Nature Notes – May 2013 - Pete Lambert

Stumbling out the back door to get to our various workaday destinations we were calmed by the suspended mist in the lightening morning. Duvet bands of vapour hung above the field behind the house and there a barn owl silently quartered the tussocky grassland for a breakfast snack. A few days later, another, or the same barn owl was seen at dusk near Aston locks. Barn owls, though in steep decline are still part of the local bird-scape. Open countryside with roosting opportunities in old buildings or ancient solitary field trees and rough grassland teeming with vole lunches is the favoured territory of the Hush-wing.

Questions of territory also tried to form themselves in my head yesterday as we soaked up the excitement of watching over 65 Red kites swirl around the feeding station at Nant Y Arian. These fork-tailed wonders had turned up for their 3 o’clock feast. Occasional aerial bouts would occur as dominant birds would try to dislodge a morsel from a fellow raptor, we saw some fatty meat drop into the lake below and the successful attackers dropped down to seize the prize. As the food was cleaned up the sated birds began to circle higher and wider and finally we realised that they were done.  Each bird occupies in natural conditions very large foraging territories, the artificial feeding must do funny things to their behaviour and number. Recent reports suggest a Red kite feeding station if being considered in a location in South Shropshire. I am confident it will bring us pleasure but does it help us restore nature or merely create a kind of domesticated wildlife shadow show?

Llynclys Common is a favourite Sunday morning spot and on my circuit a narrow section of the footpath passes between two large and diverse gardens, small fields and hedgerows, some neat, some not, make up a delightful mosaic of habitats. Today this ideal spot delivered a clear view of a male Bullfinch, firstly he moved ahead of me flashing his distinctive rectangular white rump flash. Then settling on a hedge the full glory of Billy Blackcap was revealed, or shown off! Hunting-pink barrel chest,  black cap, strong beak, all come together in a splendid ensemble. I had seen another male earlier the previous week along Middleton lane, this time also along a hedge near a lovely crowded garden of shrubs, fruit trees and mature trees. Down by the railway bridge in Haughton is such another collection of scrub, hedge and untidy woody growth, and of course bullfinch seen here last year. I don’t think I have to check the guide to discover the territorial preferences of the Bullfinch!

The mole is not an endangered species and I must confess our home colony having made a terrific mess of our lawn [?]  I do have sympathy with those who consider them a perfect nuisance in the maintenance of a productive and level sward of grass. The molehills throw up stones to damage machine blades and the soil encouraging pockets of weed.  An adept local mole-catcher to demonstrate that a landowners money was well spent has hung up the trapped gentlemen on the relevant field fence boundary. I counted 45 velvet clad vanquished earthmovers on a short stretch of narrow lane. Of considerably more interest on the last gibbet two large carnivores of a different calibre to the worm gourmand alongside. Just over 18 inches from head to tail and nearly uniform black except for a goatee patch of white beneath the mouth, the Mink is a very successful mammal indeed, though this pair had been outwitted by our pest control expert.

Mink were first brought to this country to be farmed for their lush coats. Being nimble and bright they had soon escaped , rampaged across the country, damaging fish stocks, oppressing our humble water vole and disturbing the sensitive balance of our native fauna. Rightly controlled their numbers have been in steady decline though efforts have to continue to allow our native wildlife safe conduct beyond the reign of terror brought by our shallow desire for the sensuous delights of fur.

And finally Summers herald, a White tailed bumblebee, the first of his order out and yes, bumbling in the weak but warming sun of Spring.

Pete Lambert