks of some of the grid-roads (such as V8 alongside Fishermead) it is also an ancient woodland flower. Small clumps of these in woodlands can stay in flower through to June. But notice the differences between Primrose Primula vulgaris and Cowslip Primula veris (which tends to flower in April) and beware that there is a hybrid of these two around as well, Primula x polyantha = False Oxlip, often as a garden escape. The Primula family can be even more confusing locally because there are planted Oxlip Primula elatior at Woolstone and these have led to another hybrid in that area, Primula x digenea. Oxlip is largely found in the wild in Essex and Suffolk.
Dog-violets Two dog-violets in particular are found in our ancient woodlands, also by hedges and paths and amongst shrubs elsewhere in MK. Violets are small flowers, soon hidden on the woodland floor by later-flowering plants, so a 10x lens is useful for identification. They are: Early Dog-Violet Viola reichenbachiana and Common Dog-Violet Viola riviniana. You can find an identification aid for these and two other violets on wildflowerhouruk.weebly.com under dinkymoira. You should find a page there, illustrating the differences between each of these. Early Dog-Violet Viola reichenbachiana has rather narrow upper petals that do not overlap, the veins on its lower petal don’t tend to branch much, and the spur at the back of the flower is un-notched. Unfortunately Common Dog-Violet Viola riviniana can be rather variable in appearance, depending on what habitat it is in. But look out for its broad overlapping violet coloured petals, the much-branched veins on the lower petal, and the pale-coloured spur at the back of the flower, and the notch in this. Both of these flowers have pointy green sepals below the petals. Do let MKNHS Sightings know when you see these dog-violets coming into flower and where.
Early Spring flowers of grid-road trees, waysides and grasslands Our grid-roads have a sequence of white-flowered trees and the first is not Blackthorn Prunus spinosa: it is Cherry Plum Prunus cerasifera. The Development Corporation landscapers knew what they were doing: they planted a sequence, with Cherry Plum flowering from early March and Blackthorn following a few weeks later, followed by the two – more pinky – hawthorns in April and May: Midland Hawthorn Cretaegus laevigata and Common Hawthorn Cretaegus monogyna. The Cherry Plum is also known as Myrobalan Plum. It was introduced but is widely naturalised in the UK. With the Cherry Plum the flowers emerge at the same time as the leaves, but on Blackthorn the flowers appear before the leaves. The Blackthorn has many, long, sharp thorns on its grey-brown twigs, but the Cherry Plum has glossy green twigs that are often spineless. There are many other horticultural plum and cherry varieties of tree elsewhere in MK, but also the native Wild Cherry or Gean Prunus avium, sometimes found in woodlands.
Lesser Celandine Ranunculus ficaria There is another March arrival: the bright yellow flowers of Lesser Celandine Ranunculus ficaria stand out, and are often in small groups. They have at least eight quite narrow but long petals, each flower on a long stalk, with long-stalked leaves arising around it from the base of the plant. Early Lesser Celandine have been seen in flower already in Great Linford and on Bradwell Common.
Speedwells and other flowers Another group of tiny flowers that have been flowering for a while are the Veronica family, Speedwells. I have Speedwells in my lawn and they are found in other grasslands. Dinkymoira has an identification page for some of these too at: wildflowerhouruk.weebly.com – look under resources/dinkymoira. You will find it lower left, below a Violet. Other plants coming into flower locally in March include: Garlic Mustard Alliaria petiolata and Ground Ivy Glechoma hederacea. You may see these at woodland margins, by hedges, on waste ground and in gardens.
In my youth, way back in the early seventies, my birdwatching exploits took place mainly within the parish boundaries of the little village of Flamstead, not too far from St. Albans. I was a lucky lad as the bird life around the village was prolific and it wasn’t difficult to see many different birds on a day’s walking, perhaps taking in five or six miles of strolling across the fields and through the woods which thankfully, are still present to this day.
I would delight at the abundance of some species and bemoan the absence of others… Sparrowhawks were very rare, Buzzard, Raven and Kite non-existent, whereas Tree Sparrows were abundant as were Yellowhammers and Skylarks with House Martins nesting under many old and newer eaves, not something seen there today sadly. Some of the older villagers used to refer to these birds by their familiar country names; so for instance, Tree Sparrows were Hill Sparrows (the scientific name of Passer Montanus gives a clue to this name), Skylarks were sometimes Laverocks whilst Fieldfare were Jack Birds or even Felties.
Wood Owls and White Owls were there; Wood, Brown or Tawny Owls nested regularly in the old chestnut trees bordering the churchyard as well as some of the tall beeches in one of the local woods whilst White or Barn Owls were in a very few of the old farmyard barns.
Most of the old villagers were former egg collectors so would tell me where they had collected clutches of Butcher Bird eggs (Red-backed Shrike) amongst the furze and hawthorns near to Trowley Bottom, the next village along, whilst several pairs of Cobweb Birds (Spotted Flycatchers) nested back then within the village itself. How to locate difficult-to-find nests of Nettle Creepers (Whitethroats) or Titlarks (Meadow Pipits) was explained to me, as well as locating the commoner birds’ nests of species such as Dishwashers (Pied Wagtails), Ray’s Wagtails (Yellow Wagtails), Scribblers or Scribbler Larks (Yellowhammers – from their egg markings) and Ebbs or Common Buntings (Corn Buntings) who nested only upon the ground in the corn fields there and required careful and prolonged watching to find their little nests.
These were very observant people and whilst we cannot see their egg-collecting obsession as being either justifiable or acceptable, they did provide an indication of just how much field observation and patience went into their understanding of these birds’ habits and habitats.
Bottle Tits or Oven Tits (Long-tailed Tits) were clearly named from their beautifully constructed nests but Least Willow Wrens (Chiffchaff or Willow Warblers) were more well-known through their size and habits. Nested in the same Beeches as the Tawny Owls, there was even a pair of Yaffles or Rain Birds (Green Woodpeckers) – named after their familiar yelping calls and perhaps the clarity of those calls prior to rain showers.
Older publications gave regional country names as well as many more and a copy of Reverend J.C. Atkinson’s British Birds and Nests, which an uncle gave to me when I was around eight years old, has a wonderful collection of these.
Some as mentioned, stem from descriptions of the nests or eggs whilst others refer to size comparisons, plumages, habits and songs; Night Warbler you will not be surprised to learn is the older term for both Reed and Sedge Warblers whilst the Dunnock or Hedge Sparrow, the latter a name not often used these days, was also known as the Shuffle-wing from the female’s habit of surreptitiously doing just this when advertising herself to a male who may not actually be the father of her current clutch of eggs!
Many of you will undoubtedly know of the Norfolk Plover or the Thick-knee – the Stone Curlew – as well as Johnny Frenchman – the Red-legged Partridge – from their origins and distribution in this country. But who would guess that the Holm Screech was a Mistle Thrush (in early literature spelled as Missel Thrush) or that the Mavis or Throstle was the Song Thrush! The Tinkershere was the Guillemot whist the Curlew was the Whaup, presumably from its brief alarm calls – what wonderfully evocative names!
Some of the older names are now making a resurgence too. The Northern Wheatear is a name once used in Victorian times (along with Fallow Smack, Clodhopper, Fallow Finch and Chackbird ) and is now the modern name for the same bird. The Northern Fulmar is another such name making a comeback as opposed to simply the Fulmar whilst the Victorians’ Barn Swallow is the currently accepted name for the Swallow.
But it is the Snake-Bird or Emmet-hunter – the Wryneck – or the Fern Owl, Jar Owl, Evechur or Goatsucker – the Nightjar – which stir the boyish imagination in me still of ornithological treasures now largely lost to us or rarer yet than they were. The origins of many names are steeped in the history of our countryside.
The Goatsucker name, incidentally, referred to the Nightjar’s believed habit of creeping up upon sleeping goats and using its extraordinarily wide gape, latching onto and then sucking the milk from their teats and of course, causing it to go sour in the process! They were often killed because of this!
Even modern names have historically interesting backgrounds; Barnacle Geese were so named because it was thought even until the mid-nineteenth century that they over-summered at the bottom of the sea and that the black, white and grey Goose Barnacles often found attached to washed up driftwood were in fact the geese hibernating in a larval form prior to hatching out into the adult birds. This was actually believed by several eminent naturalists including the great Gilbert White of Selborne fame no less who also recorded the fact that Swallows hibernated in winter at the bottom of ponds because they were seen skimming across the water surface prior to disappearing in late Autumn.
The origins and explanations behind these old names give a fascinating insight into the thinking of our ancestors and their beliefs about the habits of species which they couldn’t possibly have known about other than through their own observations. In many ways it is a credit to their detailed observations which gave us these older names and, although we think now that we have the definitive names, family orders and species nomenclature readily available in the myriad publications available to us, who can possibly say what these same birds will be known as in another century?
We should remember too that similar such names exist for many insects, plants, mammals and fishes and that a whole history of observation and recording from as far back as the fifteenth century awaits examination, much of which is as relevant today as it was when it originated from the naturalists of old.
I like to think that by referring to many of the older records and publications still available, understanding what they are referring to with regards to habitat, habits and perceived abundance, then applying just a few of the older and wiser methodologies to maintaining our countryside, it may be possible to bring some of these species’ declines back to more acceptable levels and assist too in the preservation of habitat and especially breeding success.
It is not only our modern more scientific approaches to species management which can assist in these recoveries; look at the success birds such as Nightingale and Turtle Dove are experiencing at re-wilding projects like as those at Knepp in Sussex and Wild Ken Hill in Norfolk, sensitive habitat management from far back re-establishing a naturally controllable balance between managed farmland and nature.
Muir Fowl (Red Grouse) are now managed so intensely on shooting estates to the almost total exclusion of other moorland species that their habitat is now often described as ‘moorland desert’! If these fragile moorland ecosystems are kept in such parlous states, it is entirely possible that the very grouse they are designed to cater for may well die out due to the lack of the bio-diversity so essential for maintaining a balanced environment…no variety, no heather! This wasn’t the case even only fifty years ago when the moors were more sympathetically maintained.
It was in a publication from the nineteenth century where I first understood how Turtle Doves nested in small, loose colonies and that their breeding success depended upon such relationships. I can recall clearly finding groups of up to ten pairs nesting within a few yards of one another but never singly in the woods around Flamstead during the seventies, but failed to connect this behaviour to breeding success as our early naturalists with their quaint beliefs in hibernating Barnacle Geese and Swallows had done.
The RSPB were unaware of this when I contacted them about their own Turtle Dove management schemes some years back. They drew comparisons to the Passenger Pigeons of North America who eventually fell to extinction, with the last lonely bird being Martha who was kept in Cincinnati Zoo until she died in 1914 after the last known males had died in 1910. They had ceased breeding several years before because of their inability to nest alone; there being a finite number of pairs required for successful reproduction in the tiny and sparsely separated colonies, they were forced to try and breed in – with extinction being the inevitable result!
I leave you with the thought that whilst Cushats (Wood Pigeons), Harry Redcaps (Goldfinches), Aberdervines (Siskins) and Cobblers-Awl Ducks (Avocets) are still in a relatively stable position with some species such as Buff-backed Herons (Cattle Egrets) and Mire Drums (Bitterns) actually increasing in numbers, it is a sobering fact that the majority of familiar British bird species are now in decline, some on what would appear to be a straight line leading to extinction here! The Wrekin Dove (Turtle Dove) and Solan Goose (Gannet) as well as the poor old Bonxie (Great Skua) are having a very hard time here now through both habitat loss and change, shooting pressures and latterly, Avian Influenza … all conditions brought about by modern, intensive land-management practices in one way or another.
We know so much about our birds that it is a travesty that we are seeing such huge declines now. Perhaps we can find more clues to assisting their recovery based upon older references in historical natural history literature where our forbears gave names to species reflecting their close observations and association with the countryside. May the Yeorling, Black Bonnet, Sheep-Stare and Lint-White continue to thrive and prosper as they did over a hundred and fifty years ago and indeed, only thirty years back too!
Just as the threat of human virus SARS-Cov-2 is thankfully diminishing, at least in our corner of the world, there is a terrible avian viral disaster raging. This is BIRD FLU ie the virus H5N1. This isn’t the time or place to explore the subject in detail but in case anyone is wondering what they should do if they spot dead birds (or indeed dead mammals as it appears transmission has started occuring) this government webpage may be of assistance:
I have now been up in my new home the Lake District for a couple of months and am absolutely loving exploring the area around my temporary rented home in the beautiful village of Askham near the Lowther estate which is just south-west of Penrith. It’s good to have a new cast of wildlife characters to get to know and I have been getting out and walking as much as I can before the winter weather sets in.
Looking towards Ullswater from Askham Fell
From my home I can go up onto the fell where wild ponies, sheep and shorthorn cattle roam and across to Pooley Bridge. Up here I have already seen a large flock of golden plover and am on the lookout for the hen harrier which also haunts this moorland. The short grass is ideal for waxcaps at this time of the year and I have some nice photos of the scarlet wax cap.
Scarlet waxcap
Askham bridge over the Lowther river
I can also go down to the beautiful Lowther river with its backdrop of stunning autumn colours. This river is a salmon river but I have yet to see one of these amazing fish but I did hear a high-pitched calling one early morning and looking down into the river below I saw a young otter making its way upstream calling to its mum – it may well have been lost or rejected so it might not have been a happy ending but it was good to see nonetheless. I have seen dippers, kingfishers and goosanders on the river and one evening watched a female sparrowhawk pluck a woodpigeon she had killed – she knew I was watching her but it was too heavy for her to take off so she tolerated my presence. Red squirrels abound locally but I have also seen a couple of greys which is not good news.
I am sure as the year progresses I will add to my list of sightings and learn more about the natural history of my new surroundings. I will keep in touch and hope to see you all again when I am down visiting Milton Keynes in the future.
It was certainly a summer to remember with this area of the country suffering with the temperatures achieving 40C, the driest on record, and the driest July since 1911.
So how did it affect the wildlife locally?
It would appear from the records submitted to our website that it did not deter members of our Society from venturing forth around Milton Keyes and enjoying the wildlife.
Mammals – In May a fox suffering with mange was regularly seen in the streets of New Bradwell and a month later accompanied by 3 cubs. A further sighting of this fox was with a dead magpie in its jaws. Otters this summer were recorded in Willen Lake, Linford Lakes Reserve and Caldecotte Lake. An unusual record was one seen in a Bletchley Garden. Surveys continued for dormice in Little Linford Wood and Linford Lakes Reserve both by using boxes and footprint tunnels to identify footprints. Both recorded only woodmice using the tunnels, However, during the October Box survey in Little Linford Wood a single Brown Long-eared Bat was discovered. In July a Chinese water deer and a brown hare were seen in Magna Park.
Reptiles – The Parks Trust have been carrying out two reptile surveys using mats or corrugated iron placed on the ground. The Railway Triangle at Blue Bridge has been checked for several years and always been successful, and has continued to be so this year. In June as many as 9 slow worms were recorded during a single visit. The new site is at `Joan`s Piece` beside the canal at New Bradwell and has been quiet this year with only one toad observed in June.
Plants – The vegetation has probably been affected by the long hot and dry conditions this summer. However, members of our Society have been recording different orchid species. Early purple orchids have been noted during May in Linford Wood, Shenley Wood, and Little Linford Wood, common spotted orchid in Little Linford Wood. In June bee orchids were recorded in Emerson Valley, beside Teardrop Lake, and on the embankment beside the V6 Grafton Street. Just outside the MK area a southern marsh orchid was observed near Great Brickhill in July
Insects – Butterflies were well recorded this year, particularly the painted lady. Other unusual species included the white admiral, black hairstreak, and dingy skipper in June, and silver-washed fritillary, purple emperor, purple hairstreak and the clouded yellow in July.
Dragonflies and damselflies were well recorded with white-legged dragonflies seen in May, emperor dragonfly in June, and willow emerald damselfly in July.
Moths – October ended with several unusual moths. Top of the list was a Crimson Speckled moth from southern Europe or Africa that appeared in a member`s garden in Wolverton and appears to be a first sighting in Bucks. This is a rare migrant to the UK with most annual records coming from the south coast.
Autumn 2022 has been relatively good for moths {especially migrants} with the unseasonal warm weather in late September and October a major factor. The Hummingbird Hawk Moth is reasoned to have had its best ever year in the UK according to Butterfly Conservation. Martin Kincaid has seen more in his home garden in Oldbrook this year and several were still visiting valerian flowers in mid-October. The spectacular Cliften Nonpareil continues to increase locally. Ayla Webb caught one at home in Newport Pagnell in September and two were recorded at Linford Lakes Nature Reserve. Martin also recorded his first ever Cypress Pug at home on 22nd August and his second on 15th September. The beautiful Merveille du Jour is one of the joys of autumn mothing and Andy Harding and Martin both caught this species at locations including Old Stratford, Little Linford Wood and Linford Lakes. However, I have had a box tree moth in my moth trap regularly from July to October, a new moth for my records. It is worrying to learn it was introduced from South-east Asia and the larvae are considered a pest, feeding on various species of box tree.
Birds – During May at the Floodplain Forest reserve two avocet were recorded together with a shelduck. At Willen Lakes the first swift was observed, a cuckoo heard, and a ring-necked parrakeet flew past. At Linford Lakes Reserve common tern and a wood sandpiper were recorded. In June sand martins were observed entering Linford Lakes Reserve`s `sand castle` built by the volunteers; also two Egyptian geese were noted at the same site. During the same month, ruddy shelduck and redstart were recorded at the Floodplain Forest together with a special red-backed shrike. At Willen Lake a Caspian gull was recorded in July, and another ring-necked parrakeet reported in a garden in Stony Stratford. During August at the Floodplain Forest Reserve a marsh harrier and a redstart were recorded and at Willen Lakes a black-tailed godwit was seen. Two peregrines were noted in September at the Floodplain Forest, and garganey and a rock pipit at Willen Lake. Also, a mandarin duck was observed at Furzton Lake during the same month. October attracted mash tit and raven at Little Linford Wood; stonechat at Willen Lakes; brambling, fieldfare, redwing, and hawfinch at at Tattenhoe; and red=crested pochard at Linford Lakes Reserve.
Winter will soon be with us but don`t let that deter you from wrapping up and reporting your sightings through the Society`s website. As usual I ask you to watch and record – but most of all, enjoy!
I’m ashamed to say that when Kenny (Cramer) opened up his invitation to non ringers to spend a week on Skokholm, Pembrokeshire, I knew very little about the island. I had visited Skomer (not far away but much bigger) very many years ago and was delighted by the colours of the bluebells, thrift and the gulls nesting among them. I signed up to go, then started planning the week’s food as the island is off grid, so you need to take food, but the system of communal cooking and eating for those who wanted to, kindly planned by Helen, one of the ringers, and the very well planned kitchen made it straightforward. Skokholm is a bird observatory, so there are a number of research projects taking place and it has a magnificent natural history library and resource room.
We had a week on the island; and as many do, I left a bit of my heart there. It’s small – just over a mile long, and beautiful. If you have walked along the Pembrokeshire coast, then the geology of red sandstone and volcanic rock on Skokholm might be familiar, and, aligned with the lichen (including the orangey lichen in the photo below of a young stonechat – I think!), made for lovely colours.
As a non-ringer my interest was the wildlife and photography, although the ringing was always an opportunity to learn and see birds close up. Being off grid there are no showers but the sun shone most of the time giving plenty of hot water from the solar panels. I guess the stars of the island must be the puffins. In 2021 11,245 puffins were counted and it feels as though much of the island is covered with puffins – very attractive and at times seemingly comical birds. In one area, Crab Bay, they’re very used to people and will often come right up and jump onto you if you sit still and pull at your shoelaces or steal your lens cap, but I didn’t take the risk of letting them touch bare skin. Those beaks!
I was also hoping to photograph choughs. What magical birds! There was a family group of 4 that were often seen on Skokholm, sometimes joined by birds from elsewhere, but they were hard to photograph. The very dark colouring plus the fact that they move around very quickly made it challenging, although often easy to find as they are sociable and noisy. Ravens also live on Skokholm and I have to say I am very fond of ravens but I didn’t get to see any of these ravens very close up. Like many crows they hang around in family groups.
Other ‘daytime’ seabird colonies included razorbills, guillemots and fulmars. (There are no gannet colonies on Skokholm but plenty of gannets fly past).
Greater blacked back gulls, lesser black backed gulls and herring gulls nest on the island. The lesser backs harrass you as you walk through their colony but they don’t attack. Some greater black backed gulls do torment the puffins, waiting near the burrow entrance and sometimes managing to catch one or a puffling or at least steal the catch that has been brought in for the young. They also tormented and attacked the Manx shearwaters as they flew into their island burrows at night. The number of corpses in the morning showed that coming in at night didn’t make them safe. From my bed I could hear both the sound of the shearwaters (quite difficult to describe, but mesmerising) and the gulls – who don’t necessarily roost at night. The estimated number of shearwaters in 2018 in an article by Perrins and colleagues (Latin name, oddly, puffinus puffinus!) was 90,000 . I didn’t get to see these properly as I’m afraid I prioritised sleep over the night walks to visit and ring shearwaters.
The final stars of the island are the storm petrels: again I didn’t see these as you need to be up after dark. It is very hard to know what the population of nesting birds is: one of the wardens’ blogs comments on how they try to monitor and count the storm petrels: quite challenging. The amazing wardens post a blog each day, and it is well worth reading. Each night there is a roll call where everyone comes together to note and discuss what has been seen that day.
In terms of some smaller non-sea birds, Skokholm is full of wheatears, and there is an ongoing research MSc project by Ian Beggs who tweets about the project at @fatsnipe. I was really happy to see so many as they are a bit of a novelty in MK, and generally only seen on migration. Stonechats were less common but there was at least one pair. I had never thought of wrens as island birds, but they are; and ferreting around amongst seaweed, plants and stones etc must expose many insects. Other small nesting birds include (but are not limited to) many meadow pipits, some skykarks, wagtails and various warblers such as the sedge warbler. Swallows were nesting in one of the buildings and were amazingly successful, with two broods – I think 15 young altogether.
There are few mammals on Skokholm. Rats have been successfully kept out, though mice live there and are being studied. Rabbits were introduced centuries ago and there is still a good population, including some darker coloured ones, as different kinds were introduced at various times. The hide in front of the lighthouse where the wardens live, is a great place to sit and seawatch. I was not fortunate enough to see a dolphin when I was looking, although common dolphins are often seen, but I did see porpoises. The classic book about the island, which is a great read, is Lockley’s Dream Island. R.M.Lockley, ornithologist and naturalist lived on Skokholm from 1927 until forced to move by the war. His account of island life is delightful.
It is definitely a trip and island that will stay with me and thanks of course to Kenny for not only organising the trip but also giving me a lift so I could get there!
In October 2021, I was given the chance to join the Yorkshire Wildlife Trust as a Practical Conservation Trainee at Spurn National Nature Reserve. With my boots firmly in the ground as a watcher of my local patch in Milton Keynes, recording birds, odonata and carrying out yearly butterfly transects, the idea of travelling 200 miles to spend most of a year in a totally new environment was initially very daunting but after some lengthy consideration, I decided it was an opportunity that was too good to miss for my career aspirations.
Spurn is located at the tip of the east Yorkshire coast, about 45 minutes’ drive from the city of Hull. One of the country’s most renowned sites for birding, it delivers scarcities and rarities on a regular basis. The sea and the Reserve’s habitats are closely monitored by a dedicated band of local birders and recorders. Located just outside the reserve is the Spurn Bird Observatory, working in association with The Yorkshire Wildlife Trust for a wide variety of projects across Spurn and its neighbouring reserve Kilnsea Wetlands.
While it may be as close to the sea as you can get, Spurn’s traineeships are tailored to develop highly transferrable knowledge and practical skills that can be taken to a wide variety of landscapes. Whether you are already familiar with coastal areas or coming from a more inland setting, it’s an ideal place to kickstart a career in conservation. Trainees are quickly given hands-on experience with a variety of tasks including livestock management, site maintenance and use of reserve vehicles.
Some of Spurn’s livestock include Hebridean Sheep and the popular Highland Cattle, which are frequently checked and moved across the site between autumn and early spring. Their grazing helps to prepare the reserve’s wildflower meadows for spring and summer, protecting root systems which could be damaged by machinery and supporting ground-nesting bird species including Meadow Pipits and Skylarks.
A large portion of the autumn and winter work involves site maintenance, trimming vegetation near the footpaths and increasing access to the Reserve’s features. There is also the Population Control of Brown-tailed Moths, a species that has had a strong foothold on the Reserve for many years. With their highly irritant hairs they are rarely eaten by birds, prevent the growth of berries and present a health risk to the general public as their caterpillars emerge in early spring. Thought to have arrived from Lincolnshire, the parasitic wasps that typically prey on the species are unfortunately yet to colonise the area, meaning controlled human intervention is currently the best way forward on this SSSI.
A more exclusive task for Spurn over the past few months has been Eelgrass Restoration. Now present in just a small portion of the Humber after a significant decline many years ago, the Yorkshire Wildlife Trust’s Marine Team have been hard at work to get this unique species. Some of the rainier days of the autumn were spent making Sea Grass bags, small sacks of Hessian with the tiny seeds and sediment wrapped inside, ready to be planted at the edge of the Humber at low tide.
The everchanging washover is a good place to practise off-road driving. Once holding a road connecting the northern half of the reserve to the southern half, it is now only accessible by the Spurn reserve team and the RNLI, based at The Point. On some days it can be largely flat and smooth with a thin layer of shingle, on others it can be more rocky but negotiable with the Reserve’s 4×4 vehicle.
A more recent task has been installing electric fencing on the Reserve’s thinnest section of beach, the washover, protecting Ringed Plovers and Oystercatchers from ground-based predators and preventing human disturbance. Carrying out beach patrols in this area has been a good way of interacting with visitors, raising awareness of ground-nesting shorebirds, talking about other recent finds on-site with the bonus of possibly seeing a seal, porpoise or even a dolphin!
As I write this in early June, just over halfway through the traineeship, I can happily say this was one of the best decisions I’ve ever made. It’s already given me so much knowledge and new skills that I never initially saw myself gaining! With thanks to on-site LANTRA training and practice with Spurn’s Reserve team, I recently passed my Brushcutter training, meaning I and the other volunteers who participated will be gaining a license for using them across other parks and reserves nationally.
It’s also been a massive eyeopener to the everyday running of a nature reserve throughout the year in so many ways – seeing how tasks are co-ordinated around weather and tide times, how events are planned and promoted and the interactions between regional teams within The Yorkshire Wildlife Trust. It’s an access-all-areas opportunity, so trainees are at the forefront of the fieldwork and behind-the-scenes projects at the Reserve and heavily integrated with the rest of the team. There’s also the opportunity to partake in external training hosted by The Yorkshire Wildlife Trust at other Reserves in the county.
On days off you are free to your own devices but there is so much to explore and do across Spurn and its neighbouring reserve, Kilnsea Wetlands. For birding the possibilities are nearly endless here, with scarcities and rarities being found on a near daily basis especially around the peaks of spring and autumn migration. Some of my favourite “firsts” from here have included Brown Shrike, Red-backed Shrike, Temminck’s Stint, Glaucous Gull, Red-rumped Swallow, and just days after I started in October, Britain’s 10th Two-barred Greenish Warbler which lingered for several days by the Discovery Centre.
I cannot thank the Yorkshire Wildlife Trust enough for giving me this amazing opportunity. It’s been well worth while for gaining confidence in travelling further afield and working in new and exciting parts of the country. The ride isn’t over yet though and I can’t wait to see what the next few months bring!
The results of the first ever national turtle dove survey have been published. Whilst the survey is as a result of fantastic effort from volunteers, the population now stands at around 2,100 territories, down from an estimated 125,000 in 1970. Although the results are sobering, there is hope for this ‘sound of summer’ resident.
Volunteers are wanted, to help find dormice in the tree-tops at Little Linford Wood. Our MKNHS member John Prince founded the North Bucks Dormouse Group in 1998, when dormice were successfully reintroduced to this Wood. Ever since then, volunteers have worked with John to check dormouse boxes monthly through summer to autumn.
Now John is taking this to the next stage with dormouse boxes mounted on platforms that are hoisted to the tree-tops. The platforms have been made. They are ready to be hauled up. The Dormouse Group need more people to manage and monitor these dormouse platforms, so we know where dormice are.
If you would like to find out more about how and when you could help, please contact Gwen Hitchcock by e-mail: gwen.hitchcock@wildlifebcn.org, or by phone on 07872 418281.
Thank you.
Photo: Dormouse in Little Linford Wood June 2020 (courtesy of John Prince/Joyce Taylor Moore)
The trees are turning green with some in blossom, some plants are in flower, birds are singing, and there is frogspawn in the ponds – yes, it`s spring again; but before we get too excited, how did our local wildlife fare during the past winter?
Generally, it was a mild winter with a few exceptions. The end of the year recorded the warmest New Year`s Day on record, January was the sunniest and driest for East Anglia, and during January we suffered three storms, Dudley, Eunice, and Franklin.
Once more our society members have been using our website to record their sightings and this is a summary of these records during the period October to December 2021, and January to March 2022:
Mammals – During the first three months of this year there have been records of otters at Great Linford Reserve, Stony Stratford Reserve, and the River Ouzel near Caldecotte, During December last year a water vole was seen in the Stony Stratford area and at Little Linford Wood a hare was recorded. Both myself and my neighbours have been blessed with regular nightly visits with badgers to our gardens throughout the winter, and during March two young ones were reported.
Butterflies and other insects – On the 6th October a Painted Lady was seen at Caldecotte, a species that unusually there were very few records of in 2021. The bright sunny days in February attracted a variety of butterflies starting with brimstones and during the following weeks tortoiseshell and comma. Other unusual insect records included a Buff-tailed bumble bee in my garden as late as 30th December and a western conifer seed bug at Bradwell Common on 10th October. It would appear that this bug was first recorded in the UK in 2007.
Birds – The winter months attract numerous sightings of birds passing through the local sites particularly the lakes. There were numerous records of large white, little and even cattle egrets, pintails and goosanders. But during the last three months of 2021 the following unusual local records were submitted: Willen Lakes – rock pipit, black redstart Siberian chiffchaff and Mediterranean gull Floodplain Forest – 3 whooper swans, and a ruddy duck Caldecotte -great northern diver Furzton – Slavonian grebe Newport Pagnell – hen harrier Back Wood, Brickhills – 3 crossbills
During the first three months of this year the following special birds were recorded locally: Floodplain Forest – marsh harrier, peregrine and curlew Linford Lakes Reserve – bittern and marsh tit Stony Stratford Reserve – oystercatcher Walton Hall, River Ouzel – 4 Bewick swans Willen – avocet Caldecotte – mandarin duck Magna Park – Siberian chiffchaff
A fantastic selection of wildlife sightings locally during the past winter – congratulations.
With spring and summer ahead of us there will be a plethora of species to enjoy, So share your records on our Society`s website, and as usual look, learn, record – but most of all, enjoy.
On the first weekend in March I joined a Naturetrek group for a short trip to the New Forest.
I am very fond of this area as my Grandparents had a thatched cottage and beautiful garden backing on to the forest enclosure in a village called Woodgreen. I have many happy memories from my childhood spent in this area so it was a real joy to go back and be shown some of the special areas for wildlife down there.
We visited areas in the forest itself and also spent a morning down at Keyhaven marshes, situated next to Hurst Castle spit on the Solent, with fine views across to the Needles on the Isle of Wight.
At Keyhaven we saw lots of beautiful ducks in their breeding finery including pintails (lots), teal, gadwall, wigeon and quite a few nice waders. We were hoping for a glimpse of a stray white-tailed eagle ranging across from the island but it was not to be J
The first place we visited in the forest was Acre Wood where we were very excited to see distant but good views of displaying Goshawk. We then went on to several other sites.
But the highlight of the weekend was the next morning when few of us got up early and went back to Acre Wood and much to our delight were treated to a duet by a pair of beautiful lesser spotted woodpeckers (a first for me). We had very good views of both the male and female and came away on a real high – it was difficult to wipe the smiles off our faces when we met the rest of the group for breakfast.
I don’t have a good camera for photographing birds at the moment so didn’t get any good photos but I did take an audio recording of them both drumming which I hope will be of interest:
On Boxing Day, a great naturalist came to the end of his days aged 92. He was Edward Osborne Wilson. He was often known simply as EO Wilson.
EO was not just a scientist. He was: a biologist, a botanist, an ecologist, an entomologist, a close observer of life with plenty of fieldwork skills. Some compared him to Charles Darwin because of his ability as a synthesiser and as a close observer of living things. His respect for Darwin is evident from his introduction to his compilation of Darwin’s writings in From So Simple a Beginning: Darwin’s Four Great Books (2005).
EO was also an assiduous writer who wrote science in ways that anyone can understand, but also an environmentalist alerting others to the loss of species. He wrote more than 35 books and was still writing them through his eighties. Here is a selection of them. Most are readily available second-hand:
The Theory of Island Biogeography (1967) with Robert H MacArthur
The Insect Societies (1971)
Biophilia (1984)
The Ants (1990) with Bert Hölldobler
The Diversity of Life (1992)
Journey to The Ants: a story of scientific exploration’ (1994) with Bert Hölldobler
Naturalist (1994, new edition 2006) his autobiography
In Search of Nature (1996)
Consilience: The Unity of Knowledge (1998)
The Future of Life (2002)
The Creation: an appeal to save life on earth (2006).
In his 80s EO wrote a trilogy of books:
The Social Conquest of Earth (2012)
The Meaning of Human Existence (2014)
Half-Earth (2016).
EO carried out field studies in: New Guinea, the South Pacific, the Amazon and Florida Keys, though he cut his entomological teeth as a child in Alabama where he discovered all 42 species of ants and produced a report about them, then told the authorities about the arrival of the invasive fire ant.
EO was brilliant at identifying insects, at observing them and understanding their behaviour. One reason he concentrated on ants was because at age seven he blinded himself in a fishing accident. But he retained his vision in the other eye and this led to him focusing on little things as he lost his stereoscopic vision but could still see fine details on insects. His book The Ants written jointly with Bert Hölldobler led the field in understanding the complex world of social insects.
EO worked on studies of how new species evolved. He was also a clever and deep-thinking scientist, and developed several new theories not just about insects but also about ecology and the future.
While a Director of WWF, EO met Tom Loveday who worked for WWF. They both went on explorations to major wildlife areas such as the Brazilian rain forests and began to realise the scale at which species were being lost. In the 1970s they discussed the need for new terminology to describe what they were studying and came up with the term ‘Biological Diversity’ which they later abbreviated to ‘Biodiversity’.
EO’s book The Diversity of Life (1992) shows the immense span of his understanding of the origins of life, its evolution, and the amazing range of living things in our own times. EO also developed controversial ideas about Sociobiology and human nature, so controversial that a protester poured a jug of ice-cold water over his head when he was a speaker at a major scientific conference. Less controversial were EO’s ideas about Biophilia, how we as humans feel an intimate connection with nature and animals.
EO was involved in launching the Encyclopaedia of Life to create a global database of all the 1.9 million species recognised by science and information about each of them. EO set up an experiment in the Amazon known as the Biological Dynamics of Forest Fragments Project, which increased understanding of how habitat fragmentation was accelerating the loss of species. He said: “Destroying a tropical rainforest for profit is like burning all the paintings of the Louvre to cook dinner.”
EO became increasingly disturbed about climate change caused by humankind and our burning of fuels and consumption of materials. About this he said: “Only in the last moment in history has the delusion arisen that people can flourish apart from the rest of the living world.”
He also became more and more troubled by the extinction of species and said: “The one process now going on that will take millions of years to correct is the loss of genetic and species diversity by the destruction of natural habitats. This is the folly our descendants are least likely to forgive us.”
Photo: Curlew by Peter Hassett, Draycote Water 1 March 2017
Jenny Mercer has been trying to get reports together of local curlew sightings but as they are sadly few and far between it has not been an easy task. However, she has produced this report below and I have added information provided by Martin Kincaid, Kenny Cramer and Linda Murphy. Thank you for all of you who contributed and keep the information coming in for 2022 and hopefully we can give an update at the end of the year. Julie Lane
Jenny Mercer (11 January 2022)
It has been a disappointment to me that so few reports of Curlew reached me in North Bucks in 2021. However, thanks to my interest being rekindled by Mary Colwell’s book Curlew Moon– which I reviewed for the April 2020 edition of the Magpie, I have found my way onto web-based events on Waders and have kept updated nationally from the charity Curlew Action website https://www.curlewaction.org founded by Mary Colwell.
Locally within Milton Keynes reports reached me of one curlew which called in at Willen Lake for a few days and another curlew was heard then briefly seen by Julie Lane at Olney. Both thought to be on migration. Bucks Bird Club may have recorded other sightings.
Two nature reserve sites, not too far from Milton Keynes, have had curlew attempting to breed in 2021. They are located in the Upper Ray river valley, a tributary of the Thames river system: BBOWT’s Gallows Bridge reserve and the RSPB’s Otmoor reserve
The update from Gallows Bridge is of failure to breed in 2021, though there was one nest which was predated this year. There is a proposal to protect any nests next year with some kind of security system. One of our members saw three curlews at Gallows Bridge, lucky man! I hope to get over there at the end of February/early March this year when the curlews return and start displaying.
Martin Kincaid (24th November 2021) I haven’t seen or heard a curlew in MK for quite some time. They were semi-regular at Manor Farm/FPF when it was being excavated and I saw 2 or 3 not long after it was opened as a nature reserve, but none for about 4 years. I think Willen is the only other local site where I have seen them.
Kenny Cramer (23rd November 2021) I don’t think I’ve ever seen a curlew in Milton Keynes! Looking at goingbirding.co.uk, I found two reports from Willen Lake in the last year, on 11th March and 13th July.
Linda Murphy – updates from volunteers meetings, RSPB Otmoor:
Curlew Update 2019 The curlew project continued to monitor breeding birds in the core areas of the Upper Thames Tributaries. Where breeding pairs were identified attempts were made to locate their nests. In total 15 nests were found, of which 11 were on the Otmoor basin. On the Otmoor Basin 5 nests hatched, two nests were predated by badger and the other 4 failed. Two of the nests were successfully protected with electric fencing. Five fledged birds were recorded on the Otmoor basin which was then the most ever recorded.
Curlew update 2021 13 nests were located altogether (3 were probably re-lays after initial failure)
8 nests were fenced to keep out predators (6 hatched)
5 nests were unfenced (2 hatched)
9 curlew chicks fledged compared to 6 in 2020 and 5 in 2019. So considered a good level of success this year. This improving result has attracted interest from reserves in other parts of the country.
The volunteers managed to ring three chicks (apparently it is extremely hard to catch them…) and the rings have small ‘flags’ attached with letters, HP, HY, HA, nicknamed after plants on the moor – Pepper (after Pepper Saxifrage); Yarrow; Angelica.
Pepper has already been sighted on the west coast of Ireland in Co Kerry. They had not expected that the chicks dispersed so far.
As birds tend to return to and favour similar breeding places, they hope the numbers breeding in the area will gradually increase.
Curlew are a major focus for land management work being carried out on the land tenancy the RSPB have taken over from the MOD, and will be a focus for the land they hope to buy through the Otmoor appeal.
As a group member of Bucks Fungus group the Society has received a report on this autumn’s activities. If you have found any interesting fungi the pictures and descriptions on the ‘Finds’ site may help you identify them. http://www.bucksfungusgroup.org.uk/ “
Dear members,
I thought I’d round off our extraordinary autumn season with a quick report. We have seen a remarkable and unprecedented increase in membership this year with 42 new applications,18 of which were for household membership, and I now have well over 100 addresses on the BFG circular list. Support for our autumn programme of walks has been consistently and considerably higher than previously, necessitating the introduction of our booking system kindly managed for us by Jenny Schafer, and we thank you all for your patience and understanding in complying with this. It remains to be seen whether we need to continue the system next year.
Our 14 autumn walks were held with one every weekend from August 29th to November 20th and produced a total of 1150 fungi records, including 12 new species for the county. Numbers were notably low until the latter half of October when fruiting began in earnest, with our last 6 walks averaging 108 species per event. This is a remarkable statistic on several counts: attendee numbers averaged around 30 per event until mid October but were limited to around 20 thereafter, yet it was at this point that the record numbers suddenly increased. Furthermore, in previous years we have ended our programme in early November – when fungal fruiting is often more or less over – but this year we extended it until November 20th to take advantage of the continued late fruiting and mild conditions.
All in all this has been an odd six months for fungi, to say the least! June and July saw many species starting to appear much earlier than normal (this reflected in our ongoing Members’ Finds webpage), but things then came to a halt and though we have often struggled with dry Septembers in recent years the prolonged dearth of fruiting this year has been extraordinary – likewise the prolonged later fruiting which is still continuing.
Since our programme kicked off at the end of August, Members’ Finds has been continuing on our website, thanks to the indefatigable efforts of our webmaster Peter Davis, though limited to those finds made by members over and above those on our walks. Last year – with no BFG walks – Finds topped 500 species from late August to.the end of December. This year we shall probably be considerably down on that figure despite starting in July. The reasons? I’m guessing here: The novelty is wearing off and life has returned to nearer normality with regard to Covid and Lockdowns (though it is evident that we are clearly not out of that particular wood yet). The lack of BFG activities last year coincided with arguably one of the most prolific fungal fruiting seasons in Britain for decades – sod’s law! Consequently folks were fascinated and went out looking and wanting to know what they’d found. Many rarities and species new to Britain were recorded from all over the country – it was a phenomenal year in more ways than one. Moreover this season members have possibly focused on attending our walks in preference to going out on their own, and clearly there has generally been less around to find in any case.
Nevertheless, please keep your photos coming in for Finds! There are plenty of fungi still out there despite the ending of BFG events. Yesterday (Dec 1st) I found Volvariella surrecta (Piggyback Rosegill), a real rarity and only the second time it’s been found in the county – the photos are on Finds. So this is definitely one to look out for at the moment but it only grows on rotting Clitocybe nebularis (Clouded Funnel) which, however, is in plentiful supply everywhere. It would be great to have more records of the Piggyback and I suspect it’s ‘having a good year’ unlike some other things.
We’ve decided against holding our Christmas Walk and Lunch this year: Covid is on the warpath again and our programme was a long and arduous one this autumn. So I’ll conclude by wishing everyone a Happy Christmas and a Healthy New Year and, as I said in my final report, we hope to do it all again next year! I’ll be back in touch if / when we plan any springtime walks.
Thank you all for your support. Keep safe and very best wishes,
Penny
PS If you’re interested in learning about truffles, you might like to sign up for truffle expert Carol Hobart’s online talk entitled ‘A truffler’s tale – Hypogeous Historical Snippets & Truffle Fungi in the UK’ hosted by the BMS but open to all. This is on December 15th at 19.30. Go to www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/217950514857 for free tickets.
For several weeks now, a fully mature adult Great White Egret with green lores[1] has been feeding daily on Little Willow Lake (behind Asda). He is a very expert fisher and is catching plenty of food. The other day he pulled out a very large bit of weed with a very small fish attached to it. He was determined not to lose the fish and preserved, eventually getting his reward.
Also on the lake is a pair of swans with their three now well-grown young. The male swan will not tolerate the presence of another adult swan on the lake. As soon as the intruder lands, he water-skis across the surface of the water, wings flapping at top speed, to send the intruder on its way. I have never seen a swan move so fast. The male is nevertheless quite happy with the presence of the egret, which is giving many local people much pleasure on their daily walks. In 2020 this pair of swans raised eight cygnets to full adulthood.
Also note that there are several hundred gulls at Newton Leys on the large lake in Guernsey Road (no cars) by the waste-processing facility. There is also a large additional group on the playing fields of the Sir Herbert Leon Academy (Lakes Estate- Drayton Road/Fern Grove) just across the other side of the railway line.
Colin Docketty
November 2021
[1] ‘lores’ – the area between the eye and the beak
The focus of the presentation was on the loss of biodiversity globally and in the UK and linked to Climate Change causes and effects. Mervyn asked the question ‘What can we do?’ The Climate Change Summits will take place in Glasgow, COP26 31 October – 12 November and COP15 Kunming, China, from 25 April-8 May 2022.1 Both Summits include goals related to biodiversity, especially the Summit to be held in China next year which is billed as the ‘Biodiversity Summit’.
Other reports mentioned during the talk and which might be of interest to members are the International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Report and the UN Global Assessment Report. Summaries can be found at:
Mervyn has written a supportive and encouraging letter to Sir David Attenborough who is the ‘People’s Advocate’ for the COP26 Summit. Should any member wish to write a similar letter to Sir David, his address is: Sir David Attenborough, People’s Advocate COP26, David Attenborough Productions Ltd, 5 Park Road, Richmond, Surrey TW10 6NS. Mervyn is also writing to his MP and Alok Sharma, President, COP26.
Mervyn gave an example of one unusual way to highlight the importance of the COP26 Summit: a pilgrimage. Right now, groups of walkers (pilgrims) are making their way to Glasgow from cities and towns throughout Europe. On 12 September, one such group walking from London to Glasgow had an overnight stay in Milton Keynes. As they were leaving on the next stage of their pilgrimage walk, the group gave a card to their hosts which stated:
‘…..and we make our way in kinship with the peoples and the creatures of the earth who are suffering and displaced by climate change and ecological breakdown. We do so peacefully and lawfully, ready to engage and learn, because we care and we have hope.’
Members might be interested in keeping in touch with progress at the Summits in Glasgow in November and in China April-May 2022.
The following story is from a first-hand recounting I was privileged to be present at some forty years ago and it concerns the account given to me in person in 1981 by the superbly named Mr Ulysses A. Vincent, affectionately known as ‘Vinnie’, a botanist who specialised in the recording and photography of Hebridean flora in the 1930s and 40s.
I was involved with the setting up and establishment of Pitstone Fen reserve in Buckinghamshire, near to Tring in the early 1980s; this reserve later morphed into College Lake Reserve which lies adjacent to (but split by the railway from Euston north) Pitstone Fen and is probably familiar to quite a few of us now. Pitstone Fen has been left to return to nature in favour of the larger College Lake but still has a good colony of Marsh Helleborines as well as Small Blue butterflies and Water Shrews amongst other little gems.
The late Graham Atkins was the principle driving force behind this project. Graham worked as a cement lorry driver for the then Tunnel Cement company who owned the rights to quarry this location and he persuaded Tunnel Cement that they should consider their ‘green credentials’ and allow him to develop a small, abandoned piece of their quarry into a wildlife haven…Pitstone Fen. He was subsequently responsible for the founding, setting-up and running of the College Lake reserve. He was an exceptionally energetic and knowledgeable ecologist and we formed a lasting friendship.
During our conversations, Graham kept on mentioning ‘Vinnie’ and thought I ought to meet him as he had such wonderful accounts of his days in the Hebrides. He was, I believe in his early nineties by then and although fully compos mentis, was nonetheless a physically frail person living in sheltered bachelor accommodation and unable to venture out on his own, much to his chagrin. Well, we finally arranged a meeting one Saturday afternoon in late 1981 and along I went with Graham to see Vinnie in his charming little almshouse in Princes Risborough.
He was a wonderfully enthusiastic botanist still, full of anecdotes and recounting his adventures in the Scottish islands, in particular the Outer Hebrides where he spent most of the 1930s and 40s cycling around the various islands having got up there by train, bus and ferry and then bicycle. He would take his heavy and unwieldy square-format camera, lenses, glass plates and other paraphernalia along with his botanical recording books, etc., with him and stay at various guest houses up there, braving inclement weather, midges and other privations for several weeks at a time, two or three times a year and all at his own expense as far as I am aware.
Graham kept asking Vinnie to tell me his ‘big seal’ story, to which Vinnie would laugh and self-consciously look down muttering “he doesn’t want to hear that old nonsense” which meant of course, the more they bantered, the more I did want to hear it! He eventually gave in to Graham’s pressure and said he would tell me the story but on the strict understanding that I was not to consider him anything less than fully sane and he then proceeded with the following incredible account which I have tried to recall as accurately as possible after some forty-one years and without any embellishment.
Vinnie was at his usual haunts one year, he didn’t say which year but it must have been in the late nineteen thirties by virtue of his most active period being then, on one of the long chain of Outer Hebridean islands but with no definite or precise location given. He had gone out to count Grey Seals on a beach colony overlooked by steep cliffs. If he mentioned the location, I cannot recall it. Grey Seals were nowhere nearly as abundant as they are now and monitoring their populations at known breeding sites was carried out by many naturalists who otherwise specialised in different disciplines of natural history.
The time of year was not given but in view of the fact it was a Grey Seal colony, one may assume it was possibly in September or October as he would probably not have been looking for Hebridean flora throughout the winter pupping season.
He had a fair walk to get to the viewing location so went lightly equipped and once there, settling down on a grassy cliff overlooking the seal colony, Vinnie commenced his counting. He had finished one count and was in the middle of a second confirmation count when he noticed an unusual looking seal and brought his binoculars up again to check it.
His description went as follows “…it was the same size, roughly, as an adult Grey Seal and was laying on top of a flat rock with a couple of seals nearby and with a slip-off access to the sea; it was mid-grey in colour, possibly with darker blotches, again, similar in appearance to the surrounding seals but had a tapering neck about half as long as the body with a small but well-defined head attached. It had two sets of flippers but these were clearly set at right angles to the centre-line of the body, totally different to the seals and a short, conical tail…it looked like a picture book illustration of a Plesiosaur. I watched it for about an hour with good light using binoculars but didn’t have my camera so reluctantly left and went to fetch it. By the time I returned, the creature had of course gone and I never saw it again, despite many repeat visits, both on that trip and subsequent ones“.
Sadly, Vinnie passed away a few months after this meeting so I was never able to hear this story again or indeed, have another chance to meet this fascinating old man but of course, have never forgotten this account of his ‘dinosaur sighting’!!
I suppose we must take this as another unconfirmed report of a strange and unfamiliar animal with no photographic evidence and no other eye-witness accounts. Nonetheless, I feel this is an account worthy of note purely because when I met Vinnie, he was an experienced field naturalist, clear and concise in his accounts of Hebridean botanical treasures, was clearly totally aware of his frailties but also of his mental state which was in excellent order; finally, his story was short, modestly recounted and from Graham’s comments later, the same as it had always been and not added to for effect or to make it more believable. He was very bashful when starting the story but was absolutely convinced of what he saw.
I have tried to find Vinnie through various means both electronic and previously though library records, etc., but to no avail. I would love to be able to pin down his Hebridean records of course, but sadly, until now, I have remained unsuccessful.
I must confess to being somewhat sceptical when the so-called Loch Ness Monster is attributed to a long-lost, land-locked plesiosaur-like creature. Food availability, extremely low loch temperatures, a lack of numbers for breeding thus leading to inbreeding and eventual extinction make this improbable – and of course, the likelihood of a colony of large animals, reptilian or whatever, or their remains evading human sightings for thousands of years since the loch formed as a separate entity with no ready sea access and in such a restricted environment is so low as to be practically non-existent! However, a reptile used to the colder temperatures of the open oceans and who is either living in these northern latitudes or indeed, is perhaps a Gulf Stream stray who wandered away from its normal home and found itself in a seal colony miles from its normal home much as a rare migrant bird, sea turtle or cetacean turns up in unexpected circumstances, might well be more plausible.
Saltwater Crocodiles swim many miles in the south Pacific and must often experience low sea temperatures too, yet still manage to not only survive but turn up at locations where they are not expected…! I have seen for myself Monitor Lizards swimming to shore in Borneo from distant, barely visible shores and of course, Saltwater Iguanas have evolved a coping strategy for cold-water immersion, albeit for short periods in the Galapagos. I have watched Loggerhead Turtles in the cold waters of the Mediterranean as well as Leather-back Turtles heaving themselves out of the Caribbean onto remote northern Trinidadian shores. Reptiles and some very large ones, can and do thrive in our oceans.
I sent this account off to Adrian Shine, who is the president of the Loch Ness Project and has featured many times on television as the principal collector of ‘monster’ stories and in particular Loch Ness’s very own and well known phenomena. Although not able to take this account as being authentic, he is at the moment investigating Scottish west coast ‘monster’ sightings and felt this was noteworthy to the extent he has submitted it to the Highland Archive in Inverness. Plesiosaurs disappeared from the fossil records around sixty-six million years ago, the same time that Coelacanths disappeared … until they were ‘discovered’ in 1938 off the South African coast and latterly, the Indian Ocean too! They are absolutely identical to Coelacanth fossils set down four-hundred and ten million years ago – so why not Plesiosaurs too?
Something to ponder upon and perhaps indicative of what amazing creatures remain ‘out there’ for us yet to discover…who knows what may turn up on Rebecca or Alan’s trail cameras in Simpson Stream or elsewhere in Milton Keynes?!
This morning was one of those mornings when you wake up to a misty fog and feel like staying tucked up in bed (a heavy cold makes this idea even more appealing!). But our dog needs to be walked so I set off to a world of magic.
The local field is cloaked in a blanket of silken spider’s web. In the past I have seen this gossamer bathed in the morning sun which sets it afire in rainbow colours – one of the most beautiful sights in nature.
(All photos by Julie Lane)
I meet a man with a dog who says ‘I don’t like spiders ugh!’ – how sad. I meet another man who says ‘yes, the webs are amazing but watch out for the false widow spider!’ Human beings have such a deep ingrained fear of these creatures.
I wander up to the Barn field above Olney where the whole place is adorned with dew-covered silken web. This phenomenon allows me to see the different structures of the webs in great clarity. There are the classic orb webs strung across gaps between the bushes with large beads of dew weighing them down. There are the hammocks of funnel web spiders nearer to the ground with their occupants hiding down the funnels waiting to pounce. But also the dew highlights the incredible cloaking of the bushes and ground with what I think are the webs of what we call money spiders.
I remember reading a beautiful article by John Lister-Kaye in which he describes these tiny beings climbing up the stalks of grasses in their billions, lifting their abdomens and releasing their silken lines from their spinnerets – when the weight of this arc of silk becomes greater then their own weight they are whisked up into the atmosphere to be dispersed by the winds to other realms.
As I walk through the field and down to the river Ouse I marvel at the sheer volume of silk and number of spiders that are revealed on this Autumn morning. How on earth does any other insect avoid being tangled and consumed? It makes me wonder if nature has timed this glut of spiders to perfection. Spiders are most evident in the Autumn although there are many around in the summer. Is it possible that the insect world is allowed to get on with its living and reproducing in relative peace earlier on in the season but later on when they are coming to the end of their reproductive lives the spiders and other predators like wasps use this bonanza of protein to reproduce and produce their own progeny – wouldn’t that be neat!!
Some of us are not spider fans but if these predators didn’t exist in such huge numbers we might be overrun by other insects. Perhaps it’s all part of the wonderful balance that has evolved over the millennia.
Disclaimer J Any comments made in this article come from my own rather sparse knowledge and musings so may not be factually correct!
Julie Lane Olney 9th October 2021
Postscript:
The Sneaky, Greedy Spider
The sneaky greedy spider
creeps on eight hairy legs
She spins a web of silk
and fills a sack of eggs
She catches a tired fly
and wraps him like a mummy
Dinner is served
Her feast is rather yummy
Congratulations to Harry Appleyard on landing a much sought-after Conservation Traineeship at Spurn Nature Reserve, East Yorkshire.
In the run up to his departure, he gave a talk on Tattenhoe Wildlife for Bucks Bird Club and has provided a link for any MKNHS members who would like to watch it at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7uzXebBFRBE
He describes it as “A presentation for the Buckinghamshire Bird Club all about my local patch, the Tattenhoe area in Milton Keynes, featuring seasonal highlights from the past 13 years including my rarest bird finds, new species of insects for MK, elusive suburban mammals and more.”
Just because something has 8 legs and is running around your house or garden, it doesn’t mean that you are necessarily looking at a spider!
Harvestmen are part of the order known as Opiliones, a sister order to the spiders (Araneae) within the class Arachnida. Unlike spiders, harvestmen have a turret on their had (an ocularium) with a single pair of eyes. They also don’t have venom glands or build webs. It’s their long legs that give them away though!
There are 30 species of Harvestmen in Britain and Ireland and they’re not too difficult to identify (for an invertebrate group). The Harvestmen Identikit is an online interactive guide to help identify species or learn about the features that can be used to separate the different taxa in the field.
As we all know, moths need to be attracted. So, prior to the meeting, Janice Robertson and I, with the assistance of Martin and Margaret, the residents of ‘The Holt’, organised a mercury vapour lamp over a sheet (equipment courtesy of Rachel Redford) on the lawn of ‘The Holt’ and a Robinson trap on a white sheet with a similar 125w bulb in the overflow car park. With no great confidence, five trees were liberally daubed with a concoction of various alcoholic drinks, molasses and other sweet substances (courtesy of Ayla Webb): a process known as ‘sugaring’.
Because the meeting was scheduled for a 7.30 pm start, which is a while before moths could be expected to be on the wing, I had brought along a small viewing net (also courtesy of Ayla Webb) with a selection of the more striking moths I had caught the night before in my garden traps. I also had about a dozen moths in plastic pots, which I found particularly interesting and with which I made a desperate attempt to maintain the attention of the group. However, before any moths were discussed, the group were warned not to do any tree-hugging … the results would have been horrible to behold.
As the level of interest started to flag, we moved to examine the sheet below the light on the lawn, which held a small range of flying insects but no moths. To keep the circulation going we moved to the first tree, and to everyone’s surprise a Copper Underwing was feeding on the liquor. This and subsequent Copper Underwings have been recorded as Copper Underwing agg. (aggregated) because Svensson’s Copper Underwing and the equally common Copper Underwing are extremely hard tell apart without handling these extremely slippery moths.
The other trees were not so productive, but on arrival at the Robinson trap the first couple of the beautiful Green Carpets put in an appearance as well as the other most frequently encountered species of the night, a tiny micro, almost certainly Yponomeuta yvonymella. Again caution had to be exercised because of the other very similar ‘Ermine’ moths and attempting genital dissection of the poor creatures to confirm the ID seemed inadvisable, and not something I practise. Back at the lawn a striking moth, and a clear sign of autumn, was on the sheet and was successfully identified by a couple of the group since it was a species I had brought in the display net – Centre-barred Sallow. Several bright lemon yellow Brimstone moths also mirrored the contents of the net.
At this point some people were keen to get back to the tree trunks and we were all treated to up to 4 Copper Underwings on a tree, with the odd Square-Spot Rustic and Angle Shades. Much larger was an Old Lady Moth, not in great condition, but drinking eagerly.
It was now unclear which was the best spot to stake out and a couple more circuits produced a probable total of 10 Copper Underwings, a second Old Lady, and a third superbly marked one flying in and out of the Robinson trap. Common Wainscot, Setaceous Hebrew Character, White Wave, Large Yellow Underwing and the much scarcer Broad-Bordered Yellow Underwing were easily seen on the sheets. An intriguing moth proved to be a very worn Dun-Bar, rather than anything more exciting.
Several of the group left around 9.30 pm and, with things changing very little and the density of midges afflicting the throat passages around the Robinson becoming unbearable, things drew to a close at 10.30 pm.
A very successful evening, with thanks to those who came along and especially to Martin and Margaret, who live at the Holt, in tolerating, nay, facilitating, our mothing evening.
Postscript
The Robinson was allowed to shine all night and at 7 am the next morning Janice, Rachel and I opened a small actinic trap, which I had left in the reserve, as well as the reserve permanent trap and the Robinson. The result was 40 species of macro-moth, of which Common Wainscot, Setaceous Hebrew Character, Large Yellow Underwing, Common Wave and Small Square-Spot were in double figures; Square-spot Rustic and the Snout numbered over 20 and top of the pile was Green Carpet with 28 individuals. 8 micros were identified and 2 others were photographed but not yet identified … lazy me.
Mary Sarre has suggested this as an item of interest to MKNHS members. Monks Wood is a National Nature Reserve in Cambridgeshire, close to Alconbury Hill just north of Huntingdon.
Thanks to Peter Meadows for bringing to our attention this news from Beds, Cambs and Northants Wildlife Trust :
Peatland Progress Heritage Horizon Award
We are delighted to announce that the National Lottery Heritage Fund has awarded the Wildlife Trust for Bedfordshire, Cambridgeshire and Northamptonshire an £8m Heritage Horizon Award!
This funding will means that the Great Fen can expand our pioneering work of peatland preservation vital for combatting climate change and reducing carbon emissions. We will also be working closely with young people, showing them that climate change is being tackled on their doorstep and empowering them to take action.
Please see below information on the next up-and-coming Bucks Geology Group free Zoom talk on Thursday 1st July from 5-6pm
Dr Jill Eyers will be talking about “The best bits of Bucks geology “. A lively virtual field trip from top to toe of Buckinghamshire showing the best locations to see geology. The tour travels from tropical Jurassic seas to the freezing tundra of the Ice Age, and the tour bus stops at all your favourite places.
The details of the Zoom talk are copied below, please keep these somewhere safe as you will need them to log in!
Peter Meadows has suggested that the following news items from the Forest of Marston Vale (drawn from their monthly e-newsletter) may be of particular interest to members:
This should perhaps be more accurately titled ‘May bird sightings’, but there is clearly much more than birds to be seen in the park, as the second item reveals:
Dazzling dragons and damsels – a guide to these wetland wonders
A total of 11 species of dragonfly and eight damselfly species have been recorded at the park in recent years, and this article gives some information about their lifecycle, and the differences between them.
During the first three months of this year we, and of course our wildlife, have experienced a vast change in weather conditions. In January there was another “Beast from the East” causing floods locally and just a sprinkle of snow. In February “Storm Darcy” was followed by warm weather; March gave us clear blue skies and long periods of frosty nights; ending with April being recorded the driest and frostiest for 50 years.
Mammals – Otters were reported at Shenley Brook End, Linford Lakes Reserve and Simpson and in March three Roe Deer were observed near Little Linford Wood. There was also a report from a non-member that whilst travelling around the local country roads in April she counted over 20 roadkill Badgers. The Mammal Survey Group, under the direction of Carla Boswell from the Parks Trust, installed over 50 footprint tunnels around Linford Lakes Reserve to investigate the possibility of Dormice on the site. Carla took a walk around Furzton Lake and Tattenhoe Brook mid-May in the evening and recorded four species of bat; Common Pipistrelle, Soprano Pipistrelle, Noctule and Daubenton`s. Whilst checking mammal nest boxes at Little Linford Wood at the end of March, I found a single Brown Long-eared Bat. Normally they are not discovered in the boxes at that wood until May. Finally, a mink was observed at Caldecotte in April.
Butterflies and Moths- Whilst the warm, sunny days were ideal for butterflies, with Brimstone as early as February, the cold nights deterred the moths, although a Red-green Carpet Moth was reported by Andy Harding in February, a species not usually recorded until March. Owing to the continuous stretch of frosty nights in April, for the first time for many years I did not record any moths in my garden during that month.
Birds- During the first four months of this year there was a multitude of observations locally submitted to the Society`s website. Migrants such as warblers, hirundinidae and waders. For that reason, I will restrict this account to the more unusual species reported locally.
During January Great White Egrets and an Iceland Gull visited the Forest Floodplain, Caspian Gull and a Peregrine at Willen Lake, a Dartford Warbler at Hazeley Wood, a Black Redstart at Newport Pagnell, Common Crossbill and an Iceland Gull in flight over Tattenhoe, and a Great Northern Diver and Pink-footed Goose at Caldecotte.
February species included a Mandarin Duck at Willen, a possible juvenile Marsh Harrier at Linford Lakes Reserve, two Whooper Swans in flight at Gayhurst, a Caspian Gull at Caldecotte, and two Ring-necked Parakeets at Wolverton.
Unusual birds recorded locally in March included a Mediterranean Gull at the Forest Floodplain and Willen, an Osprey also at Willen, and a Brent Goose at Linford Lakes Reserve.
April produced a Siberian Chiffchaff and a Kittiwake in flight at Tattenhoe, a Hoopoe near Willen Lake, another Marsh Harrier at Linford Lakes Reserve, and a surprising Spoonbill seen in flight over Wymbush Industrial Site in Milton Keynes.
During 2019 six White-tailed Sea Eagles were released on the Isle of Wight, three remained around that area, one hit overhead cables and died, one disappeared, and one took flight. This last one was monitored with a tracking device and in 17 months covered 4900 kms. It was confirmed that during March this year that it visited Linford Lakes Reserve. Now that is a major tick!!!!!
Summer will soon be with us and I have a task for you. It would appear there are 240 species of dandelion in the UK – how many can you find?
The following information may be of interest about a new project about urban forests, woodlands and parks, which an organisation called Wild Rumpus has just launched in Milton Keynes (and eslewhere), in association with local radio stations – here, Secklow Radio 105.5. There are short talks by naturalists, as well as an opportunity to contribute sound recordings.
“We’ve brought together a network of community radio stations throughout England to broadcast a special series about urban forests and trees – looking at how important these green areas to communities living in and around towns and cities.
You can listen to the series as it goes out, via our website or tune into your local radio station, Secklow 105.5, for more info.
As part of the project, we’re creating a unique sound map of recordings from local parks, woods or forests. We’re inviting people to go to their local area of trees, record a minute of sounds on their phone and then submit it to be part of the map. It’s really easy to do and explained on the ‘Your Forest’ website https://wildrumpus.org.uk/yourforest/“
An online event aimed at those of you who’d like some positive news, which comprises a number of public events available through the Earth Optimism website – linked with Cambridge Conservation: https://www.earthoptimism.cambridgeconservation.org/
The event organisers say “In these unprecedented and difficult times, we need optimism more than ever – to uplift us, inspire us, and help us build a new path forward. The #EarthOptimism movement brings people together to talk about what’s working to protect the future of our planet. Through Earth Optimism, we invite you to learn what is working in conservation and why. Discover how every one of us can become more involved in the fight to protect the natural world.”
In early March 2018 I ‘penned’ a short note to Magpie1 about a moth, a Pale Brindled Beauty Phigalia pilosaria, which stayed in and around our porch from February 16th to March 3rd, sometimes exposed to inclement weather, but ignoring better days to fly off, until a definite thaw precipitated its departure.
This interesting (to me at least!) sequence of events has been paralleled in recent days by a different species, which stayed for 15 nights. The specific identity of this moth may give a clue to the reason for apparent inactivity, even if conditions seemed conducive to night time flight.
This year’s moth was first seen on the morning of February 21st: a Red-green Carpet Chloroclysta siterata, again adjacent to the outside porch light at around head height. Despite its strikingly vibrant green colour, I didn’t photograph it, since I have plenty of photos of the species. Had I known I was going to write this note, I would have done so!!
This individual, we can be sure, was a female. Males of this species do not survive beyond autumn, but females hibernate and expect to mate with males emerging from mid-March onwards. However this one was three weeks earlier than any I have encountered in Old Stratford in the last 12 years. So early, in fact, that when I entered the record in the 2020/2021 winter Garden Moth Survey spreadsheet, it gave me a warning that it was outside the normal flight period and the record should be checked again before confirmation.
The moth seemed not to have moved at all from night 1 to night 2, but for the next 4 nights moved a few centimetres in different directions and ended up in different attitudes on the same area of brickwork. A bright sunny afternoon then was presumed to force it inside the small porch, where it again moved nightly to different pieces of the brickwork and then to the glass on the front door. Then on March 2nd it moved to the solid (PVC) part of the front door and as far as I could tell it remained in precisely the same spot for 4 nights. After a single night back on the brickwork inside the porch, it disappeared. A check of the porch confirmed it had not simply succumbed in the porch.
The inside of the porch has a light on all night to accompany the exterior light to which it was first attracted. Maximum daytime temperatures varied from 9C to 13C and night-time minima from 5C to 0C, with frosts on three nights. During the period a very modest number of moths visited the two moth traps in the back garden (max of 4) so conditions were not entirely inimical to night-time moth flight.
So why didn’t she move any real distance. Of course, I don’t know, but here is my sixpennyworth, and this may be rubbish. Well, there are two lights very close to her position, so these might be so attractive as to ensure she did not go very far. However moths frequently pitch up adjacent to the lights in and around the porch but usually stay for just one or two nights. So I prefer the idea that this female moth instinctively ‘felt’ she had to move very little. Flight takes up energy which can be better used for egg production, so she may have been pumping our pheromones waiting to attract males, which sadly this early in the year were not likely to have emerged, or so I assume. As I complete this on March 12th we are not quite at mid-month, but soon male Red-green Carpets will be emerging. I like to think she can hang on somewhere for a few more days!
If anyone has more sensible ideas about what was going on here, please send those ideas in to webeditor@mknhs.org.uk.
Footnote: you may wonder why, although I did not photograph this moth when it first arrived, I didn’t do so when putting this little note together. While a brilliant bright green on arrival, it had lost much of its lustre in latter days, as is the way with all green moths!
Andy Harding
1 Andy’s earlier article about the Pale Brindled Beauty can be found in The Magpie April 2018
The report on The State of Britain’s Larger Moths 2021 is now available from Butterfly Conservation (link below). It summarises current knowledge of the state of Britain’s c.900 species of larger moths, presenting analyses of long-term change based on millions of records gathered through the Rothamsted Insect Survey (RIS) and National Moth Recording Scheme (NMRS).
Here’s a note taken from a Bucksbirding googlegroup posting from our County Bird Recorder about BUCKS URBAN PEREGRINE PROJECTS. This is such great news for us all, especially peregrine fans! So, we have two MK sites for people near enough to keep an eye on during local exercise walks and a webcam hopefully coming on stream at Aylesbury again that we’ll all be able to watch from the comfort of home. [Sue Hetherington]
I thought I’d bring you up to speed with our breeding/ territorial Peregrines as I’m sure we could all do with some positive news during these tough times.
StadiumMK
Pair in residence and little doubt they’ll utilise the platform inside.
Old Wolverton
On-going project to erect a platform on the chimney, currently at the meetings and planning stage, hopefully progress soon.
Aylesbury
New cameras are being purchased, one with sound and both with night vision. With the kind assistance of a local ‘internet’ firm we hope to have these up and running and a nice clean platform within a couple of weeks. I’ll update when there’s developments.
Marlow (Church)
Project being run by ‘Wild Marlow’, a platform is currently being constructed and the plan is to have camera’s on that too.You will not be able to see the platform from the outside.
High Wycombe (Church)
Project with Dave Parmenter, we added some gravel to a hoped for nest site last year, and have plans to improve the site but Church currently closed due to the pandemic.
There are Peregrines, including pairs at other sites in the county. A favoured nest site in rural areas is pylons (old crows nests), so please be careful when submitting records to GoingBirding database at times when the species is not ‘blocked’.
Putting a record in for the site/ area can be really useful, but if there’s a pair around then please leave out- Pylon.
I have loved having my allotment over the past 10 years or so since I retired at 60, and during lockdown it’s been my space for respite and recovery. It’s a place for me to get away from the dreariness and despondency of lockdown, long days with long patches of thinking “how can I fill my time?”. Actually I’ve always used my allotment to boost my mood; the only thing that changed during lockdown was that I decided not to plant up my greenhouse in 2020, just in case we were required to abandon visiting our plots (by government edict).
Also in my retirement I have always used my plot for ongoing exercise, in preference to housework, and in addition it has the advantage of being more productive! It’s also an opportunity to be sociable and to be as creative as I can to help wildflowers and wild animals. For me that includes wildlife-friendly veg and flower growing – I mix them together.
When I visit my allotment I generally take a book or magazine with me and a flask of tea. If I need to go shopping in Stony I often buy a newspaper and walk home to my house, by a slightly longer route … visiting my allotment on the way, pausing to read the paper whilst I am there. So as you can see, I’ve used my plot for recreation for a long time before the Coronavirus pandemic.
Usually I have a designated allotment bag by my front door with stuff to take to the plot on my next visit, e.g. vegetable waste for the compost bin, seedlings or seeds and sometimes a tool or two that’s usually kept at home. I frequently push a full wheelbarrow to and fro with potting compost, seedtrays and pots!
I operate a ‘no chemicals’ plot and have developed my own ‘no dig’ allotment project using green manure (especially phacelia) all the year round, and generally after clearing a crop. It stops the weeds and the insects love it. Some would say that the way I treat self-sown Swiss chard and Lambs lettuce are just like a green manure … but hey! they are deliciously edible and free too.
I always have a ‘fallow area’ for wildlife around raspberry canes and/or my strawberry bed with its mulch of straw from last year. I also generally leave just the last few of last year’s un-harvested parsnips and onions which have lovely flower heads and enhance insect life in spring.
Couch grass is a nuisance but I treat it as my rotation task each year; there is always a newly established area that it has invaded. I might put down cardboard to suppress it a bit and then I do have to dig or find a friend to help, as my back can’t stand the strain.
I usually put early potatoes in the former couch grass/newly dug over areas. Then I choose an area for legumes and plant climbing French beans, a few runners and token peas (usually sugar snap, as my grandsons love them for eating on plot). I try sowing roots – just a few carrots and parsnips, plus a few salad crops and most years I grow maize/sweet corn and buy in tomato plants and aubergines if I’m using the greenhouse. In mid-summer I search for brassicas and plant-out purple sprouting broccoli and most years I plant broad beans in the autumn for an early spring crop.
Flowers that I grow on the allotment to attract in the pollinators are self-sown chamomile and feverfew, borage (which grows like the plague but is wonderful for insects), sweet peas, dahlias, gladioli, verbena bonariensis, California poppy and nasturtiums. Oh and cardoons, a giant thistle-like plant that I grow in a dust bin!
I aim to dead head the ‘weed’ flowers before they set seed to keep my neighbours happy. I use hedge clippers and sometimes a high cut with my strimmer to do this but I am very careful if I use the strimmer and often use a rake to clear a bit first to give any small mammals due warning.
Last summer Andy Harding used pheromone traps in amongst the fruit bushes to lure in male clearwings with some good success (see previous article on this website). He says he will be back next year to hunt for more moths in the area of our old apple trees.
I often come across toads when I am working on the allotment and a young hedgehog was found on the site last year. Overhead we often see red kites and buzzards riding the thermals and we had a sighting of two ring-necked parakeets flying across the allotments this January.
During the first lockdown I donated quite a few plants to the Freebies table, near the Orchard. As my plot is so close to the table I often get first pick when other plot holders come over to donate and often they have a socially-distanced chat with me.
So my allotment helps me to keep positive at this difficult time, provides me with physical exercise, lovely organic food, company and the joy of knowing that it benefits wildlife as well.
The Duke of Burgundy Hamearis Lucina is the only European member of a large family of butterflies known as metalmarks – the Riodininae. In South America, these butterflies can be found in great diversity and numbers and species typically have iridescent, metallic colouring or patches on their upper wings. By contrast, the Duke of Burgundy is a rather modest insect with its chequered brown and black wings.
In England, this is an insect of sheltered, sunny hillsides and woodland clearings with abundant primrose or cowslip, which are its two larval foodplants. It has suffered a serious decline in Britain and is now considered a very rare species thinly distributed across southern England. However, a strong population is present at Totternhoe Knolls and Totternhoe Quarry and there are several populations in the Chiltern Hills. The species was lost at BBOWT’s Dancersend reserve but a re-introduction project, led by Mick Jones, is underway.
In early Summer 2018, a local naturalist told me that he had seen several Dukes (the popular shorthand) at Blue Lagoon LNR. Although I know Kevin to be knowledgeable about butterflies, I was sceptical at first and failed to find any when I visited Blue Lagoon in good weather. I did find the Latticed Heath moth, which is quite similar in appearance from a distance. I didn’t forget though and was delighted to find 3 Duke of Burgundy here on 26th May 2019 (rather late in their short flight season). One of these was clearly a male, typically aggressive towards any other passing butterflies and insects. They are pugnacious little creatures and will defend their favourite perch from anything that flies past. I was able to photograph both male and female Duke of Burgundy on this visit. The flight season in 2020 coincided with the first national Covid lockdown and although the weather was good throughout April I did not visit. Eventually, I did get to Blue Lagoon on 21st May. I did wonder if I might be too late given the high temperatures last spring, but fortunately I was able to locate two butterflies quite quickly. The area favoured by the Dukes seems to be the scrubby grassland to the south-east of the main pit.
Sadly, much of the habitat at Blue Lagoon has suffered in recent years from a lack of management. Several plant species have declined or been lost and with them some of the butterflies for which the site was known. The Green Hairstreak is still present but hard to find, the Small Blue much less frequent than in the past and the Grizzled Skipper has possibly disappeared. The discovery of the rare Duke of Burgundy is at least some compensation for these declines but it is crucial that management of the scrub resumes in the near future if one of Milton Keynes’ best spots for Lepidtoptera is to recover.
There are no records for Duke of Burgundy for Milton Keynes before 2018. It is possible that the species found its way here naturally from Totterhoe but we can’t rule out an unlicensed release.
My interest in this curious plant has been stimulated in the last couple of years, by coming across several occurrences locally, in Milton Keynes. This seemed to me quite odd, as I associate mistletoe with the apple orchards of the south-west, the orchards of Normandy, and poplar trees festooned with it in France (seen from the Autoroute).
So here is a little contribution to the botany of mistletoe, its distribution and association with certain birds, traditional beliefs and folklore, and some sightings here in MK.
Viscum album, to give it its Latin name, is a good indicator of its characteristics – it has the well-known white berries, which are viscous (sticky), in winter, giving rise to its traditional association with mid-winter festivities. White-berried plants are unusual except in MK where the ‘snowberry’ (symphoricarpus) is used massively in grid-road plantings. Whether the snowberries are consumed by birds I don’t know, but the flowers do attract pollinating insects. Mistletoe is dioecious, i.e. having male and female parts on different plants. The leaves and stems are light green, typically branched at each node, producing a new ‘fork’ each year.
Viscum album by Stella Ross-Craig, 1969 (see references below)
Mistletoe is semi-parasitic on a range of trees, but the main ones are Apple (Malus), Lime (Tilia), Pear (Pyrus), Hawthorn (Crataegus) and Poplar (Populus), occurring in orchards, hedgerows, parks and gardens. It is not generally found in dense woodland (Simon Harrap, 2013).
Mistletoe occurs chiefly in the south of England and Wales, in lowland areas. It is spreading from the old orchards of its Herefordshire heartland to different species of trees in parks and gardens in Hereford, Ledbury, Bridgnorth and Westbury-on-Trym (Mabey, Flora Britannica). South Bucks and Hampshire are also ‘hot spots’.
Dispersal
In medieval times mistletoe seemed ‘magical’ in its appearance high in the host trees, evergreen and of a curious growth habit, appearing to spontaneously sprout from the tree. For centuries, mistletoe retained its magical, folkloric associations (see Richard Mabey for a wide-ranging account), and today its medicinal properties are still under investigation.
It was Philip Miller, curator of the Chelsea Physic Garden, who discovered that mistletoe could be established by smearing the sticky seed onto a suitable branch.
However, it is famously resistant to propagation by human hands (“none of the seeds placed on 14 different apple species in Kew Gardens in 1996 ‘took’ but one grew on an adjacent Hawthorn”. (Dr Ken Thompson, Gardening Which?, December 2020).
For long it has been assumed that the Mistle Thrush (Turdus viscivorus) was the primary disperser of the berries, as it attempts to remove the mucilaginous outer coat of the berry, raking its beak along a branch of the tree, and leaving its droppings in the tree.
Mistle Thrush ‘guarding’ his patch (Photo courtesy of The Woodland Trust)
To quote Dr Ken Thompson again, it appears that the Blackcap may now be a more effective distributor of mistletoe. He notes that the mistle thrush swallows the berries whole, and ejects the seeds randomly in its droppings. The Blackcap however eats only the skin and pulp of the seeds, wiping the sticky seeds off their beaks onto a branch. Once the seed is attached to a suitable branch, it sends out a ‘root’, a ’haustorium’ which penetrates the xylem of its host. The seeds are photosynthetic, so they need to be in the light.
Blackcaps, formerly mostly a summer visitor, are now frequently spotted in UK in winter (MKNHS sightings, November 2020). According to an article by Helen MacDonald, in Vesper Flights, German Blackcaps that have started spending winters here rather than in Africa may be directly responsible for spreading mistletoe to new areas of the British Isles. Which brings us back to our local area.
Local distribution
My notes cannot claim to be exclusive, and I would welcome any sightings from members. The first time I saw any mistletoe was in Great Linford Manor Park, a couple of years ago, in the venerable old lime tree near the canal. There are two balls/orbs high in the tree, obviously more visible in winter time (the park is open all year round). Julian Lambley drew my attention to another occurrence – in Simpson village – several orbs in two old Lime trees. This made me wonder if the canal and the Ouzel valley could be the ‘corridor’ for extending the range of the Blackcap or Mistle Thrush.
A last sighting, in Central Milton Keynes, possibly on a young lime tree gave me pause – perhaps the mistletoe was ‘injected’ on a limb before planting, or a human hand was involved?
Mary Sarre
January 2021
Sources
Dr Ken Thompson, Plant ecologist, (Gardening Which?, Dec 2020 / Jan 2021)
Richard Mabey, Flora Britannica (Sinclair-Stevenson, 1996)
Stella Ross-Craig, Drawings of British Plants, Vol XXVI (Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, 1969)
Helen Macdonald, Vesper Flights (Jonathan Cape, 2020)
Simon Harrap, Harrap’s Wild Flowers (Bloomsbury, 2013)
On 11th December whilst walking in Salcey Forest I saw a toadstool that was a bit different to others I had seen around the place. On closer inspection I realised that it was attracting large numbers of gnats (probably a type of fungus gnat). I took some photos and sent them to a very helpful lady at Bucks Fungus Group.
Penny Cullington very kindly had a go at identifying several fungi that I have photographed but she always makes it clear that she cannot identify a fungus from a photo and would need the actual specimen to make a definite identification. I am always rather loath to uproot anything as even a toadstool, which is only the fruiting body of the fungal mycelia underground, is still providing a habitat for something even if it’s only a tiny gnat!
Penny was interested in the darker spots around the rim of the cap and thought that it might be something rather rare, as there have been quite a few unusual fungi around this year, but she needed to know when the photo was taken, what trees were nearby, did it have gills or spores and if gills what colour they were, etc. After providing her with this information, she was still only guessing so on our next visit to Salcey I finally relented, uprooted it and took it home.
Once I had harvested the toadstool you could see the white spores actually tucked inside the gills of the cap (see below). Interestingly, I also noticed two little parasitic wasps on the cap which I assume were parasites of the gnat larvae (?) – another link in the chain of woodland life.
On Penny’s advice I carried out the following two procedures.
Sporeprint: Cut off the cap from the stem at the top. Set the cap gills-down on a piece of dark paper and cover it with a pot / bowl/ whatever to keep air currents out and leave it overnight somewhere cool (not in the fridge!). Next day, check to see if you have a thick deposit (we’re guessing it’s going to be pale cream to white, hence putting it on dark paper otherwise you won’t be able to see it!)
Drying: Now cut the cap into quarters and, together with the stem, put it spread out a bit gills up in the airing cupboard over the top of the hot water tank is ideal. The air needs to circulate around it so it’s best put on wire mesh – something like a cake-cooling rack as long as it’s not going to fall through! Then forget about it till after Christmas!
I managed to get a lovely sporeprint. I then cut it all up and dried it as requested and sent it to Penny.
Disappointingly, on receiving the sporeprint with its white spores and the dried material Penny now thinks it is most likely to be Clitocybe geotropa, the very common Trooping Funnel, and not the Clitocybe alexandri (now Clitopaxillus alexandri) which has only been recorded a few times in the country. She still says that she might send it off for DNA sequencing which is the next step for a definite diagnosis but I doubt that will change anything.
To be honest, it was what I suspected all along so I wasn’t surprised but I did find the whole process fascinating, from seeing the gnats swarming round the toadstool, to the process of getting a sporeprint and the final drying of the toadstool in my partner’s airing cupboard!! I will definitely try the sporeprints again in the future but still baulk at harvesting too many toadstools as they look so fabulous nestled amongst the leaf litter where they should be.
With many thanks for the help and advice from Penny Cullington of the Bucks Fungus Group. She’s the Secretary of the group and also the county recorder for fungi, so if you’d like more information about the group and its activities visit their website at www.bucksfungusgroup.org.uk/index.html.
Autumn has been generally mild locally but with heavy rain and floods in October and December. However, this has not discouraged members of our Society from exploring the local countryside and enjoying and recording the local wildlife.
This is a summary of members` observations noted mainly on the Society`s website from September to December.
Insects: Autumn is not normally associated with an abundance of insects, particularly bees, but in September Martin Kincaid observed the Ivy Bee feeding, appropriately, on ivy flowers in his garden at Oldbrook. This bee was only first recorded in the south of the country in 2001, and since then has spread further north. This encouraged members to search around this area and we had further reports from Olney and Stony Stratford. In October, Martin discovered a nest of the Ivy bee in the ground at Stonepit Field.
It is not uncommon to find 7-spot Ladybirds in groups in winter but a cluster of over 150 16-spot ladybirds was recorded at Wolverton Mill in December. Gordon Redford regularly provides monthly reports of the moths found at Linford Lakes Nature Reserve and even in November he still recorded a total of130 moths of 21 species.
Mammals: Otters have been regularly observed in local lakes this autumn, particularly Willen Lake, Linford Lakes Nature Reserve and in the River Ouzel in the Ouzel Valley Park, During October there was a report of an otter beside the canal at New Bradwell, then heading towards the balancing lake at Blue Bridge. In the middle of November there was also a report of a dead otter beside Childs Way, which passes beside Willen South Lake. During September there was a mink observed by Willen North Lake and 10 Chinese Water Deer seen at Magna Park.
Earlier in the year the group that record different species of mammal at Linford Lakes NR installed some more mammal nest boxes {the hole at the back not at the front as with bird nest boxes}. During late September there was a suspected dormouse nest in one of the newly installed boxes. In October Martin Kincaid inspected the box only to record what was believed to be a dormouse escaping.
Reptiles: There have been several reports of grassnake found this autumn and a young slow-worm was recorded in September at Linford Lakes NR. Whilst we are still waiting for the adder to be confirmed in the Milton Keynes boundaries, they were recorded last October in Stockwell Park.
Fungi: Autumn is a great time of the year for recording fungi and the Bucks Fungus Group (BFG) undertook a species count project during this period. It was encouraging to learn that they recorded 500 species, 32 species new to the county and at least 2 new to the UK {see the BFG’s article on the Society`s website}.
Birds: Autumn is also the time of the year for observing an abundance of bird species; and this was no exception. Several special birds such as goosander, short-eared owls, large white egrets {4 seen at once at Linford Lakes Reserve in November}, a cattle egret and even a pair of ring-necked parakeet have been observed in several areas during this time around Milton Keynes.
During September wood sandpiper, ruff and a redstart were recorded at Willen together with hawfinch and common crossbill at Tattenhoe. October attracted a ruddy duck at the Floodplain Forest NR, Old Wolverton; a mandarin duck and Egyptian goose at Linford Lakes NR, and a lesser spotted woodpecker and a yellow-browed warbler at Tattenhoe.
Highlights during November also included two ravens at Newport Pagnell, a common scoter at the Blackhorse Lake (next to the Linford Lakes reserve), and a great northern diver and an escapee Ross`s goose at Caldecotte Lake. The lesser spotted woodpecker was again recorded at Little Linford Wood. During this month Kenny Cramer, whilst bird ringing at Linford Lakes, recorded a long-eared owl. Records in December included a bittern at Linford Lakes, white-fronted geese and a possible Bewick’s swan at the Floodplain Forest reserve, and bearded tit at both Willen and Walton Lakes.
These records, collected mostly by members of the Society, are proof that during these present restrictions there is plenty of wildlife to enjoy. So, wrap up, exercise those legs, and enjoy the abundance of wildlife locally. Spring is not far away.
A photographer friend has also recommended the Nature 365 website to me. When you sign up you will receive one email a day for the whole of 2021 showing a video clip of wildlife in Minnesota and elsewhere around the world.
The following link gives a flavour of what to expect: https://www.nature365.tv/video/2021-01-14-hokkaido
Alternatively, go to the Nature 365 website, and select ‘Archives’, where you will find the video clips so far posted this year.
I am looking forward to it and think it is something that others might enjoy as well. We all need uplifting moments in nature at present and as we can’t travel far from our local patch this is a way of escaping into the wild without actually leaving our homes.
Some 41 years ago my wife Hilary and I had the opportunity to plan our garden from scratch: the area was an arable field growing barley immediately before development took place in the south west quadrant of Stony Stratford. The soil is a heavy loam over clay and is slightly alkaline. The original plan was not strongly influenced by the needs of wildlife but fortuitously it did include flower- and fruit-producing shrubs and trees (cotoneaster, pyracanthus, crab apple, holly, bird cherry, apple and plum) as well as buddleia and sycamores on one boundary (the last courtesy of MK Development Corporation). For the rest, it was planned as a conventional lawn with small flower beds and vegetable plot. The shrubs and trees are mostly still extant and have proven to be a good investment for wildlife providing cover and attracting winter bird species such as resident and winter visiting thrushes, tits, sparrows, finches, an occasional redpoll, and for one memorable period in spring 2017 a small flock of Waxwings. In spring and early summer, the blossom is also good for insects of all sorts particularly bees and bumble bees: the trees are visited by other common woodland garden birds all year round.
Gardens evolve over time and ivy has established itself as an important additional species for wildlife. Planned changes have seen the vegetable plot added to the lawn and the flower beds reduce in area as the shrubs and trees become dominant. It is the lawn itself which has taken my main garden attention over the past 20 years.
From lawn to mini ‘meadow’
Garden lawns grown from seed are usually made up of a limited range of the coarser grass species. My aim in converting to a meadow ecosystem was to increase the biodiversity of the area with more species of flowering plants, which in turn would attract more invertebrates (butterflies, moths, bees, beetles, grasshoppers, spiders, snails, slugs, and more), and again in turn more vertebrates (frogs, toads, and newts), and their predators (I do not have a pond so I must thank two of my neighbours for the semi-aquatic species). The main top predators to date have been birds, bats, Grass Snake (just once), and the occasional Hedgehog – a mini food chain. ‘Meadow’ is not a precise term but mine now provides some succession of flowering plants alongside the grasses over the early spring to September period: one area is in semi shade under fruit trees and the other in full sun with a mown lawn path between them.
It is an option to just let nature take its course and see what happens once you stop mowing and fertilising the lawn. My first venture into creating a meadow area was driven by a wish to include Snakeshead Lily (Fritillaries) which were purchased in flower and put into the ground during April. Some ten plants in flower were dug into the lawn in semi shade and these have multiplied very successfully from their seed since then. I have had similar successes with planting flowering Cowslips and Primrose; less so with Ragged Robin and Meadow Cranesbill, but I keep trying. In other cases. I have introduced wild seed either in the autumn or early spring having first scraped the lawn with a rake. The one ‘must have’ species is Yellow Rattle which will help to control the dominance of the existing grasses on which it is semi-parasitic.
I have been surprised by the variety of what appears on its own account. For example, Ox-eye Daisy, Sweet Violet, Germander Speedwell, Bulbous Buttercup, Self-Heal, Black Meddick, Cut-Leaved Cranesbill, Common Vetch, Marjoram, Knapweed and Wild Carrot have all established themselves without intervention. Others have appeared and, disappointingly so far, then disappeared including Bee Orchid, Pyramidal Orchid, Twayblade and Lady’s Bedstraw.
The succession with overlaps between them starts in early spring with Sweet Violet and Primrose; April, Snakeshead Fritillary; Cowslip in May; Ox Eye Daisy, Bulbous Buttercup, Yellow Rattle, Self-Heal and grasses through late May, June to early July; and finally, Wild Carrot and Knapweed through to September.
Depending on the weather I usually mow over the meadow areas not later than early March on a high setting. During the growing season I try to balance the need for ‘weeds’ to be controlled while at the same time avoiding trampling on the species I am trying to encourage! So, what is a ‘weed’ in a garden meadow? Since the primary objective is biodiversity I consider as a weed any species that will dominate if not controlled. This includes some of the coarse grasses even with Yellow Rattle well established (e.g. Rye Grass and Cocksfoot), Ragwort, Common Cleavers, Dandelion, and tree seedlings. In fact the plant which has proved most difficult to control is a highly invasive garden geranium species!
I cut the meadow after the seeds have set. For early flowering plants like the fritillaries this may be mid-July but for others it will be from mid-August to early September. Before cutting I collect the seed of those plants which I want to spread elsewhere. As to cutting, my preferred method is with shears on hands and knees. This has a number of advantages: you can control the height at which you cut; there is less ‘collateral’ damage to wildlife in the meadow (e.g. resident frogs); and it also allows selective removal of the ‘weeds’ that I have been unable deal with during the growing period. I let the cut material dry off for further seed fall and then compost. I do a high cut mow over the area during September and October before winter sets in.
Find out more and give it a try
Julie Lane offered some very helpful generic advice on Gardening for Wildlife on the website as a follow up to the 17th November Members’ evening on this topic. There is also much published material about gardening for wildlife and if you are interested in creating your own mini meadow you may want to follow one of these up (e.g. https://rspb.org.uk/get-involved/startawildlfowermeadow or just put ‘RSPB start a wildflower meadow’ in your search engine). It really can make a difference to your garden’s biodiversity and whilst it is not maintenance-free, it is for no better cause!
Obviously not a swift (they will be somewhere over central African airspace) but a blue tit! We have a nestcam fitted which in the swift season we monitor constantly but have never had a sniff of a swift. However, this little fella comes at dusk and leaves at daybreak. Pay no attention to the timestamp on the picture, it isn’t right but we can’t figure how to change it. This pic was grabbed a couple of mornings ago at daybreak, just before it flew.
Peter Meadows has suggested the following may be of interest to members:
The latest newsletter from the Forest of Marston Vale contains news of their tree planting plans, including two new sites adjacent to Houghton House (between Ampthill and Houghton Conquest), as part of the government’s Trees for Climate progamme. These will comprise a total of 54 hectares, the first 16ha site being planted with native trees and shrubs by March 2021. See: https://www.marstonvale.org/news/trees-for-climate-launch
And Bedfordshire, Cambridgeshire and Northants Wildlife Trust latest news contains news of ‘an exciting new landscape project’: Bedfordshire Chalkscapes. “The Chilterns Conservation Board has been awarded £232,600 of development funding by The National Lottery Heritage Fund to design Chalkscapes. This exciting new landscape project looks to inspire a wide range of communities in Central Beds, Luton and Herts to take action for nature and wildlife. You can read more at: https://www.wildlifebcn.org/news/bedfordshire-chalkscapes
Extract from a recent email sent by Penny Cullington to members of Bucks Fungus Group, of which MKNHS is one:
Though the group’s activities have been somewhat curtailed this year I just wanted to alert everyone to the amazing achievement of those members who’ve been contributing to our Members’ Finds Autumn 2020 project, ongoing since the beginning of September online. We seem to have reached the staggering total of 500 different species all photographed across the county!
Contributions have been sent in by 34 members, mostly requiring identification by me (with Derek’s advice at times), sometimes named by the sender either with or without the use of a scope and then confirmed by me, a few collections have even required molecular sequencing and have proved to be exciting finds. May I thank all of you who’ve sent me photos – it’s been a fascinating exercise which I’ve much enjoyed. On our lengthy list we have many species previously recorded only once or twice in Bucks, 32 species entirely new to the overall county list, two of which are now molecularly proven to be new to the UK and several more awaiting testing may prove to be equally significant. Wow, what an autumn season!
Dreaming of a holiday next year or perhaps just a nice day out? A selection of wildlife venues recommended by our members at the members evening on Tuesday 8th December is available to download through the following link:
Over the past few years we have developed the routine of walking the 4.6 mile circuit around Salcey Forest twice a week. This has been great for our fitness but has also meant that we get to see the forest in all its seasons.
Last winter was a bit devastating as they took 4000 tonnes of timber (a lot of it oak) out of the forest. The huge machines they use for this operation create so much damage and destruction and it was heart-breaking to witness. However, nature is so good at recovering and the extra light allowed into the canopy seemed to have provided opportunities for quite a lot of insects, especially butterflies, to thrive this summer. There were good numbers of silver-washed fritillaries, skippers, whites and speckled woods around and I saw a clouded yellow down one of the rides at the same time as a veritable swarm of hornets!
But I thought I would share with you a few of the autumn highlights in picture format as follows:
the trooping funnel toadstool which get its name as it tends to pop up in lines around the wood
a very large pumpkin dumped in the wood to feed the wild creatures 🙂
the red necklace beads of black bryony
the stunning pink berries of spindle with their bright orange seeds
a fallen oak leaf with its droplets of water
and finally, a harbinger of the Spring and happier times to come – the first hazel catkins
Following Tuesday’s members evening exploring how to make our gardens even better for wildlife I have put together a summary of our discussion, some ideas of my own and a few useful links and recommendations of books. Thank you to all the people who contributed and sent me information and thoughts afterwards. Please feel free to write in (via the Contact us link) and tell us about your own personal gardens and what you are doing to make them more wildlife friendly and include some photos. It will be a way of bringing a taste of spring and summer into our lockdown lives.
One of our members suggested that we could put together a list of ‘Star’ plants for wildlife so I would be very interested to hear about your favourite plant. Ann suggested ivy and comfrey and mine would be pulmonaria officinalis (common lungwort).
Martin K told me about a course run by the Field Studies Council on ‘Garden wildlife health, and what citizen science can tell us about the importance of gardens for biodiversity’. Here is the webpage: https://www.field-studies-council.org/biolinks-courses/
Sue sent me the following book recommendations:
The Royal Horticultural Society Companion to Wildlife Gardening by Chris Baines which is a revised edition of How to Make a Wildlife Garden. Published 2016, Frances Lincoln Publishers Ltd. (Currently out of print.)
Wild your Garden by “The Butterfly Brothers” (Jim and Joel Ashton). Published 2020, Dorling Kindersley.
Members Garden visits
It was mentioned that Joe Clinch has a lovely meadow in his garden in Stony Stratford and as I also know that there are others living in Stony with lovely gardens I wondered if it might be possible for us to have a day next summer when we can organise a visit to a few of these gardens. Joe has kindly offered for us to come and have a wander around his garden.
A summary of our thoughts during Tuesday’s discussion
Thanks to Mervyn and Martin F for taking notes.
Hedgehogs
It is especially important to set up hedgehog highways – small holes under fence. They don’t need to be big – 13cm x 13cm is recommended.
Hedgehogs love fallen fruit from fruit trees
Purpose-built homes for wildlife
Mixed success with swift boxes and artificial house martin nests. Swift boxes are often not occupied but they might take a few years to move in. They are often used by other birds such as starlings and sparrows. It was suggested that one could block the access until later on in the year when the swifts arrive. Artificial martin nests can be useful to attract martins into the eaves even if they don’t actually use the nests but build a nest alongside – they are communal nesters so are attracted to eaves with nests already present.
We also talked about bat boxes and it seemed that these too have limited use by bats.
Meadows
It was suggested that you can simply add seed to existing grass sward (this is not always particularly successful as the ranker grasses can out compete the resulting small seedlings)
Can provide useful cover for frogs, newts and grass snakes.
Ponds
Best times to clear out a pond is the autumn.
One member had obtained a good pond kit from the RSPB
Plants to grow
Ivy for pollen and berries and cover.
Holly for berries
Comfrey for nectar – it is also the food plant for the scarlet tiger moth
Pyracantha,
Cotoneaster,
Crab apple variety golden hornet
Fruit trees
Rowan for flowers and berries
General tips
Climbers are good for birds’ nests.
You can work with your neighbours in providing a range of habitats and sharing your interests
Sheds without windows can provide very good nest sites.
Can leave out chicken bones etc for foxes (this might cause a problem with rats!)
Wood mice love runner beans.
When tidying up for winter don’t overdo it: especially in green houses and sheds, there may be nooks and crannies which are hibernating places so be careful not to disturb.
Avoiding everything harmful to wildlife: one member stressed the need to avoid the use of chemicals in gardens. Also take care with netting.
Seeing wildlife: One member has recently used a wildlife camera to identify which animals are using his garden and was disappointed with the result – Identifying a rat, a cat and a wood pigeon J Although one member regularly saw foxes and badgers in his garden.
Birds such as robins and blackbirds can become very tame if fed – they love mealworms.
Rotted wood chip provides a good home for newts and frogs.
Nest boxes – pros and cons of different heights. Safety from cats and other ground predators.
Challenges
Corvids taking bird food and predating on birds’ nests
Several people are finding that they have fewer or no frogs in their gardens but more newts.
The right location for bug hotels is important – sunny is best?
Below are a selection of notes that I prepared for Tuesday. I thought they might be useful for others to read:
Introduction
So can we really make a difference to the fortunes of wildlife in our gardens?
Dr Jennifer Owen systematically recorded every living thing in her suburban Leicester garden from 1972 over a thirty year period and found 2,673 species including 7 insects new to the UK, 4 of which were new to science.
The presence of this huge diversity has been backed up by an increasing body of work and as the nation’s gardens cover about 4300square kilometres we can actually provide homes for a whole host of wildlife if we so choose.
This past year has demonstrated to many of us how much we need our outside spaces and how much healing and joy they provide in a restricted world.
There does not need to be a conflict between our personal requirements in a garden and those of wildlife – a well-designed and planned garden can cater for both. Diversity is important in terms of different habitats, having flowers and berries available for as long a season as possible and providing nooks and crannies for a wide variety of creatures to inhabit.
If you don’t have a garden then allotments are another option offering you the chance to manage a bit of space for your own personal produce but also for wildlife.
Gardens can be complex habitats and as we have designed them to provide shelter from the elements for ourselves so they provide shelter to many creatures. Many bird species now find refuge in gardens as the wider countryside is no longer so hospitable for them. Amphibians such as frogs, newts and grass snakes also often use garden ponds as these habitats are rapidly disappearing in the countryside.
Diversity and Design
Different features we could have for wildlife in a garden.
Ponds, bog gardens, water and drinking baths, spring and summer meadows, flowery lawns, beds for arable weeds, hedges, trees, shrubs, fences and walls covered in climbers, piles of stones or stone walls etc., log piles, compost heaps, leaf bins, homes for wildlife (hedgehog houses, bee and bug hotels, bird and bat boxes ) bird feeders, vegetable plots or allotments
If you were starting from scratch how could you create a strong design with wildlife in mind (what to put where, different garden shapes and sizes)?
Try to create a strong design on paper first so that the garden is pleasing on the eye and covers all the requirements you have for a garden as well as the wildlife (make a list first). Think about shapes, sightlines and divide the garden into rooms if you have the space. Try to have the wilder areas away from the house and at the edges of the garden but try to link up these habitats so that there are corridors between them. Think about the animals you are trying to attract and consider what they need for food, drink, shelter from weather and predators, safe places to have their young etc.
Meadows and flowery lawns
What are the different ways in which meadows and flowery lawns are important for wildlife? Pollen and nectar for insects, food for insect larvae etc, cover and food for small mammals, amphibians, they improve the soil therefore good for soil invertebrates
Types of meadow – spring (containing spring flowers and bulbs), summer (late summer flowering plants) and flowery lawns.
Establishment (soil fertility, seeding versus plugs plants or leaving to colonise naturally). Meadows establish better on poorer soils but if you have a fertile soil you can still have a meadow but you need to establish strong growing plants and introduce yellow rattle. Plug plants work best on rich soils but seed works on poor soils. Flowery lawns tend to be colonised naturally by flowering plants.
Management (when to cut, how much and what to cut with) Spring cut in June, summer cut in September. And remove all cuttings to reduce fertility – into a heap for grass snakes. Leave some areas long each year for butterfly larvae and cover. Use shears, a hand scythe or a reciprocating mower depending on area to be cut.
Plants to include for spring and summer – primroses, snakes-head fritillaries, cowslips, bugle, for spring. scabious, oxeye daisies, knapweed, meadow cranesbill for summer
Providing for wildlife all year round
Food – Bird seed especially important in winter and spring, hedgehog food especially important in spring, in dry spells and in autumn, plants for nectar and pollen for as long as possible throughout the year, berries for hungry winter birds. Lawns are good for worms and cranefly grubs etc. Do not use herbicides or pesticides as the balance will be upset and pests will become a problem.
Homes – trees, climbers and shrubs for nests, ponds, log piles, messy quiet corners, bird boxes,
Plants to grow for nectar pollen and berries – ivy is one of the best but it has to be left to fruit, wild flowers generally better for nectar and pollen but single flowers better than compound (some ornamental varieties don’t have any nectar or pollen).
Ponds and other water features
What are the different uses that wildlife has for water? Why is water so important. To drink, to live in either permanently or for some of the time, to bathe in, for catching prey.
List of possible ways to bring water into a garden. Ponds, bog gardens, water baths, moving water. The greater the number and variety the better.
Management of ponds (algae, invasive or alien plants). Only fill up and top up with rain water or algae becomes a problem, floating plants cut out the light to algae and oxygenating plants in the water reduce the nutrients. Lists of invasive plants online.
How to make the best wildlife ponds (location, profile of pond, plants). Best in the sun and away from shade and leaves falling in, but near cover, profile best with a big shallow end and a smaller deep end. Plants depend on size of pond – list online.
Finally, here’s a photo of Jenny’s allotment, for inspiration!
I was quite surprised to find this insect on the pavement of my street in Freiburg. It’s a Praying Mantis! My son Chris (who kept one as a pet a while ago) declares it an “adult, because it has wings”. Unfortunately it’s dead, but then I know they only live one short season anyway.
Freiburg is in southern Germany, and we are close to the vineyards at Baden-Württemberg where these insects are quite common. But I had never seen one here before. Will definitely look out for them next summer!
October, 2020 was a very poor month indeed for moths at Linford Lakes Nature Reserve (LLNR) with just 136 moths of 28 species visiting the traps there. In recent years, when similar traps have been in use, there have been on average 450 moths of 40 species for the October counts. The wet and windy weather will have played a part not least because they caused the level in the lake to rise and make the electricity supply to one trap inoperative. On another trap, the 125W Mercury vapour bulb blew presumably because of contact with rain as the bulb was covered. It was a particularly windy night so rain may have been blown onto the bulb, causing it to blow.
These things notwithstanding, 4 of the 28 species recorded were new to the October moths list for LLNR which has been compiled over the past 8 years and which now stands at 84. None though were new to the site.
The ‘new to the month’ moths were 2 micro moths and 2 macro moths although the micro moths were far from small in size. The micros were Palpita vitrealis and the Boxworm Moth. P.vitrealis featured in the previous report for September where there is a photograph and some information. The Boxworm Moth has a forewing length of 18mm!
Boxworm Moth
The Boxworm moth is an interesting one because it is a native of East Asia and is thought to have been introduced to this country on imported Box plants which the caterpillars feed on. The moth was first recorded in Kent in 2007 and is now increasing in frequency. I have 8 records on my data base with 4 from my garden in Newport Pagnell (2018, 2019 and 2020), 1 from Westbury Farm (2020) and 3 from LLNR (all 2020). It is a pest species on Box.
The Macro moths new to the October list were Gold Spot and December Moth and one was making a late appearance and the other an early one. The Gold Spot is the one turning up later than usual and was recorded on 20th October. I do have another October record for this moth, in my garden in 2018 on 2nd October.
Gold Spot
The Gold Spot is a moth of the wetlands and has 2 broods in the south of England with the moth on the wing late May-June and late July-September. There are a scattering of records in the new Atlas of Britain and Ireland’s Larger Moths for October. The caterpillars also feed on sedges, Yellow Iris, Branched Bur-reed and Water-plantain. It will be interesting to see if these occasional October records continue.
The December Moth which was recorded on 29th October. All other records for this moth for me have been in November or December.
December Moth
The name December Moth was hinted at 300 years ago when Eleazar Albin, a painter engraver of moths and butterflies, wrote that it “came at the latter end of December”. Perhaps then it only made appearances in December. It is a chunky moth that does not feed in the winged state. The caterpillars feed on a number of broadleaved trees including oak, birches, elms, hawthorns, blackthorns, poplars and sallows. It overwinters as an egg.
Another moth that does not feed in the winged adult state and made some appearances in October is the Sprawler.
Sprawler
Although it does not feed as an adult, the pupa has a full-size proboscis case which remains empty during development. The proboscis is used to sup nectar. This indicates that the loss is possibly recent in evolutionary terms. It is things like this that make moths so intriguing for me. The caterpillars feed on a number of broadleaved trees and the winter is spent as an egg.
Another immigrant that paid a visit to the trap in October was the Dark Sword-grass. (I find I want to write Dark Sward-grass and not Dark Sword-grass).
Dark Sword-grass
As an immigrant, it has been recorded every month of the year but most numerous July-October. Individuals that arrive in the Spring are thought to give rise to summer larvae with the resulting adults supplementing the autumn immigrants. The caterpillars feed on the leaves and roots of low growing plants and have taken dandelion when reared in captivity.
The Red-green Carpet was recorded on 22nd October and also on 12th and 17th April. The April records will have been females who hibernate as adults through the winter.
Red-green Carpet
The Red-green Carpet is one of three British species (Brindled Ochre and Autumn Green Carpet are the others) in which mating takes place in the Autumn after which all the males die. No sexual equality here. The caterpillars feed on various broadleaved trees including Oak, Blackthorn, Cherries and birches.
Another often showing some green is the Green-brindled Crescent. 16 were recorded in the month.
Green-brindled Crescent
This species, unlike the Sprawler, does feed in the adult state and sometimes can be found on Ivy blossom and blackberries this time of year. It overwinters as an egg laid singly on twigs of the food plants which include Hawthorn, Blackthorn, Crab Apple and Dog-rose.
My final moth for October is one resplendent in Autumn colour which is the Feathered Thorn.
Feathered Thorn
There were 8 records for the month. The Thorns are a group of moths who owe the thorn part of their name to their caterpillars because they sport a sharp projection on their backs. The spike improves the camouflage of the stick-like caterpillars allowing them to merge better into the undergrowth. The caterpillars feed on a range of broadleaved trees. The males, who come more frequently to light than the females, have feathery antennae as in the photograph. The feathery antennae offer a wide surface area to trap the pheromones of the female.
We had a super haul at Linford Lakes Nature Reserve today (4th November) with Kenny Cramer. Nets were positioned around the top half of the reserve, near the boundary walk entrance and “The Beast” which caught this beauty was raised near the barn owl boxes.
This is the first ever long-eared owl to be ringed at LLNR, and in fact Kenny’s first ever ring of an LEO. Martin Kincaid had mentioned that there used to be a healthy population at LLNR, but sightings have not been recorded for quite some time.
The Forest of Marston Vale is a good place to go for autumn colour. ‘Nature News’ this month includes information and some ID tips for trees you will see in the forest. Follow this link: Nature News 26th October
Thanks to Peter Meadows for alerting us to the latest Newsletter from Marston Vale.
In late September, I wrote a piece about the discovery of the Ivy Bee Colletes hederae in our Oldbrook garden. I asked for fellow members to let me know if they had found this bee in their local patch and have since continued to look for it elsewhere in Milton Keynes.
Shortly after the article appeared on our website, Julie Lane contacted me to say that she too had found the ivy bee, at home in Olney. This is exciting news and suggests that this insect is already found widely across this area.
On 17th October, Helen and I went for a walk along the canal at Old Wolverton. I have known the towpath walk since childhood and was aware of the great masses of ivy which grow along the embankment – always a good place to look for insects in the autumn. Sure enough, not more than 50 meters from the Iron Trunk, there were several specimens of C.hederae nectaring on the ivy right next to the path. They were in the company of honey bees and it was useful to be able to compare these two species, so similar in appearance at first glance.
Better still was to come – last Tuesday (20th October) I stopped off at Stonepit Field in Great Linford in late morning. I wanted to see the scarlet wax caps that Martin Ferns had reported and was pleased to find plenty of these colourful fungi on the limestone scrape. As I crouched down to photograph one, I saw an ivy bee emerging from a small burrow. I looked closer and was pleased to see at least twenty or more ivy bees going in and out of their neat little burrows. One or two were killed by common wasps but I measured the length of the colony as around 31 meters. I was delighted to find a thriving colony of ivy bee – the first I have ever seen outside of Dorset.
Given a reasonably warm, sunny day, it should still be possible to see these bees between now and mid-November.
Here’s a picture of a bee seen in early September at the Urb Farm in Wolverton, which we have identified as a non-British species, the Alfalfa Leafcutter Bee (Megachile rotundata)
While honeybees get much of the fame, Alfalfa Leafcutter Bees are actually 15-20 times better at pollinating than honeybees. The female leafcutter bee carries pollen on the underside of her hairy abdomen, scraping it off upon returning to her nesting hole to create a pollen loaf (food) for her egg. Using her large jaws she will cut a perfectly circular hole from nearby leaves (generally only up to 300 feet from her nesting hole) to create a cocoon of leaves for her egg to develop. A solitary bee, the Alfalfa Leafcutter Bee is often found nesting alongside its neighbours in bee hotels and these fascinating creatures are well worth having in your garden!
We have plenty of habitat just perfect for leafcutter bees, so we have been pleased to welcome them. We have seen a fair few different types of leafcutter/solitary/bumble bee at the farm over the years, and particularly this year.
I’m a life member of Durrell (aka Jersey Zoo) – inspired many years ago by Gerald Durrell’s books. Durrell Wildlife Conservation Trust (DWCT) reacted to the recent oil spill close to the coast of Mauritius by rescuing a few little reptiles back to Jersey to act as an insurance policy to prevent species extinction (that’s actually the whole raison d’etre of DWCT) . I thought members might like to share a mini doc from Jersey – a bit of good news for once, something actually being done rather than just telling us how bad things are and making us feel helpless.
This is a passionate reminder of why we need to look after the only home we have, Planet Earth! I probably don’t need to remind you that Mauritius is where our species made the dodo extinct. The dodo was chosen as DWCT’s emblem to emphasise what they are about.
I recently attended a meeting at Newton Blossomville’s St Nicholas Church with two ladies from the Bats in Churches organisation. The church does not have a major problem with bats but there are some droppings and evidence of staining from urine on some of the brass plaques in the church. The main problem seems to be the bad PR that bats have and people in the village are rather negative towards them.
The Bats in Churches people have therefore offered to organise a post-Covid bat walk from the church and down to the river nearby, which we think would be well received by the locals and schoolchildren in particular. They are going to provide some bat boxes for us to put up in the churchyard as there are some nice mature trees (although apparently they don’t like yew trees as they don’t provide an easy flight way into the box). Also they have offered to source some hay rattle seed for the new wild flower patch in the church yard which has been left unmown this year – this should improve the meadow flowers and attract the all-important insects for the bats to eat.
All in all a very positive meeting and hopefully a brighter future for the local bats!
The Bats in Churches team are also running a couple of free online training workshops on the 13th and 20th October at 7pm. You can sign up to these at https://batsinchurches.org.uk/get-involved/events/
The first is for anyone looking to create public facing interpretation materials for their church (or any other organisations you may be involved with); examples include information boards, posters and leaflets. The second session will cover running and planning a successful event for your community including pricing, paperwork and practicalities
Many of us have been enjoying wildlife in our own gardens this year with the restrictions that have been imposed on us. Perhaps you have found something unusual or uncommon in your garden that you were not aware of until now. We have been blessed with fantastic, settled weather in spring at the height of the Covid lockdown and again recently in September. For me, it was a sighting on 22nd September which has really caught my imagination.
We have a generous covering of ivy along our garden fence, and when it is in flower, as now, it attracts a wealth of bees, hoverflies, moths and other insects. Whilst having a tea break in the garden, once again in glorious autumn sunshine, a bee caught my eye as it busied itself on ivy flowers. A closer look allowed me to confirm it was the Ivy Bee (or Ivy Plasterer Bee) Colletes hederae a species which has colonised the UK in the past few years. A second one soon appeared which I netted, and chilled in the fridge to allow closer inspection! I quickly added my sightings to the database of BWARS (Bees, Wasps and Ants Recording Society).
C. hederae was first recorded in this country in 2001 in the Dorset village of Langton Matravers. Since then it has spread, initially along the coast but in the past 4-5 years it has colonised many inland counties, as far north as Merseyside. I first saw these attractive bees, in good numbers, at Durlston Country Park, Swanage in October 2016. For those of you who know Durlston, the clifftop ivy thickets beneath the Globe sculpture are the best place to look. It has just about the latest flight season of any British bee species, flying between September and early November. Superficially, this species and others in the genus Colletes do resemble the Honey Bee Apis mellifera and they are similar in size. However, a close look shows that it is brighter than a honey bee and the yellow and black bands are cleaner and more defined. Honey bees generally have darker bodies and the bands are somewhat indistinct. Fresh specimens of C. hederae show a bright orange, furry thorax. If you can distinguish this species from honey bee you can be fairly confident it is hederae as the other species in this genus are much smaller and generally confined to heathland and sandy habitats.
This mining bee can live in huge colonies of many tens of thousands and their mating behaviour can be quite alarming to behold, with many males mobbing unmated females in a frenzied attempt to mate with her. I have witnessed this in Dorset and it is quite a sight – and sound.
The specimens I found in our garden are the first I have seen in Milton Keynes and it is good to know that this species in now in our area. It may already be common. If you have flowering ivy in your garden or your local patch, do have a closer look at any honey bee sized insects buzzing around. They are not aggressive and are a welcome addition to any garden. Do let me know if you find it in our area.
Anne Baker from Henley on Thames (to whom thanks) has sent in this photo of a dormouse in her garden. She writes:
“We have seen a Hazel Dormouse quite a few times in Middle Assendon *, Henley on Thames. The first time my husband spotted him walking to the bird food outside our kitchen window. We have filmed him/her a few times as well at night and in the daytime. We also found a dead one about a year ago in an old bird box so they are obviously around here quite a lot.
We have a wild garden with a lot of hazelnut trees and honeysuckle which I believe they like too. Maybe that is why they are here. They seem to be nesting close to the house by the look of it and don’t seem to be frightened. “
Sightings like this are worth submitting to the local county environmental records office (see https://mknhs.org.uk/recording/).
*Middle Assendon is close to BBOWT’s huge Warburg Nature Reserve (106 ha) which has a known population of dormice.
(Photo above: Black Hairstreak, LIttle Linford Wood 14th June, Julian Lambley)
The weather conditions this summer have been unpredictable, varying with spring being the sunniest for 100 years, the end of July and beginning of August presenting temperatures in excess of 30 degrees centigrade, and the month ending with strong winds from Storm Francis. But it did not deter our Society’s members recording highlights of the local wildlife.
Mammals– Paul Lund was fortunate in May to find a vixen fox and 2 cubs in his Bancroft garden, and a few days later photographed one inquisitive cub that had entered his house. In June John Prince created a box type platform with a trail camera installed and, with the help of two volunteers, this was lifted high into an oak tree in Little Linford Wood to see if it would attract any dormice. In June it was a success, with several images of a dormouse seeking the food provided. This is the first recording of a dormouse in the wood since 2015. During the May box survey beside the M1 Motorway near Gayhurst one dormouse was recorded and, to our surprise, a weasel inside a box with a nest of Great Tit chicks, sadly dead and partly eaten.
A species that tends to stay under the radar is the Harvest Mouse. Volunteers managed to find several old nests at Linford Lakes Reserve in 2018 -19. and this year Harvest Mice have been found on the nature reserve. Nests have also been found while clearing reeds at Stony Stratford Nature Reserve and Walton Lake this year, and it appears that the species remains widespread, if elusive, in Milton Keynes.
Other records of mammals include a Water Deer at Magna Park, a Roe Deer at Little Linford Wood and a possible sighting of a Polecat in Bury Field, Newport Pagnell (?)
Butterflies – In May a Duke of Burgundy was seen at Blue Lagoon for the third year running. How it arrived there remains a mystery. Harry Appleyard found a Black Hairstreak near the bottle dump, Tattenhoe – a new location for this very rare butterfly, so it is encouraging to hear of two other records at Little Linford Wood and the North Bucks Way. The hairstreaks did well this year with both Purple and White-letter Hairstreak being recorded locally. A Chalkhill Blue was seen at Stonepit Field in late July and later on the same day a Clouded Yellow {variety helice, a pale form of the female} was discovered.
Moths– If you have been following Gordon Redford’s monthly reports on the Society’s website you will discover information on a variety of species caught in his two light traps at Linford Lakes Nature Reserve. In one month nearly 6700 moths were recorded and 236 species identified. Other members reported their findings and included unusual species such as the Blackneck, Jersey Tiger, Tree-lichen Beauty, Clifden Nonpareil, and a Raspberry Clearwing at Olney, only the 2nd or 3rd sighting in Bucks.
One new species I had this year was the Lobster Moth which when released was caught in mid-flight by a House Sparrow – I felt very guilty!!
After several years of recording hoverflies in my garden, I have found a paucity of both species and numbers the past two years. Have you experienced the same?
Birds – It has been a very good year for breeding birds at Linford Lakes Nature Reserve. During lockdown, a nest of Teal was found on the bund. This species was last recorded as breeding in Bucks in 1989 {although it did breed regularly at the Linford Reserve in the 1970s/80s}. As if this wasn’t exciting enough, a pair of Great White Egrets also nested in the heronry this spring with at least one young fledged. Three adult birds had been present during the winter and courtship was observed in March. This makes Linford Reserve only the third known location for nesting Great White Egrets in the UK.
More recently, 2 juvenile Yellow Wagtails have been ringed on the bund and it is likely that this declining species has also bred. Cuckoos have had a fantastic year at the Linford Reserve with 11 birds ringed. Country-wide, over 100 calling cuckoos were recorded – an exceptional year for this species.
Over the local area the following birds were recorded. In June a Nightingale and a Goosander with 5 chicks were seen at Olney, and a pair of Peregrines reared three chicks at the MK Stadium. During July a female Mandarin Duck was recorded at Willen Lakes, a Redstart and 9 Crossbills seen at Tattenhoe, and in August a Black-tailed Godwit and Peregrine at the Forest Floodplain Reserve, and the month finished off with an Osprey seen and photographed at Linford Reserve.
Can I thank Martin Kincaid and Gordon Redford for their contribution to this article.
I’d also like to congratulate Harry Appleyard on his discovery of a Lesser Emperor dragonfly in Tattenhoe Park, a first sighting in Milton Keynes, although present in other areas of Bucks for several years.
Autumn is upon us soon so please get outside, binoculars and cameras at the ready to watch, record, but most of all, enjoy our local wildlife.
I’ve been working as a Bats in Churches volunteer, monitoring bat activity in 4 churches: – Gawcott, Hillesden, Tingewick and Wotton Underwood. Bats in Churches exists in large part “to address issues that bats can cause in churches while continuing to protect their roosts.” See https://batsinchurches.org.uk/
I gave a short presentation about this by Zoom at the Members’ evening on 1st September, and have since recorded a 15-minute version of this, which you can access through the following link:
It’s too late for anyone to get involved as a volunteer now (the project was HUGELY disrupted by Covid-19 as you’d expect plus this year’s surveys end on 31st August. BUT the project continues in 2021 and 2022 – something to think about for next year.
Thanks to Mike Wallen of Bucks Bird Club for this news, written on 6th September:
For those not already aware there are significant developments at Willen and we are going to get some waders !!
The North lake has a problem with a valve on the sluice; to repair it they’ve had to dig down a way and have created a large breach to the lake. They have tried to dam it but the dam has collapsed.
So far the South lake has dropped by about half a metre and mud is developing around the edge! This is because the south lake is draining into the North lake in the south-east corner. However the water is leaving the North lake much quicker than it’s coming in, and 30% at least of the North lake area is now mud!! I’d estimate the water level there to be down well over a metre already.
This morning (6th) it has already attracted a Dunlin, then 2 x Black-tailed Godwit flew in, shortly afterwards another 2 x Black-tailed Godwit flew in.
Over the next week (and hopefully longer) this could be seriously good for waders.
Mike Wallen
(Photo of Willen Lake North, taken from W, midday on 7th Sept. Photo: Martin Ferns)
What’s the most striking thing about trees in autumn? It is not that they shed their leaves. It’s the fact that the leaves on some trees change their colour before they fall. Why does this happen – the leaves have been green all spring and summer? Why don’t the green leaves just drop off without changing colour and why on some trees do the leaves turn red.
After reading recently published papers on the subject it became clear that, although it has been discussed for many years, it is still a source of debate. At least 10 hypotheses were reported in a paper published in 2009. Eventually I found that there are now two main evolutionary explanations – autumn colours could have evolved in plants to protect them against the physical damage induced by intense light at low temperatures (photoprotection hypothesis) or to avoid parasites by signalling the defensive commitment of the tree (coevolution hypothesis).
A leaf is the main photosynthetic organ of a tree. Photosynthesis a process in which carbon dioxide from the air is combined with water in the presence of light to produce sugars and oxygen. The molecule that carries this out is called chlorophyll. It absorbs red and blue wavelengths of light and reflects green so that the leaf appears green to us. It is a complex molecule with a ring of nitrogen at its centre surrounding an atom of magnesium. Shorter days and lower temperatures trigger leaf fall but this is a multi-step controlled shutdown process. Instead of the green leaves just being discarded, the chlorophyll and proteins in the leaf are broken down and essential nutrients, such as nitrogen, re-absorbed and stored in the shoots and roots until spring. Plants generally re-absorb half their total leaf nitrogen.
As the chlorophyll breaks down, the leaf loses its green colour and other pigments can be seen. Carotenoids are yellow and orange and are already present. Anthocyanins, which give the leaf a red colour, are newly made. Carotenoids are needed to keep the cells going during the re-absorption stage so most trees have yellow leaves in autumn but 14% have red leaves. Why then do some trees go to the expense of making Anthocyanins before the leaves fall? This is where the 2 main hypotheses compete.
Anthocyanins protect the leaf from light damage during the period of re-absorption. This is the basis for the photoprotection hypothesis – it extends the leaf life during shut-down and enables it to send more nutrients back to the tree before the leaf drops. If this is true, trees with yellow leaves should drop their leaves earlier.
Another idea is that the red coloration may be a signal to parasites, such as aphids, that have a strong preference for green leaves, to not lay their eggs on red leaves in autumn. This avoids future damage and is the basis for the co-evolution hypothesis. Red colour may be correlated with the level of herbivore defence in the tree, and therefore plants investing more in defences show more autumn colours. If insects adapt to avoid red leaves in autumn, this will lead to a co-evolutionary process in which both preference for green in aphids and intensity (or duration) of red in trees increase.
I have no idea which theory is correct but when you go out this autumn look out for yellow leaves and red leaves, admire their beauty and think how complicated life can be!
Here are some trees to watch out for in Milton Keynes.
First, two species that go yellow in autumn
1: Norway Maple (photo Alan Birkett)
Photo 1 The Norway Maple Acer platanoides is native to Europe, from Scandinavia to the Caucasus. It was introduced to Britain in 1683 and is now commonly found in gardens, streets and parks. It is one of the first trees to look green in spring, when its green flowers open before the leaves. It has the 5-lobed leaf typical of the Maple family but differs from the Field Maple and Sycamore in that its lobes and teeth have finely pointed tips. It has a winged fruit like all maples but the wings hang down at an angle whereas on the Field Maple they are flat. This tree is at the south end of Furzton Lake in Milton Keynes
2: Aspen (photo Alan Birkett)
Photo 2 The Aspen Populus tremula is a Poplar that tolerates cold conditions. It is a smaller tree than most Poplars. It is a species that grows in cool regions across the whole of Europe and west Asia. (The American Aspen is a different species). It is more likely to be found in the north and west of Britain and is common in the Scottish Highlands. It is typically found in oak or birch woodland. It can spread by sending suckers up from its roots. Male and female flowers are on separate trees. Flowers are in the form of catkins. Aspens are quite common in Milton Keynes; these are on the east side of Furzton Lake.
Here are 2 trees with red leaves in autumn
3: Persian Ironwood (photo Alan Birkett)
Photo 3 The Persian Ironwood Parrotia persica is a small deciduous tree native to northern Iran. It was introduced to Britain in 1841. It is related to the Witch-Hazel. Its wood is extremely hard, hence the name ironwood. It has red flowers which appear before the leaves in late winter and the leaves turn bright red in autumn. There is a huge tree in the Cambridge Botanical Garden and a small tree on the east side of Furzton Lake in Milton Keynes.
4: Sweet Gum (photo Alan Birkett)
Photo 4 The Sweet Gum (Liquidambar styraciflua) is a deciduous tree native to south-eastern USA and the cloud-forest mountains of Mexico and Central America. It was introduced to Britain in 1681. It is an ornamental tree planted in many parks and gardens in warmer areas. It has red autumn foliage and unusual fruit, similar to that of the London Plane. In its native habitat the tree was grown commercially for its aromatic gum, originally known as ‘liquid amber’, hence its scientific name. This tree is in the Emerson Valley of Milton Keynes.
Other trees you may come across, that have red leaves in autumn, include the Sugar Maple, Red Maple and Red Oak from Eastern North America and the Japanese Maple variety ‘Osakazuki’ which is spectacular in autumn in the Cambridge Botanic Garden.
To find out more about trees and how to identify them go to my website: https://www.treeguideuk.co.uk/
and if you have any comments or observations about trees my e-mail is alan@treeguideuk.co.uk.
The Birdguides website (www.birdguides.com) reported, in a blog by Ben Ward on 4th July, that 46,026 swifts were seen passing Gibraltar Point in Lincolnshire on 29th June 2020. This is considered to be the highest single-site count made in Britain, surpassing the previous highest of 31,350, which was also made at Gibraltar Point, on 31 July 2019. For the full story, including short videos, go to a-british-record-day-for-common-swift-passage
Yesterday my partner and I were sitting by Caldecotte Lake, when she pointed out a “huge caterpillar” on willow-herb a few feet away over tangled waterside vegetation. With close-focused bins I quickly confirmed it as an Elephant hawkmoth, and was pleased she’d spotted it as she’d been wowed finding an adult in her garden a few years ago. Though dark, it was lighter and more strikingly marked than the typical velvety black – sadly an exact match for tarmac – seen by most who encounter these larvae when roving pre-pupation.
I then launched into some “mansplaining”: eyespots, head, mandibles, horned tail – that sort of thing. However, her responses – in particular her efforts to describe its markings – made little sense to me. If there is a goddess of effective communication she was clearly struggling, but disagreement would only have spoiled the moment. I wanted to share the pleasure – my sense that in some small corner all’s well with the world – which I have always had seeing a caterpillar peaceably munching its food-plant. A Kingfisher shot past, a Heron settled in a dead tree.
Eventually:
She: “What’s that dark thing a bit above it? Is it a dead leaf or something?”
Me: “What dark thing? The only dark thing is the caterpillar.”
She: “My caterpillar’s not dark at all”.
Her caterpillar was in fact about six inches lower, bright apple-green and equally large, though I’d entirely failed to see it (I plead intervening foliage and a slightly different sightline). It was of course a second Elephant hawk. Though the adult is pretty constant, the larvae have a wide spectrum of colour variation, and this was clearly “extreme green”—more like an Emperor or Privet hawk, in fact.
Yet it’s likely both larvae were from eggs laid by one female, and mated by a single male. A genetic conundrum almost as interesting as how two people can spend twenty minutes thinking they are discussing the same object when they’re not.
Chris Coppock, 27 August 2020
[Photo of Elephant Hawkmoth caterpillar, Deilephilia Elpenor, by Julian Lambley, Old Wolverton Mill, 11 September 2016]
One of my long-term missions in my local birding has been to record as many species as possible from within the Tattenhoe area in the south of Milton Keynes. While there are many places I could visit across the rest of the city to generate a much longer species list, I prefer to base mine on a lower-carbon approach, through what I see and or hear close to home. Currently, my list of species for Tattenhoe and the surrounding areas since 2008 sits at 128.
Having already listed the resident species, as well as frequent annual migrants, new additions come at a much slower pace now, but an increasingly talked-about area of birding that I’m hoping will help me, is ‘nocmig’, the recording of nocturnal bird migration. After some research with the aid of other birders on Twitter, I invested in the Tascam DR-05 last year. While I can’t say it has added anything new to the list yet, it has been well worth getting into, having recorded several species I’ve never previously observed from my garden before, some of which have been rare or only occasional on my walks in this corner of MK in the past.
Tascam DR-05 recorder and tripod
The recorder is placed into a bucket coated in bubble-wrap, to suppress background noise. The AA batteries for the recorder usually just about make it through a 6-7 hour recording, however they will run out of power much sooner on cold or windy nights. Its minimum operating temperature according to the product manual is 6 degrees Celsius, so ideally not one to leave out in the open in winter. WAV format is usually one of the better formats to choose for recording, as MP3 audio may not be quite as clear for distant sounds and more vulnerable to compression.
After I’ve finished the recording, I scan through the audio using Audacity. Amplifying the audio by around 20-24 decibels has been key in picking out the bird vocals, as unless they are perched close to the bucket or calling as they fly directly over the garden, not only are they harder to hear, but also harder to see in the spectrogram, where visual signatures of their vocalizations can be found among the other sounds of the night.
Once the audio is amplified, the next stage is scrolling through the spectrogram, which can be expanded and magnified to make finding the often-fleeting calls of nocturnal migrants much easier. Most vocals from passing birds on the audio are thin dots and streaks, though the louder they are and the more they are magnified, the more unique and recognisable they become. Sudden knocks or movements of objects nearby and typical urban sounds like car horns or distant alarms, may look like vocals on first inspection.
Below: Spectogram and recording of Little Ringed Plover, 15th July 2020.
Photo taken Forest Floodplain NR, April 2015
The dawn chorus is often a mess of streaks and lines all over the spectrogram from typical garden visitors like the Wren, Robin and Crow, even more so earlier in the summer when warblers and other birds are in the mix. When the display starts to get crowded, it’s worth listening closely for early morning flyovers, or birds you might not usually see in your garden, like the Bullfinch.
Findings from 2019 to Present
Since I started the recordings, the Moorhen has been one of the more frequent night-time flyovers, interestingly regarded as a common nocturnal migrant across the UK but it’s hard to be sure whether I have caught true migrants travelling long distances or resident birds disturbed from their territories nearby, perhaps flushed from their roosts by foxes or cats in the early hours of the morning.
Above: Moorhen, Tattenhoe Valley Park, March 2016 Below: Recording of Moorhen, 11th April 2020
Having seen them only once in the garden before, Tawny Owls have also been a pleasant surprise, occasionally perched and calling nearby. From the night of 23rd October and into the morning of 24th October 2019, the recording picked up at least a dozen flight calls from Redwings and a Blackbird. 2020 has been much more productive in variety of species so far, largely thanks to already having the recorder ready for use through the peak migration period in spring.
Recording of Tawny Owl, 10th September 2019
Of the 59 bird species I’ve recorded from the garden so far this year, 5 of them have been picked up exclusively on the overnight recordings. 26th March produced a Coot at around 2.54am, an infrequent visitor to Tattenhoe’s waterways rather than established resident like its close relative the Moorhen. 5th April produced my first garden record of Oystercatcher, an occasional flyover here in recent years, calling as it passed over at 00.50 am, with another a few weeks later at around 1.13 am on 15th June.
By far the most exciting bird I’ve recorded since starting this and the least expected one for my suburban garden was a male Nightjar, churring for a few minutes somewhere nearby at 3.55am on 31st May, just as the dawn chorus was starting to kick off. Surrounded by houses with a few deciduous thickets nearby, this isn’t the sort of place where I would have actively been looking out for them initially, however in research and speaking to other birders online, I found out that they have been known to travel several kilometres away from their heathland- and woodland-based breeding grounds while hunting. He could have also been a passing migrant, albeit a late arrival, like the one I found hawking around an oak tree further along the Tattenhoe valley on 2nd October last year.
Below: Spectogram and recording of Nightjar churring among Robin song, 31st May 2020
Two other firsts for my garden since the Nightjar have been the Little Grebe, calling at around 1.16 am on 11th June and 3 am on 21st July and another rare flyover for the Tattenhoe area, the Little Ringed Plover, making two calls at 1.34am on 15th July. Small passerines have also made brief callouts in the dead of night, with single bursts of song from a Blackcap at 23.49 on 14th April and a Lesser Whitethroat just after midnight on 21st May.
Below: LIttle Grebe, recorded 11th June 2020
Below: Blackcap, photographed Howe Park Wood, April 2017; Recording of male Blackcap, Tattenhoe, 14th May 2020
Conclusions
A typical night usually starts with traffic noise, with the last two hours ending with a gradual build-up of garden birds. The fleeting flight calls of passing migrants have been few and far between so far but nonetheless, it’s a small project that has proven well worthwhile, helping to record several species I’ve rarely come across within this locality in the daytime, plus more locally common species that I haven’t previously heard at night.
This is a field of birding I would love to hear about more people in Milton Keynes getting into. With such a diverse range of habitats across the city, there are near countless possibilities for what might get recorded along the way. It has proven to be a great way of picking up rarities and local scarcities across the UK, such as the Ortolan Bunting, Bittern and Quail.
Do not feel pressured into having to know all the vocalizations of British birds before you get started. There are plenty of guides online that can help you along the way, plus websites such as Xeno-canta which are packed with thousands of bird songs and calls, many of which are labelled as nocturnal recordings. Searching ‘#nocmig’ on Twitter has usually been my way of keeping an eye on what other people have found on their recordings across the country, which has been useful for finding out about unprecedented night-time movements of species like the Common Scoters, plus positively identifying flight calls during the height of migration through spring. With Autumn migration starting to kick off, now is a great time to get started, the sooner the better!
I am still a beginner with this and have much to learn about the technicalities of audio enhancement and recording, but I am pleased with the results so far. A website I would highly recommend checking out, should you wish to get stuck in is: https://nocmig.com/.
Peter Meadows has drawn attention to the August wildlife highlights summary in the latest BBC Discover Wildlife magazine which may interest other MKNS members, as may the news about the DEFRA decision to give wild beavers permanent right to remain in England, following their successful re-introduction in East Devon.
As a postscript to the item below, Sue Hetherington adds: I’ve just called on my local MP to urge for our governments to protect the wildlife and habitats of our uplands, for nature and for people. Join me and contact your local politician.
Saturday 8th August was “Hen Harrier Day 7”, an annual event which started in 2014 with “the sodden 570” at the Derwent Dam. It is the day when people stand up and be counted to say they protest at the threatened extinction of the Hen Harrier as a breeding bird in our country. This year, events were planned at 7 locations – Snowdonia, Arne, Rainham, Cairngorms, Sheffield, Aberdeen and Kirriemuir. Wild Justice (Chris Packham, Mark Avery and Ruth Tingay) said in March this year “These events are sufficiently far away that it would be premature to fear they won’t happen but it would be a brave person who was sure that they would”. Well, none of us need reminding about the devastation SARS-CoV-2 has wreaked!
Last year, in Derbyshire, Wild Justice organised the largest ever Hen Harrier Day event with at least 1500 attendees. This year we’ve been part of the gang but a new charity, Hen Harrier Action, has organised Hen Harrier Day. When they started they thought that they would be helping lots of local organisers set up their own events, big and small, across the UK but coronavirus put paid to that. Instead we had Hen Harrier Day online going right through from 10am until 4pm. A flavour of the event can be seen from the video of the event’s evening final here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YwNB8MCN_qA
The image above is from Hen Harrier Day 6, in Derbyshire. Andrew and I were both there and we are in the photo.
While inspecting one of the ponds in Tattenhoe yesterday (31st July) I spotted an Emperor that stood out from the rest nearby. With green eyes and a largely brown abdomen with a blue segment beneath the wings, it was almost immediately clear this was a male Lesser Emperor. Getting sharp, detailed pictures was a bit of a challenge as he spent several minutes patrolling the pond, occasionally getting into fights with the other male Emperors before disappearing over a meadow nearby. Fortunately, the few I did get, while blurry and a little distant, were clear enough to show the distinctive features.
Lesser Emperor Anax parthenope (Photos: Harry Appleyard)
After its first appearance in the UK in 1996, this species has slowly appeared throughout England and Wales, breeding across an increasing range of sites, becoming less of a vagrant and more established coloniser. They have already been present in Buckinghamshire for several years but this is the first one to have ever been recorded in Milton Keynes, verified by the British Dragonfly Society’s Bucks County Recorder Alan Nelson.
Having skimmed past them in my odonata books over the past few years, it was amazing to finally see one, out the blue and virtually on my doorstep!
Unfortunately there was no sign of him today, 1st August 2020, in the same location or around any of the other ponds nearby. There is a good chance he may have just been passing by, especially with the strong southerly breeze from yesterday afternoon onwards. Still, with recent sightings of them at Tring and Wilstone Reservoirs over multiple days recently, it is worth keeping an eye out for them around MK’s large ponds and lakes. If you find any in MK or any other part of Bucks, be sure to report them via The British Dragonfly Society: https://british-dragonflies.org.uk/recording/submit-your-records/
A few weeks ago I put in an appeal here to see if there were any extensive black or red currant bush plantings in or near MK, which I could access. The objective was to place a synthetic lure in prospective sites to see if Currant Clearwing moths Synanthedon tipuliformis were present. This was always a rare species, but as the growing of currant bushes in gardens has declined, it is presumed it has also decreased in numbers.
I received two very positive responses.
The first was very local to me, where Jenny Mercer obtained permission for me to place a lure in Stony Stratford, Wolverton Road, allotments, under her supervision, only for that to be withdrawn by a ‘jobsworth’ at the last minute.
Undaunted, on Tuesday 23rd June, I decided to recce the allotments to see if the currant bushes were close enough to the fence to make it worthwhile to put up a lure outside. I decided to try, but was taken by the proximity of some old apple trees. So I first put up a Red-belted Clearwing Synanthedon myopaeformis lure (another nationally rare species) on a sapling outside the allotment fence, with no expectation at all. By the time I had put up the Currant Clearwing lure on another sapling and turned round, there were two male Red-Belted Clearwings at the first lure. Once photographed, that lure was returned to its sealed and cold container in a ‘cool bag’, so that they would not be attracted again. They need to be attracted to real females.
Red-belted Clearwing Synanthedon myopaeformis, Stony Stratford 23 June 2020 (Photos: Andy Harding)
My second lead for the Currant Clearwings was provided by Julie Lane, who arranged for me to contact Mike Totton, the Chairman of the Olney allotment association. He was perfectly happy to allow me access, but finding a mutually convenient date with the appropriate weather conditions of sunshine and a light breeze was not easy.
In the period before we actually met, I discovered two relevant things. Firstly the Currant Clearwing ‘season’ in other areas had started early and could easily be ‘over’. Secondly, during a Zoom meeting of the Beds moth group, I noted that Raspberry Clearwing Pennisetia hylaeformis had been found in north Bedfordshire. This is a fairly recent colonist which appears to be spreading west from Cambridgeshire, where it was first discovered in 2007.
By now the continuing inappropriate weather was making our lack of a rendezvous embarrassing. Therefore, despite poor conditions, I visited Mike on his allotment to explain what I wanted to do and why. I put up lures for both aforementioned species … but not for very long as conditions worsened. However, Mike did give me carte blanche to visit whenever I wanted. In the next week only Friday 17th July seemed at all likely. So I gave it a go, placing a Currant Clearwing lure invitingly adjacent to a nice crop of currants. There were a few scattered raspberry bushes I could see, but placing a lure close to any of them meant watching with binoculars while attending the currant bushes. Given this tricky situation I simply hung the Raspberry Clearwing lure on a pole close to where I was standing. To my amazement, ten minutes later a male Raspberry Clearwing turned up, and I was able to take a few pictures. After a couple of minutes, I took the lure down for reasons noted above. Needless to say, no Currant Clearwings appeared in the next half an hour, but I think I got a great deal, since Raspberry Clearwing has only been formally recorded in Buckinghamshire on one occasion in 2012, with, possibly, a not yet submitted sighting in 2019.
Raspberry Clearwing Pennisetia hylaeformis, Olney 17 July 2020 (Photos: Andy Harding)
Currant Clearwings will have to wait until next year.
I live in a 2-year-old new-build in Gawcott. The front was a horrible desert – completely block-paved. We ripped up the block paving, re-laying just enough to serve as a driveway, and returned the rest back to nature as far as we could. We chose to put a rowan tree in – to be honest, in the very ambitious hope that we might get waxwings in winter one day. It flowered like mad this spring and the berries are coming on well.
I was amazed to do a bit of “washing-up time” birding from the kitchen window today and see a blackbird already setting about the berries. It might not be my target bird but I was still very pleased to see that when you invite nature in, it will come.
(Not a great photo but not bad, given I was up to my elbows in washing up suds the minute before!)
In late May and then throughout June and into the first few weeks of July, we are privileged to enjoy the emergence and spectacular appearance of male Stag Beetles (Lucanus Cervus). Happily for us, one of the best places in the UK to see these wonderful insects is Totternhoe in Bedfordshire, just a few miles south of Milton Keynes, the topography of which means one can see them both flying and settled without too much difficulty.
Totternhoe Knolls is located on the north-east side of Totternhoe village, and the woodland spilling down from the Knolls meets the beetles’ requirements with undisturbed dells and hollows full of dead trees and rotted oak stumps, home to the inch-and-a-half long, curved beetle larvae. Emergence into the adult state takes between four and seven years. Dependent upon available nourishment for the larval stage, the adult male beetle may be anything from one to three inches long, possessing ‘antlers’ (the male beetle’s jaw appendages) upwards of half-an-inch to over an inch long. And yes, they can pinch unwary fingers to draw blood, which I can attest to from my first ever Stag Beetle encounter in southern France, despite literature assuring you to the contrary. So, best not to touch!
(Photos: Matt Andrews)
With their wing cases stuck outwards and upwards at ninety degrees to their body line, sepia wings frantically buzzing and legs akimbo with those spectacular jaws jutting out to the front, these insects present a unique sight and sound on balmy June evenings. The Elm hedge lining the opposite side of the road makes ideal landing spots and with care, you can hear the male beetles rustling about in the crisp bunches of Elm leaves.
Female beetles are difficult to find but by wandering – carefully! – with a good torch, along the rather busy Castle Hill Road from the ideal starting point of the Cross Keys pub, a great refreshment spot in better times, from around 9.45pm through until 10.30pm, you should both see (and hear) male Stag Beetles flying like miniature lunar-landers above you along the tree-line right down to head-height!
Enjoying the sight and sound of Europe’s largest beetle has become a much looked-forward to experience every summer and really is to be recommended as something not to be missed.
For those of you who know and enjoy Stonepit Field at Great Linford, in particular the species-rich limestone scrape which gives the site its name, you may also like to visit Stanton Low this summer.
Two new scrapes have been created at Stanton Low using a similar seed mix to that used at Stonepit over 20 years ago – and already wildlife is flourishing. There are several hollows near the canal which are the relics of the nineteenth century limestone quarrying which took place here. Early in 2019, the topsoil was removed and subsequently Parks Trust staff and volunteers sowed the seed mix. Dominant in the seed mix is kidney vetch Anthyllis vulneraria which is the larval foodplant of Small Blue butterfly. The butterfly should be able to make the short hop across from Stonepit and colonise this new habitat. You will also find Common Bird’s-foot Trefoil Lotus corniculatus, Salad Burnet Sanguisorba minor, Field Poppy Papaver rhoeas and Sainfoin Onobrychis viciifolia in these hollows. Also of note is Viper’s Bugloss Echium vulgare, a plant which is cropping up more and more in Milton Keynes of late.
Wildflowers at one of the Stanton Low scrapes, June 2020 (Photo: Martin Kincaid)
When Helen and I visited one evening recently, we saw plenty of Small Tortoiseshell, Meadow Brown, Ringlet and Marbled White butterflies and a fantastic number of bumblebees enjoying these nectar rich plants. Spoil from the two scrapes was mounded up close by and these mounds are now covered in thistles and teasels, which are another great resource for pollinating insects. The scrubby grassland surrounding the scrapes now regularly hosts breeding Grasshopper Warblers as well as the more abundant Common Whitethroat. Lesser Whitethroat has also been present.
I thoroughly recommend a visit to this new habitat. If visiting by car, park in the large car park off Wolverton Road near Asda (SP837417). From here, follow the mown path alongside the canal until you reach the two scrapes. There are seats and picnic tables right next to the scrapes.
A friend of mine, Michele Pudsey, who lives in Newton Blossomville has regularly seen glow worms (Lampyris noctiluca) along a local country road; this year she recorded 12 on one evening including two mating glow worms. This road is very quiet and the verge is wonderful for all sorts of wild flowers but as Michele says the fact that the council haven’t been out cutting the verges this year has probably been to the advantage of the glow worms (and all the other wildlife that live there). She has submitted this sighting and the attached photos to The UK Glow Worm Survey www.glowworms.org.uk which is a site dedicated to all things to do with glow worms.
Mating glow worms, Newton Blossomville (Photos: Michele Pudsey)
Now is the time to look out for these fascinating insects so if you are out in the evenings in the countryside keep an eye out for that telltale green glow. If you want to find out more about them check out the site mentioned above and don’t forget to submit your sightings. (Records can also be submitted via iRecord.)
On Sunday 21/6/20 afternoon and I very cautiously ventured out from pandemic purdah!
I wanted to see what was happening with the County Hall peregrines and I saw this juvenile two sets of windows down from the breeding platform. It was very vocal, occasionally flying in pursuit of the adult. I only have patchy information about this year’s Aylesbury story – essential building work enabled the County bird recorder a sneak peek in early May when one tiny chick and 3 eggs were briefly glimpsed (a longer look of course being prohibited by law because peregrines are category 1 protected) There was a recent report of a faller being found by the nearby railway yard, taken to Tiggywinkles Wildlife Hospital at Haddenham, then placed back on the roof of County Hall. I don’t know if that’s the one in the photograph nor do I know what happened about the rest of the clutch of eggs. A piece of information did pop up on Twitter a while back to say that an Aylesbury ringed bird from 4 years ago (identified from the lettering on the orange darvic ring on its leg) was paired but non-breeding on a building in Kettering.
In case there are any more ‘urban peregrine’ fans out there, I have a little more Buckinghamshire news. There are now FOUR such sites in Bucks – Aylesbury and the MK Dons stadium and also the parish churches at each of High Wycombe and Marlow. The latter two are also young pairs and not believed to be breeding yet. Now the pandemic infection rates are falling a little, I may cautiously attempt to venture out to see if I can observe anything at these sites.
2020 has been a fabulous year for European Cuckoo in Milton Keynes and Bucks. At the time of writing, the number of calling cuckoos in our county is well over one hundred, and no doubt other records will come to light. Quite why the cuckoo has had such a successful year, set against many years of decline, is as yet unknown.
Local bird ringer and friend of MKNHS, Kenny Cramer, was aware that there were a number of male birds calling at Linford Lakes Nature Reserve this year and was determined to try and get some of them ringed. Even he could not have anticipated how successful he would be! What follows is Kenny’s own entertaining account of trapping and ringing cuckoos in early June:
“After successfully catching and ringing two new cuckoos in mid-May (our first since 2017), we decided to try our luck with a few sessions specifically aimed at cuckoos.
On Monday evening, a single 60′ net was set in the same position on the bund which had proved successful in the past. For this I chose to use a 45mm gauge net to reduce the chances of these larger birds bouncing out as they frequently do with standard 16mm nets used for catching small passerines. With Colin the decoy (a stuffed cuckoo!) in position, I retreated to the edge of the bund where I set up camp. I was joined by Martin Kincaid on this occasion (at an appropriate social distance of course..) and it wasn’t long before we were being treated to incredible sights and sounds of as many as four cuckoos singing and occasionally squabbling in the tree tops above us.
The first net round produced nothing but the frustratingly familiar sight of a cuckoo perched on top of one of the net poles and another flying overhead. We waited patiently for another few minutes, enjoying the strange grunting and chuckling sounds the male cuckoos make between songs. I spotted one bird flying low towards the net and went to investigate. This time we were successful and our third cuckoo of 2020 was in the bag! Despite at least 3 other birds being present, the only other captures were two blackbirds and eventually we decided we had had enough mozzie bites for one evening and furled the net.
I returned early Tuesday morning and quickly had the net open. There seemed to be less activity in general but it wasn’t too long before another new cuckoo was being ringed. This was followed by a re-trap of the first cuckoo we had ringed back in May.
I packed up the net and headed back to the car with various schemes and plans drifting in my head. I decided that it was time to dust off “the beast” (this is a rig consisting of 8m poles with nets being raised/lowered on a system of pulleys) and enlisted Sarah’s help to get it set up on Tuesday evening. I chose a position on the boundary path near which had been successful in the past and this time used two nets facing each other with Colin in the middle, one net on standard poles, and one net raised up on the beast. Once everything was set, we switched on the magical mix of cuckoo noises and hid by the car.
We hadn’t heard much cuckoo song while setting up, so I was utterly gobsmacked to return to the nets to find not one but *three* cuckoos in the nets (2 in the standard net, and 1 in the beast). I got them safely extracted and into bags while still in somewhat of a state of shock and disbelief. One of the birds turned out to be a re-trap of the same bird we had caught in May, and another posed an interesting aging challenge.
(Photo: Kenny Cramer)
This bird had retained one of its juvenile chestnut barred primary coverts on each wing (see attached pics.) This would normally suggest it was a second year bird (or a 5 in ringing terminology), however within the wing there were multiple generations of adult type feathers and the iris was a striking bright yellow rather than a dull yellow, so in the end we aged it as a 6 (meaning a bird hatched 2 or more years ago.) Thinking that there was no way we could top that, we closed the nets and I returned on Wednesday morning for a final flourish.
(Photo: Kenny Cramer)
The final flourish turned out to be more of a damp squib with intermittent showers forcing me to stop catching for a time. One cuckoo did hit the net but didn’t stick (this first time I have seen one get out of the 45mm netting.)
So while it might seem like a lot of effort to go to for a relatively small number of birds, the privilege of getting to see these beautiful and secretive birds up close more than made up for it. I also learned a lot, proved that 2017 was not a fluke, and made the possibility of looking into starting a tracking project a more realistic proposition.”
Since writing this Kenny has caught and ringed a further three cuckoos bringing the total for this year to nine!
Joyce Taylor Moore writes: With great perseverance (or, in his own words, being an awkward old ***) John Prince has rediscovered dormice in Little Linford Wood after an absence of over four years. The 300+ nest boxes and more recent footprint tunnels have yielded nothing but John, with great energy and technical expertise from https://www.ramblingsalamander.co.uk/, has found a dormouse high in the oak canopy on the first outing of his infrared camera trap. This has great implications for other projects where dormice appear to have dwindled away. John may have rewritten what we know about dormice – again!
Julie Lane adds an appeal on John’s behalf: I have spoken to John Prince at length and he is going to write a longer article for us on his findings and plans for the future of the Dormouse project. He has been working on this project for over 20 years with the support of others along the way, but he is struggling to get out and about these days and yet he is still full of enthusiasm to find out more about these beautiful and fascinating creatures. He has asked if there is anyone within the society who would be happy to join the team and volunteer with some of the work involved so that the project can carry forward into the future. If you are interested please get in touch with me, Julie Lane or Martin Ferns at webeditor@mknhs.org.uk and we will put you in touch with John.
During the fairly recent spell of unseasonably warm weather with clear blue sunny skies every day, a Buff-tip moth was with us for a few days exhibiting what I think is very odd behaviour.
Around 10pm on May 24th, my wife Mairi and I went outside to look for a couple of hedgehogs which had recently appeared in our garden and to check the walls and fence next to my moth trap.
Mairi noticed a large moth fly in and alight on the unopened bud of an ornamental Poppy about 3m from the light of the moth trap. I was surprised it had not flown to the trap so photographed it with flash.
I was even more surprised to see it still on the bud at around 5.30 am the next morning. The sun was continuously on the bud and moth for at least the next seven hours. Thereafter it was in shade until the last couple of hours of sunshine on that day.
The night time temperature was ideal for moths to take flight, and the attractions of the moth trap were still available, but the next morning (May 26th) it was still there! So I took a photo showing its exposed position and another of the bud starting to open.
I took the following photo later that day as the bud continued to open.
With only a very small adjustment of position it remained on the Poppy head until it was fully in flower:
and still remained when the petals started to fall. When all petals had disappeared, it finally left the seed head…
…on the night of May 28th/29th to the fence adjacent to the moth trap!
It then never moved until the night of May 30th/ 31st when it finally disappeared.
The Buff-tip is an exclusively nocturnal species and generally such species abhor direct sunlight, but this moth was in direct sunlight for much of several days. That, and its unwillingness to fly on a series of warm nights seems extremely peculiar.
My knowledge of moth behaviour is very weak, so I have no likely explanation, but Buff-tip is notable for its confidence in the effectiveness of its well- camouflaged appearance, so that it does tend sit in very exposed situations around moth traps, rather than hiding away…..but for four days on the Poppy head and two days on the fence!!!
Moths are so great! Get a moth trap, or put out a sheet with a light behind it on a warm sultry evening, while enjoying a glass of vino.
The enforced confinement most of us have been living under in the wake of Coronavirus has at least meant that we have all spent more time in our gardens or local patch. Fortunately, we have been blessed with consistently warm sunny weather for most of the spring and so I am sure many of us have been delighted to find new species of plant and animal – or perhaps familiar species in greater abundance – than in previous years. And of course, the much reduced human footprint in March and April has seen wildlife thrive across the UK.
Of particular note has been an increase in reports of hedgehogs. I have tried keeping in touch with many society members and other friends with an interest in wildlife and nearly everyone I have spoken to has seen a hedgehog in their garden or very nearby. I have heard a few comments such as “first time I have seen a hedgehog in the garden for at least five years” or “we normally just see one, but there were four feeding together last night”. You know who you are! So why should this be?
A high proportion of my hog sightings every year come in the form of road casualties. In April 2019, a work colleague and myself decided to count all of the roadkill hogs we could find around MK in one month. We counted 24. I repeated this in April 2020 (admittedly alone) and found just two. We were put into lockdown on 23rd March and although some of us were still driving for work, there were very few cars on the road for the remainder of March and much of April and crucially, almost no cars late at night when hedgehogs are most active. This is a very basic hypothesis but my feeling is that far more hedgehogs survived that vital post hibernation period, when they have to fatten up into breeding condition, than is the case in a typical year. In our Oldbrook garden, the hogs have been feeding very well and we are finding more and more droppings every week!
I would be very interested to hear from all and any of you about hedgehogs you see, specifically in your back or front gardens. I have a database which I can update with your sightings – just one record per garden is fine. What I need to know is:
Who – your name
When – date and time of sighting
Where – your postcode or 6 figure grid reference if you know it
You can either email me on mkincaid1971@outlook.com or phone me on 07765 010655. At the end of the year I will send all the collated sightings to BMKERC.
Finally, whilst we have all enjoyed the sunshine this year, as you may be aware hedgehogs are struggling to find enough to eat and especially to drink. If you think you have hedgehogs in your area, please leave out a shallow dish of water as often as you can, as well as any food you might put out. Tiggywinkles and other wildlife rescue centres report a huge increase in hogs with dehydration recently and this is something we could easily help to avoid. Remember also that we are now at the peak breeding season for these charming animals, so you may heard their noisy mating or, if you’re really lucky, find some hoglets in your own gardens.
We did the garden last year and we installed a pond, so I have been staking it out, looking carefully and pond dipping. At first I thought it was devoid of life, but after being told to be patient things started to appear.
First up were pond skaters, so had a play taking their photo while they were skating on the pond.
Above: (l) Pond Skater; (r) Young Pond Skater
While pond dipping found back swimmers, water boatman, Mayfly nymphs, damselfly larva possibly common blue. Later confirmed when a green form emerged from the pond. Darter larva, plus 2 different diving beetles.
Above: (l) Back Swimmer; (r) Mayfly Nymph
Above: (l) Lesser Water Boatman; (r) Diving Beetle
Also we saw our first frog last week, but no frog spawn, hopefully next year.
While watching the pond I found the exuvia of the dragonfly and damselfly which I have collected and put onto microscope slides.
Above: (l) Common Blue damselfly larva; (r) Darter larva, poss. Common
Above: (l and r) Common Blue damselfly – green form
In between pond watching and working I also have been taking pictures of Myriapods and Isopods. Plus anything else that stayed still long enough!
Above: (l) Millipede; (r) Millipede – Polydesmus species
One of the joys of late spring in our garden is the blooming of the Cotoneaster horizontalis. This plant produces small pink flowers which, unless you inspect closely just seem to be buds that never open.
Even on a day like today, when the air temperature is around 10 C, the plant is alive with bees. On a hot day, their humming is almost louder than the traffic on the M1. All cotoneasters are good for nectar but this species is the best. This plant is not more than 2 feet in height but about 5 feet across and, in a quick count today, there were at least two dozen bees on it. The majority were the workers of the tree bumble bee, Bombus hypnorum and the spring bumble bee, Bombus pratorem. Also present, a single honey bee – well it is a cold day.
The small flowers of the plant are well suited to the short tongued bumble bees. It is well known that bees do not bother to visit a flower that has been recently visited by another individual bee. I read in Dave Goulson’s book, A Sting in the Tail, that it has been shown, by clever research which involved washing the feet of bees, that each bee leaves a smelly footprint on the flower which can be detected by another bee. The smell declines over time so the insect can determine when the flower was last visited. Different plants refill their nectaries at different rates, borage being a notable plant that refills very quickly, in about two minutes, compared with comfrey which takes upwards of forty minutes. So out I go with my stopwatch and observe a single flower. I took three readings all under ten minutes, the average time between visits being 6 minutes. Considering that this single plant must be covered in thousands of flowers, it explains why it is such a good nectar source.
Our plant is one of a large family of cotoneasters which originate in India, Tibet or China. Horizontalis is the one that is most recognisable and has acquired a common name, the Fishbone or Herringbone cotoneaster. Originally found in China, it was brought to the west in the 19th century by that saviour of deer, Pere David. Considered by some to be too invasive, our plant arrived by chance about 20 years ago and established itself on the edge of our north-facing patio where, apart from when we trip over it, it has become most welcome.
As the year progresses, other species make the most of this shrub. This week, when the song thrush chicks fledged, their parent took them right under the branches into its heart to hunt for snails. Throughout the rest of the year, the wren is most active in it and the dunnock uses it as a hidey hole to escape from the aggressive robin. We often see glimpses of bank voles rushing into cover under it and frogs and toads live under it as well. Occasionally, a grass snake makes an appearance. On one memorable occasion, many years ago, a mink appeared from under it.
Once the berries form in the autumn, it becomes of great interest to other species. In the past, this would have been blackbirds, thrushes, sometimes redwings in the depths of winter but these days, the resident wood pigeon gobbles them up quite early in the autumn, a bird so fat it seems to waddle.
Jenny Mercer has sent in the video clip linked below about a patch of Meadow Saxifrage (saxifrage granulata) situated in Stony Stratford Nature Reserve. We usually visit it on our summer walks. This year it seems to be much less prevalent – but it’s there! Jenny’s commentary explains all.
The prospect of lockdown as the most exciting season of the year for wildlife got underway was daunting to say the least, but fortunately through singular and fairly consistently paced walks, I’ve been able to see what’s about around my southern corner of Milton Keynes, while keeping to the best routes for social distancing and considering my timing carefully. It has also been an ideal time to use the garden for sky watching more than ever before, bringing some bird species I haven’t previously seen or heard from home.
Though there are a few fairly local places I like to travel to at this time of year, there is usually more than enough wildlife to keep me busy on my local patch. There are a range of habitats around Tattenhoe and the surrounding areas which make it well worth scanning for passing migratory birds from late March to early May. The woodlands and parkland meadows usually produce several species of butterfly and quieter periods can offer glimpses of some of the elusive resident mammals. Social distancing can be carried out here without much difficulty, so long as the narrow woodland footpaths and thin red ways between housing and hedgerows are usually avoided.
On my walks early April saw the return of Chiffchaffs and Blackcaps, which quickly gained in numbers as males began to occupy and defend territories. There was a brief movement of Willow Warblers with 6 singing males on 7th April, only two of which seemed to have remained since. The morning of the 8th produced my eagerly anticipated first Redstart of the year, unfortunately perched from a far from ideal place for photography in a private car park. Fortunately, an even better consolation prize followed immediately after with a northbound Cuckoo passing over Tattenhoe Park. This was my first Cuckoo for the Tattenhoe area since 2017 and the first reported in Bucks this year, just about photographed as a mere speck in the distance but nonetheless unmistakable in shape and flight.
One frequent passage visitor I think I have probably missed a few more of is the Wheatear, with just a single male seen so far stopping by on 17th April. Fortunately, lucky timing has given me sightings of some other unusual flyovers for this corner of MK included a Goosander heading north on the first day of the month and a Green Sandpiper, which also flew north on the 16th. Another local scarcity, the Ring Ouzel, dropped into Tattenhoe Park on the 9th, spotted in the exact same treeline as my previous one in October 2018. After many days of hoping for them last year it was great to see one here again, though the photo opportunities were cut short by a male Blackbird keen to prevent it from foraging around one of the fields!
Keeping an eye on the skies from home for longer periods than usual has also produced a few pleasant surprises including migrating Meadow Pipits, Linnets and a pair of Kestrels. All three of these are fairly common species locally but never seen over my suburban garden before, well away from the scrubby grassland habitats I tend to associate them with. Tagging in with the citizen science of “nocmig” or nocturnal migration, I’ve also been using my Tascam DR-05 sound recorder in the hopes of picking up bird movements at night. With a bucket, bubble wrap and the recorder on a tripod, my nocturnal recording setup is nowhere near as advanced or expensive as those I follow online but it has yielded some satisfying finds. So far the highlights have been two occurrences of Moorhen, a local resident species but rarely anywhere near my garden, Coot, which is an infrequent visitor to Tattenhoe’s waterways on at 2.53am on 26th March and an Oystercatcher, a rare flyover for this corner of MK, making a single call at 00.50 on 5th April.
After bringing the recorder back inside, I use Audacity to amplify the sounds of the recordings, then looking for blips in the spectrogram, the smallest of which are usually bird vocalizations. I’ve already known most of the calls I’ve picked up on them so far, though looking at other people’s recordings on Twitter and researching the vocals of various birds on xeno-canto.org has also been very helpful in identifying them since I started this last year. It hasn’t produced as many bird species as I had initially hoped for so far, but picking up just the occasional call of one that I don’t usually see from my garden or even my sometimes lengthy walks in recent years has made it well worthwhile.
In recent years, aided largely by spring migration, April has had a knack for bringing new species to my Tattenhoe birds list and 2020 has been no exception, bringing me the 126th since 2008 with my first ever Wood Warbler, singing his heart out while foraging the canopy of a thicket in the Tattenhoe Valley Park on 26th April. Being a rare visitor to Bucks with less than 5 reported across the county annually in recent years, this was easily my most exciting bird find of the year so far. As expected, this was a passing visit and there was no sign of him the next day. A bird I had been holding out hope for over several years, slap bang in the middle of a place I had already been to countless times. It just goes to show a local area with decent habitat, even in an urban setting can still be full of surprises after years of being watched.
Wood Warbler, 26th April
A couple of days later, one of the trademarks of summer, the Swift arrived over my garden, with three hawking in the murky morning skies. Today as I type this on 4th May, at least 5 have been lingering around the nearby sky, performing aerobatics, and frequently chasing each-other from the late morning and into the afternoon.
Swift over the garden, 27th April
Onto non avian wildlife, early April produced a huge butterfly boom across the local area. It didn’t take long for Orange-tips to appear in mass just about everywhere I looked, while Speckled Woods started to appear around the woodland edges and Holly Blues made passing visits to the garden, occasionally basking. The eagerly anticipated dragonfly and damselfly season finally got going for me on 4th May with two Large Reds emerging from one of the balancing ponds. A disappointingly late start to the season compared with other recent years, but with so many fine sunny days recently, I suspect many of them may have already gone missed on their maiden flights. 2020 also seems to be the year of the Cuckoo flower in Tattenhoe, with many more appearing around the woodland and parkland meadows than I can say I’ve seen before.
Tawny Mining Bee in the garden 27th April
Peacock Butterfly 4th April
Lockdown life has taken some adjusting to, but it has been comforting to at least see a portion of what has been going on out there within compliance to the guidelines. It’s been a good spring so far, especially for birds and with these difficult times still looming over us, I’m feeling luckier than ever to have the parks, lakes and woodland of MK on my doorstep. Stay safe everyone.
Just like everyone else, I still find it hard to believe I am actually living through what feels to me like a bizarre disaster movie. I feel the same mix of negative emotions – fear, anger, anxiety, loneliness – that I am sure we all do so I won’t rehearse them all again. I’ll just say we are all in it together in every way except actually being able to be together.
So, how has my lockdown been going? First, I’ve been reading my copy of Wonderland: A Year of Britain’s Wildlife, Day by Day by Brett Westwood and Stephen Moss on a daily basis. The 22nd April entry reminded me of the joys of the dawn chorus walk. We duly went for ours on 22nd April and came home to a full cooked breakfast, just as in the book. The dawn chorus is a magical thing, even if you can’t get outside to experience it, I urge you to open a window about half an hour before sunrise at this time of the year and enjoy it while you can.
Andrew and I came to a decision very early on that in a world where all of a sudden “Everyday is Like Sunday” (as Morrissey sang in the 80s) we had to make a new normal and try to shape our time. We resolved that we would walk every day whether we felt like it or not. We are fortunate that we live in a small village (Gawcott) surrounded by miles and miles of fields and hedgerows. These were previously totally unexplored by us but we have now subjected them to intense scrutiny. And some amazing and unexpected finds have been made. Firstly, the field that I can actually see from my study is absolutely alive with yellowhammers yelling their “little bit of bread and no cheeeeeeeese” song, and skylarks pouring out their incessant song while I search for the little black dot they have become. My neighbour called out to me one day from his window: “Did you see it? Did you see the snowy owl?” He’s not much of an ornithologist as he obviously meant “barn owl” but he’s seen it and I haven’t! It’s on my “most wanted” list though and I keep looking. There was one fantastic evening when we saw a hare zooming over the field. We were amazed we had hares so near to us. I’ve picked 4 trees and have been taking a daily photograph of them all since 31st March to look back later and be reminded of the “lost spring”. I can’t help wondering if I’ll still be photographing them as the leaves turn to gold and fall.
We’ve done lots of ordinary walks but a couple of crazy ones too. On 8th March we walked at 3:30am to see the much hyped “pink moon”. It was a fantastic full moon but it wasn’t pink! I discovered later that it’s called “pink” for some vague extraneous reasons, nothing to do with colour. Our village Facebook page also advertised times of the ISS (International Space Station) passing and we made a point of looking out for that too. Yes, I know it’s been going for over 30 years but I’d never somehow found the time before.
The President of Bucks Bird Club, Dave Ferguson, very kindly sent a copy of the local Butterfly Conservation group’s magazine to a large email group as a neighbourly gesture in the lockdown. He said please pass it on to anyone who may be interested so I am pleased to do just that. I enjoyed reading it and there are a lot of interesting ideas for enjoyable things to do. I was particularly interested in the article titled “Enjoying moths at home without a light trap” and plan to give it a go.
I know when it’s Saturday because I’ve been joining in with an initiative started by Si Nicholls, that well known MK birder! He calls it the #biggardensit. The idea is for birders to record as many species as they can in the hour between 8am and 9am STRICTLY from their own living spaces. A species can be counted if it is seen visiting, flying over, heard, seen distantly (even if 2 miles away sitting on a puddle). Good optics and great birding skills are useful aids! It started on 28/3/20 with mainly Bucks birders. By 18th April it had grown to 56 birders over 11 counties who between them clocked 90 species. I’m sure Si would be delighted to welcome more participants and the project is set to continue for every Saturday in May. If interested, email si.nich@yahoo.com And if you’re curious, on 25th April my score was a modest 18 while the top score was 40 (shared by a Bucks birder and a Cornish birder).
Finally, I will share one of my concerns about the pandemic. I am sure we are all aware the virus originated in Wuhan, China, in the so called ‘wet markets’ where all sorts of live animals, wild and domesticated, are killed in dirty conditions and sold for consumption. These markets were supposed to be banned and many of the wild animals are in theory protected by law. The virus probably originated in bats and passed along a chain of other animals until it mutated and jumped to humans. The science journal “Nature” reported the most likely vectors were some illegally smuggled pangolins.
Covid-19 is not the first disease that has originated in wildlife and spread to humans – a couple of other examples are the SARS epidemic and MERS. Voices are beginning to be raised calling for the UN to add a new Article – Article 31 – to the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights, recognising the right to a healthy environment. It certainly gets my vote. Enough is enough.
Bury Common or Bury Field is an ancient common in Newport Pagnell, and is my main local ‘patch’. It is a large area of common land (first mentioned in 1276), and it is just five minutes walk from my house. It has been a regular part of my life for around thirty years now. Bury Common is mainly open pasture and was grazed for many years, but there have been no cattle there for a few years now. What is usually called the lower meadow borders the river Ouse and has recently been managed for restoration to meadow, which has included planting yellow rattle. Although not a massively diverse habitat, the common includes a river bank, floodplain, pasture, hedgerows and small copses, and is next to grazed paddocks (sheep and horses) where there is a permissive riverside path, and is also next to a small patch of woodland.
It’s a good place to walk at any time of year and I walk there with Teo our dog for an hour or so most mornings and evenings. As it is a 5 minute walk, I can still spend quite a bit of time here even in lockdown and it feels like a real blessing. For me the first signs of spring are the larks which are heard more regularly once February arrives, although this year, there seemed to be less activity, perhaps because February was so wet. I’m pleased to say that larks are doing really well on the common now, even though it is well used by dog walkers. At the moment, with traffic reduced during lockdown, the common is often full of lark song with little other sound to disturb it. I’m not sure how they are successful on what can be quite a busy area, but they manage it and there is at least one field fenced off (though a dog could get through the wire fence easily enough).
Lark
Of the other various small farmland birds, I love seeing and hearing the meadow pipit which I still associate with wilder upland places. Small flocks are present on the common and active in the early spring. Another of my favourites is the reed bunting which is also present in reasonable numbers through the year. But my biggest favourite is the lapwing, perhaps because of its persistence and its haunting cry. It also reminds me of the area I grew up in in North Wales, by the cost where lapwings and curlews were numerous. At the moment there is just one pair on the common, which is nesting in a field abutting the lower meadow. (There were two one year, but there are never that many). Ground nesting birds have a difficult time anywhere – but here there is just this one pair, and they are close to the rookery, so a tricky place to be successful. The spring aerial display was wonderful, and this morning another walker on the common told me they had seen two chicks. That’s great news and I will be looking out for them.
Lapwing
As far as I can tell, some of the traditional farmland birds are here in relatively small numbers: small flocks of linnets, greenfinch, chaffinch (I don’t see many of these) and larger flocks of goldfinch. I am told by a local birder that there is a pair of bullfinches in the hedgerow between the main and lower common but have not been fortunate enough to see them yet. At this time of year, more and more migrants are appearing. Swallows turned up about 10 days ago – unfortunately not that many and sand martins have returned around the same time. Today I spotted some house martins.
Female linnet
The boundary between one of the upper fields that used to be an arable field, and the lower meadow is quite a rich area, especially where there are brambles along the boundary wire fence and where there is a very small copse at the end near an ash tree. Many birds use the fence and the posts as perches. A highlight for me a week ago was seeing a whitethroat here.
The river bank provides a different habitat. There is a pair of mandarin ducks currently though I have only seen the female and am still hoping for an appearance by the male. The paddocks where the horses graze is next to the river, and walking the river path is delightful. Yesterday was a very good day as I heard my first cuckoo: it seemed to be in the Lathbury area (about half a mile away) but we usually have at least one calling on the common, and have had two in the past. I then heard the call of another favourite bird of mine, the ‘cronk’ of the raven. Isn’t it wonderful that these birds are now seen much more frequently in the east of the country? I imagine the ravens that I hear on the common (but don’t usually see) are birds looking for new territories. I would be delighted if a pair decided to nest here.
Whitethroat
The final highlight of yesterday morning’s walk was the little owl. We have a pair here that frequent the area near the paddocks, usually roosting in the same willow tree, but I hadn’t seen one for a while. The habitat must be nearly perfect for them. There is a fence running between the first paddock and the second, with a number of old willow trees along the fence. A further fence runs along the upper edge of the paddocks (at a right angle to the first fence) with a hedge behind and more willows, and a third wooden fence borders the path by the river. There are further fences between the paddocks. The owls often perch on one of the fences, and when disturbed or when they have had enough, there is always a willow to retreat to, and they are very well camouflaged in the willow. I imagine that the paddocks with the horse manure are rich in earthworms, whilst behind the paddocks there is an area of rough grass which usually has a good population of voles.
Some of you may have been at a MKNHS meeting last autumn when Ayla Webb, Gordon Redford and I spoke and illustrated three different aspects of our local ‘mothing’ activities during the year.
Ayla covered the use of pheromone lures to attract a group of day-flying species which are otherwise near-impossible to find. Of these, in 2019, we were able to locate and photograph Six-belted Clearwing, Hornet Moth (or Hornet Clearwing) and Red- tipped Clearwing. There are over a dozen other Clearwing species. One which ought to occur in our area and for which there is a pheromone lure is the Currant Clearwing.
This species was always difficult to find, but many more were discovered with the advent of the lure. However the growing of Black and Red Currants in any numbers has declined drastically either in large gardens or allotments. It is thought that the moth has declined in parallel.
So, do you know of any large patches of Red or Black Currant bushes which we may be able to access at the appropriate season…late June is the peak time. If you do, please contact me and we will see if we can locate and hopefully photograph the species. You get a mounted print if we are successful! For additional encouragement and to show you how beautiful these creatures are, here is a photo of the Red-tipped Clearwing taken at Stony Stratford Nature Reserve.
So please help if you can…many thanks
Andy Harding on 01908 565896 or 07969 916380 or at andyh444@sky.com
