Dear Readers, it was the Big Garden Birdwatch this weekend, and for once the weather, at least in East Finchley, was bright and sunny. It’s always a pleasure to just top up all the feeders and watch to see who turns up. The starlings were looking particularly splendid today I thought, with that iridescent sheen on their plumage showing to great advantage.
Over the past few weeks I’ve been noticing a lot of blackbirds , so it was good to be able to sit and actually watch them. It seems that my garden is on the intersection between two pairs of the birds. One pair has a very dapper, fully adult male, who was flying off with beakfuls of mealworms. The other pair has a much younger male, who is a bit less confident.
The younger male blackbird
The more confident male
There are also two females, but I haven’t yet worked out which is paired up with which male.
All very confusing! We shall have to see how it all plays out.
There were the usual goldfinches and chaffinches.
Goldfinch
Chaffinch
And of course, a grey squirrel.
There were blue and great tits, a robin, and a pair of magpies who visited briefly before noting me, watching through the kitchen window with my binoculars, and flying off.
But as always when I pay attention, there was also a male blackcap lurking in the foliage. He very rarely comes to the feeders, but I’m surprised how often he shows up when I do the Birdcount. He’s probably around a lot more than I notice. I rather like these shy little warblers, who bring a touch of wildness to the garden.
Male blackcap
So, here’s my count for the hour in full – for those of you who aren’t familiar with how the UK Birdcount works, you record the maximum number of birds of each species that you see in the garden at the same time. I suspect for me this is an underestimate, what with me wrestling with binoculars, a camera, the recording app on my phone and keeping an eye on the lunch all at the same time.
Blackbird – 4
Blue Tit – 2
Chaffinch – 6
Collared Dove – 3
Goldfinch – 4
Great Tit – 1
Magpie – 2
Robin – 1
Starlings – 10
A lot of the usual suspects didn’t show up (as usual) – no woodpigeons or coal tits, no long-tailed tits or great spotted woodpeckers. But this wasn’t a bad showing for a Big Garden Birdwatch day – usually all the birds seem to lurk elsewhere until exactly one minute after the count ends, before reappearing. Little devils!
Dear Readers, spring ephemerals are woodland plants that come into flower very early, before the leafy canopy has developed, and then disappear. They are amongst my very favourite plants, and so today I thought I’d see how good you are at identifying them. This quiz is a simple case of matching the name to the photo.
As usual, you will have until 5 p.m. UK time on Friday 4th February to put your answers in the comments, and the results will be published on Saturday 5th February. I will disappear your answers as soon as I see them, but there may be a delay, so you might want to write your answers on a piece of paper first if you’re easily influenced!
So if you think Photo One is of Plant Species A, your answer is 1) A)
Onwards! And I hope you enjoy the photos – they remind me that spring is on the way….
Dear Readers, this turned out to be much more difficult than I expected (but of course it’s always easy when you know the answers :-)). Fran and Bobby Freelove and Claire both tied on matching the descriptions to the birds, with 6 out of 10 each, but Claire also named some of the birds so I am going to make Claire our winner this week. Well done Claire! Let’s see what I can come up for for Sunday’s quiz.
Descriptions
Compensates for size by noisy and overwrought personality. Unexpectedly loud song explodes from near ground level, a hurried jumble of sweet liquid notes, including a jarring trill mid-phrase, overall like excitable commentator enthusing over finish of race.
D) Wren (Troglodytes troglodytes)
2. Has a red-hot sex life in which both males and females may hold multiple mates, with fractious consequences.
I) Dunnock (Prunella modularis)
3) Parents feed large broods (average 10+) for 2 weeks, making 1000 visits a day carrying caterpillars.
F) Blue tit (Cyanistes caeruleus)
4) Cheerful chiming song, a much varying repetition of two notes TEEcher, TEEcher, can be heard everywhere from late Dec until May.
A) Great Tit (Parus major)
5) Very common mite of woodland and scrub, now increasingly visiting gardens, where it feeds from hanging feeders. Bands of 5-10 relatives spend autumn and winter patrolling large territory, where individuals feed in branches for just a few moments before moving on to the next tree, one after another, always restlessly passing through.
C) Long-tailed tit (Aegithalos caudatus)
6) Forages on lawns or fields for worms, standing still for a few moments, then making scampering runs forward to grab prey, or stand watchful again: may also make 2-footed hops forward.
B) Blackbird (Turdus merula)
7) Makes monotonous 3-note cooing in rhythm of football chant U-NIII-ted; also calls after alighting, a curious mewing with tone of party trumpet.
G) Collared Dove (Streptopelia decaocto)
8) Flight display in straight line: bird rises with wing flaps, stalls as if shot, glides down. When landing, raises tail and slowly drops it.
Dear Readers here’s a reminder to those of you who, like me, are fed up with what seems like winter’s interminable grey; in just a few weeks the snowdrops will be in full bloom. I took the photo above in the cemetery on 21st of February, and it’s clear that these lovelies had been out for a while. So hold on, folks! In my garden I have one single patch of snowdrops that is looking pretty promising, so shortly I might be able to bring you some homegrown examples. In the meantime, though, here are two very different poems about snowdrops. These two Northern lads, Ted Hughes and William Wordsworth, could not be more different. Which will you prefer, I wonder? I used to love Ted Hughes rugged machismo – only he could look at a snowdrop and see metal and brutality – but as I grow older, I find myself warming to the lyricism and hope in the Romantics in a way that I never did when I was first studying them.
First, the Ted Hughes.
Snowdrop
Now is the globe shrunk tight
Round the mouse’s dulled wintering heart.
Weasel and crow, as if moulded in brass,
Move through an outer darkness
Not in their right minds,
With the other deaths. She, too, pursues her ends,
Brutal as the stars of this month,
Her pale head heavy as metal.
A garden full of snowdrops in Dorchester
And here’s Wordsworth.
To A Snowdrop
BY WILLIAM WORDSWORTH
Lone Flower, hemmed in with snows and white as they
But hardier far, once more I see thee bend
Thy forehead, as if fearful to offend,
Like an unbidden guest. Though day by day,
Storms, sallying from the mountain-tops, waylay
The rising sun, and on the plains descend;
Yet art thou welcome, welcome as a friend
Whose zeal outruns his promise! Blue-eyed May
Shall soon behold this border thickly set
With bright jonquils, their odours lavishing
On the soft west-wind and his frolic peers;
Nor will I then thy modest grace forget,
Chaste Snowdrop, venturous harbinger of Spring,
And pensive monitor of fleeting years!
And finally, I couldn’t resist adding a third poem. Here’s something ebullient from Alfred, Lord Tennyson, another poet that I’m growing to love more as the years go by.
The Snowdrop
by
Alfred, Lord Tennyson
Many, many welcomes,
February fair-maid,
Ever as of old time,
Solitary firstling,
Coming in the cold time,
Prophet of the gay time,
Prophet of the May time,
Prophet of the roses,
Many, many welcomes,
February fair-maid!
Dear Readers, you might recognise this fox from a few days ago, when I was waxing lyrical about how pretty she was. Sadly, all the local foxes also seem to think that she’s pretty, as the amount of fox-action in my street last night was really something to hear. It started before dark, and at 10 a.m. this morning I saw three very fine foxes chasing one another up the road. I went to the shed to put out some bird food and yet another fox brushed against my legs as it bolted past. Don’t these critters ever sleep?
My go-to book for information on foxes is ‘Fox-Watching’ by Martin Hemmington, and he has a very useful month-by-month guide to the behaviour of foxes. As I suspected, January is the peak month not only for mating, but also for dispersal of last year’s youngsters from the territory of their parents. All this makes for an extremely noisy and messy month. Both females and males will double-down on marking their territories – the urine of the females will attract the dog foxes, and the males will want to make sure that their boundaries are secure.
Hemmington points out that as most foxes are solo at this point, they use vocal means to communicate. And don’t they just! The ‘scream’ that was once thought to only be made by vixens is actually made by both sexes in order to attract a mate, and all the youngsters will also be trying to find someone to partner up with for the first time. There’s also that ‘contact call’ – around here, it’s usually three barks, but there’s one individual fox that makes four short ‘arf-arf-arf-arf’ calls.
If you aren’t familiar with the sounds made by red foxes (though I suspect most of you already are), you can hear a fine variety of screams and barks in the video below, along with some howling and an occasional owl. I’ve never heard a fox howling around here, but I guess they live so close together that it’s not worth the effort.
You don’t get a whole lot of ‘gekkering’ at this time of year – I associate this much more with foxes playing, and January is a serious month. Here’s what it sounds like, though, courtesy of Paul Cecil. There’s also a very interesting article about fox communication in general here.
So, I suspect that I and my neighbours are in for a few more weeks of disturbed sleep, but Hemmington assures us that by later in February the vixens will be pregnant and the males will be taking it easy prior to the birth of the cubs. The gestation period for foxes is 53 days, so if you happen upon any foxes ‘in the act’ you can probably date when the cubs will be born with some accuracy.
I’ve never actually seen any tiny cubs, but I do remember some very lovely gawky youngsters…here’s a selection from St Pancras and Islington Cemetery. And roll on spring!
Dear Readers, when I used to visit Mum and Dad in Milborne St Andrew in Dorset I would always make a special pilgrimage to see this extraordinary lime tree. Horses and sheep used to gather in its shade, and you could smell its distinctive creamy/fruity scent, and hear the sound of the drowsy bees gathering its nectar, from fifty feet away. Alas, when I visited back in November the tree had disappeared, blown down during the autumn storms. So this post is by way of a memorial, and a celebration. Lime trees can reach a good age (the oldest are thought to be about 2000 years old), which makes the demise of this one even sadder.
Lime blossom
There are two species of lime tree native to the UK – the large-leaved lime, as seen in the photos, and the small-leaved lime (Tilia cordata). The hybrid between the two, Tilia x europaea, is the original street tree, predating the now ubiquitous London Plane. The tree has absolutely nothing to do with the citrus lime, and the name is thought to be a corruption of the Old English word Lind. Known as the Linden in the rest of Europe, the tree used to line the avenues of many cities (Unter den Linden in Berlin for one). Alas, the tree also attracts aphids who emit torrents of honeydew, much to the disgust of the motorists who park underneath them. Plus, limes are relatively high-maintenance, requiring regular pruning to keep them in shape. Finally, with increased levels of pollution it was clear that the London Plane was more able to survive the rigours of smog and nitrous oxides. These days, there are still lime avenues in London, but they tend to be in the older, quieter parts of town, such as the Whitehall Estate in North London.
Lime trees on Gladsmuir Road
The wood of lime trees is soft and easy to work, with a fine grain and was a favourite of the sculptor Grinling Gibbons (1648 – 1721), who worked on pieces for Hampton Court, St Pauls Cathedral and Petworth House amongst other sites. It’s said that Gibbons often carved a closed peapod in his work, and that he would only carve it ‘open’ once he’d been paid. So, if you come across a Gibbons sculpture with a closed peapod, the poor man probably wasn’t paid for his labours.
Grinling Gibbons – detail from Hampton Court (Photo One)
In addition to its rich nectar, the lime tree provides plenty of food for caterpillars, the most spectacular of which is probably the lime hawk moth (Mimias tilae). This extraordinary moth can be found in a variety of colour morphs, from this rather green and pink individual through to moths striped in caramel and cream.
Lime Hawk-Moth (Mimas tilae) (Photo Two)
The caterpillars start out green, but turn brown when they’re fully fed. I especially like the blue and red spike at the back.
Lime Hawk-Moth caterpillar (Photo Three)
Lime trees are also prone to these rather fetching galls, known as nail galls and caused by the gall mite Eriophyes tilae. Galls are extraordinary because the invertebrates ‘persuade’ the plant to create these structures themselves. Nail galls act as protection for the young mites, and when they’re ready to leave they exit through tiny holes on the underside of the leaf, to wait in crevices in the bark for the following spring.
Nail galls
As regular readers will know, I’m also currently getting stuck into a variety of herbal teas, and I’m very intrigued by the idea of lime blossom. And linden honey sounds rather splendid too. What’s your experience, readers?
Lime flower tea (Photo Four)
And finally, here is a poem, which takes us full-circle back to the Unter den Linden, and to the power of taste and smell to evoke memory. The poet, Caroline Smith, wasn’t known to me before, but this is wonderful. I shall be keeping an eye open for more work by her.
The regulation for citizenship demands proof that an applicant was in the UK exactly five years before the date of application.
All she had brought with her
from that other life in the DDR
was a dill pickle jar filled with honey
made by his bees, from trees
in the Unter den Linden.
It would remain unopened,
a jar of time that could not change
but that preserved one day in their life together
as she had decided to remember it.
The honey held the burnished light
of an early morning leaving East Berlin
to take the swarm to the countryside
to pollinate an orchard.
It held the cobbled roads of the hamlets
they had meandered through:
the scent of flowering beans
through the open windows,
stalks of chaff that blew round the car,
the back of the old hatchback
bumping and scraping low behind them
with the packed hives, shifting –
and the restless hum of the bees.
In the shock that had enveloped her
after the release of her file
and the discovery of her husband’s
meticulous notes on her life,
she had searched back
as she prepared to leave Germany
for signs of his affection –
some drop of sweetness
she could extract from those years.
Dear Readers, after seeing four foxes in the cemetery on Saturday, it should have come as no surprise to see a crepuscular visitor in the garden. This little one was hoovering up the bird food that the starlings had spilt. I have a strong suspicion that she’s a vixen, though I couldn’t have told you how I know – maybe something about her manner. She was more watchful than the dog foxes usually are. Plus, there’s something delicate about her face.
I have, I confess, been throwing out a single handful of dried dog food for the foxes. They usually pass through the garden at one point or another during the evening, and I’m sure they’d find something to eat, but in winter, when the pickings are poorer and when many of the females will be pregnant it seems kind to give them at least something. Some of my neighbours would disagree, I know. The foxes can be loud, and destructive, and can leave delightful offerings of torn up KFC packaging and black, curly droppings. However, not so long ago all of this area was woodland, and before that it was common land. If we are serious about getting on with the other inhabitants of this planet, a little tolerance is surely called for. We have taken away so much, destroyed so much habitat and made it so difficult for everything else that lives around us that giving a little back feels like the least we can do.
Plus, I rather love the foxes. I love their cheekiness, their opportunism, their intelligence and their sheer physical beauty. Life in the city is hard for foxes – most will live for less than a year. I have lost count of how many I have seen run down, or poisoned. Mange kills many. They are our neighbours, but we aren’t always very neighbourly. But for me, seeing them in the garden feels like a privilege, a little taste of the wildness that we have lost in our domesticated lives. They always make my heart beat a little faster.
Dear Readers, it was a cold, dull January day and to be honest I wasn’t expecting to see anything out of the ordinary in St Pancras and Islington Cemetery. I was feeling a bit out of inspiration after almost two years of blogging every day, but I should have known that if I go outside and pay attention, there is always something interesting to see.
At first, it was all about the sounds. There were flocks of redwings hurrying overhead – they are always in such a rush to be somewhere else. They call to one another all the time, even though it must take up energy – is it for reassurance, I wonder? I know that they can be heard at night flying over the rooftops on their way to or from Scandinavia. You can hear them in the recording below, taken on a windy morning on Tory Island in County Donegal.
The green woodpeckers were yaffling away. It’s such a loud call that it can be startling when a bird erupts from a nearby shrub.
There seemed to be quite a lot of unease – blackbirds alarm calling, robins ‘clicking’ away – but it wasn’t until we got into the open that we could see the kestrel perched on top of a small tree. I haven’t seen any kestrels for weeks, so this was a welcome sight. Kestrels don’t hunt other birds, but of course the birds don’t know that.
After a few minutes the kestrel was chased off by a mob of crows. Corvids don’t like anything that looks like a bird of prey on their patch, however small, and they are fearless and determined. The poor kestrel disappeared over the tops of the trees, but no doubt it will be back.
I’d already seen one fox – a rather sad-looking specimen with a bit of a limp. But then I saw two. They separated, and I just got a quick shot of this one. Some foxes will still be pairing up to mate, but in others the female will already be pregnant. Certainly the ones that I hear in my garden are extremely hungry – they think nothing of knocking over the bird table to get at the suet pellets, cheeky things.
In other news, though, much is stirring. I saw my first lesser celandine – quite a small specimen, but a sign of things to come. Soon, the woods will be carpeted with these yellow star-like flowers.
Many bulbs, originally planted on the graves, have gone ‘rogue’ and expanded out into the woods. I love this patch of daffodils.
You might remember that last year a party of mallards turned up on the tiny (and, I suspect, rather polluted) stream that wends its way through the cemetery. Today there was just one male. Is he part of an advanced guard, I wonder? I love how dapper mallards look, with their orange feet and their iridescent green heads.
I hadn’t noticed this grave before either: the algae has picked out all the detail on the carving, which is beautifully preserved, but the same can’t be said for the actual inscription. The first person mentioned on the grave is Martha Farrer, who died in 1860. When I have a minute, I shall do a bit more research.
And so, we are heading back to the main entrance when my husband grabs my arm. There, just crossing the road, is the most beautiful fox. Look at that bushy tail!
I look at the fox, and he looks at me. I love the way that foxes size you up, deciding whether you’re friend or foe on the basis of some long-standing internal algorithm.
And then the fox waited for a car bearing some mourners to pass through, before crossing the path at a gentle trot and disappearing under the fence belonging to the housing estate next door. What a splendid sight, and what a great end to my supposedly ordinary walk around the cemetery. It just goes to show that it’s always worth going out, even when you don’t feel like it.
Dear Readers, I have long been a fan of the Crossley ID Guide to the Birds of Britain and Ireland, and, with the RSPB Big Garden Birdwatch coming up next weekend I thought I would invite you to try your hand at identifying the bird from the description in the guide. I find that this book, co-authored by Richard Crossley and Dominic Couzens, has a gift for summing up a bird in just a sentence, so this week what I’d like you to have a bash at is simply matching the photo of the bird to the description, with a bonus point for identifying the species. All the birds are ones that you might, if you’re lucky, see in your garden.
As usual, you have until 5 p.m. UK time on Friday (28th January) to put your answers in the comments. I will disappear them as soon as I see them, but write your answers down first if you’re easily influenced (like me). I will post the answers next Saturday (29th January).
So, if you think that description 1) relates to the bird in Photo A, and that the bird featured is a flamingo, your answer is 1) A) Flamingo (though I think that a visit to Spec Savers might be a good idea).
Onwards!
Descriptions
Compensates for size by noisy and overwrought personality. Unexpectedly loud song explodes from near ground level, a hurried jumble of sweet liquid notes, including a jarring trill mid-phrase, overall like excitable commentator enthusing over finish of race.
Has a red-hot sex life in which both males and females may hold multiple mates, with fractious consequences.
Parents feed large broods (average 10+) for 2 weeks, making 1000 visits a day carrying caterpillars.
Cheerful chiming song, a much varying repetition of two notes TEEcher, TEEcher, can be heard everywhere from late Dec until May.
Very common mite of woodland and scrub, now increasingly visiting gardens, where it feeds from hanging feeders. Bands of 5-10 relatives spend autumn and winter patrolling large territory, where individuals feed in branches for just a few moments before moving on to the next tree, one after another, always restlessly passing through.
Forages on lawns or fields for worms, standing still for a few moments, then making scampering runs forward to grab prey, or stand watchful again: may also make 2-footed hops forward.
Makes monotonous 3-note cooing in rhythm of football chant U-NIII-ted; also calls after alighting, a curious mewing with tone of party trumpet.
Flight display in straight line: bird rises with wing flaps, stalls as if shot, glides down. When landing, raises tail and slowly drops it.
Gazpacho – a chilled Spanish tomato soup (Title Photo)
Dear Readers, we clearly have some soupmeisters and brothmistresses amongst us, because Fran and Bobby Freelove, Mal and Sara all got an unbeatable 20 out of 20 this week – well done to all of you! I would love to know what your favourite soup is. I have a longstanding fondness for goulaschesuppe (an Alpine speciality which is basically goulash in a soup, as you might have guessed from the name). This was always my first choice after striding up a mountain, but as I am vegan this month I suspect it might be rasam, an Indian tomato and tamarind soup which is great for clearing the sinuses! I know some of you have allotments too, or grow your own vegetables, so I would relish your soup-making adventures.
Photo Seven By No machine-readable author provided. Pamri assumed (based on copyright claims). – No machine-readable source provided. Own work assumed (based on copyright claims)., Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=426901
