Dear Readers, the Christmas decorations are packed away for another year, the carol CDs are tucked back in their box, and it’s raining yet again. But to finish things off with a bang, the Twelfth Day of Christmas celebrates with twelve drummers drumming. In some cultures, you don’t get your Christmas presents until Twelfth Night, when the Magi arrived, and this was traditionally the time when the world was turned upside down – servants were allowed to be cheeky to their masters, and people went through the streets in disguise, getting up to all sorts of mischief. Clearly they knew how to enjoy themselves!

But what of animals? Do they have a natural sense of rhythm? Studies have shown that male palm cockatoos, huge birds that live in the rainforests of Northern Australia, not only drum on trees as part of their courtship display but also make the drumsticks, picking a suitable twig and shaping it with their beaks. Different males have different ‘styles’ – some are slow and steady, some a bit more syncopated. The males often ‘drum’ on a hollow tree that would work as a nest site, and they may splinter up the ‘drumsticks’ afterwards to use as nest material. If the female is at all interested, she will fly down to inspect the site, and if she approves, the two may bond and mate.

You can watch a male cockatoo making a drumstick and performing in the video below.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2MIoXh_ORMw

And the New Scientist article is here.

Of course, many other animals ‘drum’ – the local woodland is already echoing to the sound of greater spotted woodpeckers hammering on trees to announce their territories, and I well remember the tale of a woodpecker that chose to hammer on one of the big metal speakers at a cricket ground, drowning out the commentator. Many species seem to have an instinctive understanding of how to amplify the sounds that they make – male chimpanzees will often ‘drum’ on a tree buttress for example, to make their displays more impressive.

These chimps from Comoé National Park in Côte d’Ivoire have different ways of ‘using’ this tree, and researchers think that each chimp may have his own individual way of announcing himself, almost like an aural signature. The only video I can find is on Facebook, but I hope you can watch it…

https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=2256051251276778

Even more intriguingly, researchers have found that some chimpanzees in the Republic of Guinea seem to have a ‘sacred tree’, at which they display a number of unusual behaviours. Sometimes they throw stones at the tree, or hit it with a stone. Sometimes, they just take a stone and place it in the hollow. None of the behaviours seem to have any connection with status or finding food, and some researchers are referring to what the chimps are doing as ‘proto-ritualistic’. You can watch a fine compilation of chimps interacting with the tree on the researcher, Laura Kehoe’s blog here.

So, at the end of one of the biggest religious festivals in the Christian calendar, are these chimps telling us something about the roots of belief in the sacred? It seems to me that we are so closely-related to the great apes that it was only a matter of time before we started to see behaviours that reflect our deep need to understand the world around us and to try to appease and control the forces of nature. And I would be very surprised if it’s only the great apes who do this – as we find out more and more about corvids and parrots, whales and monkeys, I suspect we will find things that will astonish us, and it makes it all the more urgent to protect the habitats where these animals live.

Last Question

Which of our wetland birds ‘drums’ like this?

And here are the links for all the previous days’ questions. I have decided to extend the deadline, as I did get rather carried away on some days 🙂 so you have until 5 p.m. on Sunday 9th January to put your answers in the comments (I will disappear them when I see them). Don’t worry if you haven’t had time to do all of the quizzes, I’m very happy to mark whichever ones you did manage to get round to.

The First Day of Christmas – A Partridge in a Pear Tree

The Second Day of Christmas – Two Turtle Doves

The Third Day of Christmas – Three French Hens

The Fourth Day of Christmas – Four Calling Birds

The Fifth Day of Christmas – Five Gold Rings

The Sixth Day of Christmas – Six Geese A-Laying

The Seventh Day of Christmas – Seven Swans A Swimming

The Eighth Day of Christmas – Eight Maids a-Milking

The Ninth Day of Christmas – Nine Ladies Dancing

The Tenth Day of Christmas – Ten Lords a-Leaping

The Eleventh Day of Christmas – Eleven Pipers Piping

 

Dear Readers, the Eleventh Day of Christmas might ostensibly be about human pipers, but for me, the word ‘piping’ conjures up the shoreline, and the sound of wading birds. The loudest are the oystercatchers – my Crossley Bird Guide describes their displays, when pairs ‘pipe’ at one another, as ‘deafening’. See what you think – it certainly has an over-excited quality.

When I was growing up, the northern lapwing or peewit (Vanellus vanellus) could be found in huge flocks on farmland in the south, but I don’t remember the last time I saw one in England. I remember great flocks of them on Orkney, though, tumbling through the air like smuts from a fire.

They have a call rather like the sound of an old-fashioned bicycle pump, and my Crossley Guide describes their display song as ‘madcap…with thudding wingbeats and a sound like peeling sellotape’. See what you think.

But perhaps the sound that I miss most of all is that of the curlew (Numenius arquata). Like all ground-nesting birds it is under constant pressure from changing agricultural practices and from habitat disturbance, and some of its last outposts are in the peat boggy areas of the west of Scotland. I once found the skull of a curlew, and couldn’t believe the length of its beak – the mandibles looked like a delicate surgical instrument, and indeed the bird uses its beak to extract crabs and seaworms from their burrows in the mud.

The call of the curlew is surely one of the most haunting of all bird sounds.

And finally, you might expect the sandpiper to have the most ‘piping’ of bird calls, and you wouldn’t be disappointed. Their call has the tone of a tin whistle, though the song is a simple note, repeated.

This post has made me realise how much I miss the sea. I must make a visit a priority this year. We sometimes get black-headed gulls on the nearby playing fields, but it’s no substitute!

Question

Can you match the names of the shorebirds to the photos?

A) Black-tailed Godwit

B) Avocet

C) Ruddy Turnstone

D) Whimbrel

E) Purple Sandpiper

Photo Credits

Oystercatchers by Bjørn Christian Tørrissen – Own work by uploader, http://bjornfree.com/galleries.html, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=7286081

Lapwing by Andreas Trepte – Own work, CC BY-SA 2.5, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=32486411

Eurasian Curlew By Andreas Trepte – Own work, CC BY-SA 2.5, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=15771576

Common Sandpiper by JJ Harrison (https://www.jjharrison.com.au/) – Own work, CC BY 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=23214327

Photo 1 by Original: neekoh.fi; this edit: MPF, CC BY 2.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0>, via Wikimedia Commons

Photo 2 by Andreas Trepte – Own work, CC BY-SA 2.5, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=716747

Photo 3 by  Andreas Trepte – Own work, CC BY-SA 2.5, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=15764295

Photo 4 by Andreas Trepte – Own work, CC BY-SA 2.5, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=33235014

Photo 5 by Andreas Trepte – Own work, CC BY-SA 2.5, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=10610115

Dear Readers, by the tenth day of Christmas I would probably have gone to a hotel, as the house would be full to the gunnels with milkmaids, over-excited dancing ladies and now a bunch of lords bouncing about. I’m fairly sure that the floorboards couldn’t stand it! But there is something about leaping which is so exuberant that it’s difficult to be too grumpy. According to my dictionary, ‘to leap’ means ‘jump or spring a long way, to a great height, or with great force’.

In the animal kingdom, lots of animals leap, for a variety of reasons. I was once in a conifer forest close to the Arvon writing centre at Moniack Mhor in Scotland when I spotted a roe deer browsing in the bracken. I stopped stock still and watched her for a few minutes as she delicately plucked the tenderest shoots. Then the breeze must have changed direction, as she suddenly raised her head, looked straight at me and in a split second had leapt into the air, easily clearing the fence that was next to her, and had bounded off into the undergrowth. The ability to leap is a clear advantage to a prey animal, but also to a predator – in fact, an uncommon collective noun for a group of leopards is a ‘leap’ (though as leopards are largely solitary creatures, there won’t be many occasions to use it).

Leaping can also be a big part of a mating display. It shows that an animal is fit and bold, both desirable attributes. If you haven’t seen this film of Jackson’s widowbirds displaying in East Africa (taken from Planet Earth and narrated by the incomparable David Attenborough), treat yourself to a look.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OPI-9oi19gQ

And finally, some animals have evolved in such a way that all they can do is leap. But what an efficient way this can be to get around! The tendons and muscles of kangaroos all contribute to an extremely low-energy way to get about – a kangaroo bouncing along at about 15 km/h can keep this up for much longer than a similarly-sized animal that runs. Some small animals, such as the jerboas of the desert regions of North Africa and the Middle East, can leap along at up to 15 mph, a terrific speed for such a diminutive creature. Have a look at the film below, from ‘Wild Arabia’. Spoiler alert: don’t worry too much about the jerboa 🙂

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fnP-m2KRxi0

There is another question in my mind though. Do animals, especially young ones, sometimes leap for sheer joy, and because they can? I can rationalise all the jumping about that lambs do as play, and as practice for their adult lives, but in my heart I suspect it’s because it’s spring, and there’s plenty to eat and nothing to be afraid of (that they know about anyway). And good luck to them! We should all do a bit more leaping (if our joints are up to it).

Question

And so, for today’s question – can you identify these leaping animals?

Photo Credits

Widowbird photo by Jayanth Sharma, CC BY-SA 3.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0>, via Wikimedia Commons

Photo 1 by RadioFan at en.wikipedia, CC BY-SA 3.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0>, via Wikimedia Commons

Photo 2 by Aske Holst from https://www.flickr.com/photos/askeholst/4578973351 

Photo 3 by Steve Slater, taken from https://www.flickr.com/photos/wildlife_encounters/8023898732

Photo 4 by Charles J. Sharp, CC BY-SA 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0>, via Wikimedia Commons

Photo 5 by Robin Agarwal from https://www.flickr.com/photos/30314434@N06/51405139143

Photo 6 by Michael Sale, from https://www.flickr.com/photos/michaelsale/10245058886

 

Dear Readers, the sixth day of Christmas harks back to a time when it was a goose that would provide the centrepiece of the feast rather than a turkey. However, turkeys have been the bird of choice for rather longer than I expected – it’s said that Henry VIII was the first English monarch to eat turkey rather than goose, and they were apparently a popular choice in households from as early as 1573. However, goose was the bird of the day up until the Victorian era, and we can possibly blame Charles Dickens and ‘A Christmas Carol’ for finally sealing the fate of the goose as the bird du jour on Christmas Day – after all, it’s ‘the largest turkey in the shop’ that Scrooge provides for Bob Crachitt and family. You’d think the goose would breathe a sigh of relief, but there are still goose farms around the country. Close to Mum and Dad in Dorset there was a farm where we see all the fluffy goslings arrive in the spring and watch them mature until the beginning of December,  when the pond would be eerily empty except for a few feathers.

Geese have a reputation for being ferocious, and I can vouch for the way that the Canada Geese on Wanstead Flats used to terrorise me when I was a toddler. There I’d be, lovingly throwing crumbs to the adorable ducks, when a group of satanic black, honking, waddling birds would heave themselves menacingly out of the water and advance towards me, hissing. If I offered them a piece of bread they’d nearly take my fingers off – although those beaks look leathery they are full of sharp serrations, as they need to be for tearing up grass. Many a time I ended up flat on my backside in a slippery mess of goose poo and London clay, and it took me a while  to grow to admire them for their pugnaciousness. After all, these are big birds who need a lot of food. Once I was taller than they were they lost some of their ability to terrorise.

However, one should never underestimate a goose. I once visited a City Farm in London with my then-boyfriend, who was 6 foot 8 inches tall. We no sooner came through the gate than a domestic goose started to advance towards us, fixing us with a steely stare and hissing. The goose had a condition called ‘angel wings’ which you might have seen in domestic fowl.

This is thought to be caused by poor diet in the early part of a bird’s life, especially lack of Vitamin E, though there might be a genetic component too. At any rate, this deformity had not improved the mood of the goose, and he had clearly been comfort-eating, as he looked like a white feathery basketball. One of the workers looked at the goose, looked at us, and said:

“Goosey doesn’t like tall people.”

Just as the words were uttered, the goose launched himself towards us with a speed surprising for such a stout animal. My boyfriend, heroically, turned and ran. I stood gawping as the goose raced past me, realised he wasn’t going to catch my boyfriend, did a handbrake turn and headed back towards me. Clearly, being 5 foot 11 inches tall was quite tall enough.

The goose went for my shins with the accuracy of a practised assailant. Suffice it to say that by the time I’d prised the bird off my leg I was bleeding and had the bruises for weeks. I also acquired a new boyfriend as soon as I was recovered enough to walk around and find one (there was no internet in those days so you couldn’t just order one up).

So I suppose the moral of the story is to never underestimate a goose. The sacred geese of Juno did, after all, save the Republic of Rome from the Gallic hordes back in 390 BC by cackling and hissing when the invaders tried to break into the city. Maybe the invaders were all tall people.

But geese also have their exalted moments. I remember watching them when I was working in Dundee, great skeins of them against a troubled, murky sky, and I remember how  the people hurrying home from work would turn to look at them, and sometimes give a great, shuddering sigh, as if the sight had jolted them out of their heads and into the here and now. Here, as a special treat, is Mary Oliver reading her poem ‘Wild Geese’. I hope you enjoy it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lv_4xmh_WtE

Question Six

Can you put a name to these fine geese? Just match the name to the photo.

a) Pink-footed goose

b) Brent goose

c) Bar-headed goose

d) Greylag goose

e) Barnacle goose

f) Greater white-fronted goose

For a bonus point – which of these geese has been spotted from a plane while flying over the Himalayas?

 

 

Dear Readers, you might have thought that once we got to the fifth day of Christmas we have a (brief) break from all those birds that have been given as presents previously. After all, a gold ring never goes amiss, and five would be plenty to adorn at least 25% of one’s available digits. Alas, things are never so clear cut in the world of folksongs, and several commentators think that the fifth day also refers to yet more birds. Where would one find the room for all these critters? And we haven’t even got on to the swans and the geese yet.

William Baring-Gould was by trade a Sherlock Holmes expert, but he turned his forensic eye on the Twelve Days of Christmas and announced that the ‘five gold rings’ actually referred to the five golden rings of the ring-necked pheasant (Phasianus colchicus). But what are these ‘five gold rings’ of which Baring-Gould speaks? The ring around the neck of the bird is white, and as far as I know there is no golden variety of this actual species. Maybe he is just referring to five pheasants, which would indeed carry on the theme of creatures that flap and peck very nicely.

Another theory is that it isn’t ‘five gold rings’, but ‘five goldspinks’. A goldspink is the old name for a goldfinch, and these have been very popular cage birds for centuries (until taking them from the wild was banned in the UK and the European Union in 1979. Previous to this, finches of several kinds were crossbred with canaries, to produce ‘mules’, birds with attractive colouration and pretty singing voices. This is now only legal if both parent birds were bred in captivity, and any offspring have to be ringed at 5-6 days old. Taking birds from the wild is illegal.

However, both of these theories are somewhat knocked out of the park by the illustration in the 1780 edition of the words of ‘The Twelve Days of Christmas’, which shows this:

That looks awfully like jewellery to me….

And here is a very appropriate song to celebrate the day – give a big hand to Freda Payne and ‘Band of Gold’….

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=daxiMb0rITA

Question Five

Can you name these five ‘golden’ UK birds?

Photo Credits

Photo One By © Francis C. Franklin / CC-BY-SA-3.0, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=31627034

Photo Two by By Charles J. Sharp – Own work, from Sharp Photography, sharpphotography.co.uk, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=104326584

Photo Three By Sergi tgn – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=8045623

Photo Four by gailhampshire from Cradley, Malvern, U.K, CC BY 2.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0>, via Wikimedia Commons

Photo Five by Jarkko Järvinen, CC BY-SA 2.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0>, via Wikimedia Commons

Photo Six by By Michel Idre from Plaisance du Touch, France – Flickr, CC BY 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=35155459

Photo Seven by https://www.flickr.com/photos/sbern/ – https://www.flickr.com/photos/sbern/13471929904/, CC BY 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=36391956

Photo Eight by By Andrej Chudý from Slovakia – CC BY-SA 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=39987810

Dear Readers, when I get to day four of the Twelve Days of Christmas, I always feel a little confused. What the deuce is a ‘calling bird’? Well, in the 1780 version of the song it’s not ‘calling birds’ at all, it’s ‘colly birds’. The plot thickens. However! ‘Colly’ comes from the same root as ‘coal’, and means ‘black in colour’ – the sheep dog breed ‘collie’ probably has the same derivation. Does this mean that collies were originally all black, I wonder?

At this time, only small birds were called ‘birds’; anything larger, such as a crow, was known as   a ‘fowle’. By the process of elimination, the only purely black bird that the song could be referring to us was a blackbird, and I am left wondering if they were being given on the fourth day of Christmas as cage birds, because of their melodious song, or as dinner, as in the nursery rhyme ‘four-and-twenty blackbirds, baked in a pie’. Certainly thrushes are still eaten in various parts of Europe, so I fear the latter. However, for me, the blackbird is one of the main ways that I can hear what’s going on in the garden. If I hear this, for example, I know that something untoward is going on, probably some cat hidden in the lilac bush, so I need to go outside and wave my arms around for a bit.

However, on the wonderful Xeno-Canto website, I see that blackbirds have different alarm calls for different dangers. First up, a blackbird alerting the neighbourhood to the presence of a pygmy owl (which you can also here hooting).

But how about this one, which was given because a cat was in the garden? I have a suspicion that this one makes the giver of the call less obvious – I’ve certainly heard a blackbird giving small ‘anxiety calls’ from a nearby shrub and have found it really difficult to identify exactly where the sound was coming from.

But the real glory of the blackbird is its territorial song, usually given from the highest tree or TV aerial in the territory at the close of the day. There is a theory that if a blackbird doesn’t sing for more than a week, another male blackbird will consider the territory vacant and will move in.

There is a full eight minutes of fluty song on this recording. Just the thing to remind us of the glories of spring.

Incidentally, as we know, not all blackbirds are black – females and juveniles are brown and sometimes speckled.

First winter males are largely black, but often have brown primary feathers, and their beaks are not yet completely yellow.

Blackbirds also seem to have a disproportionate number of leucistic birds, i.e. birds with some white feathers. I spotted this one at Camley Street Natural Park in Kings Cross a few weeks ago, and had some trouble convincing the other observers that it was, in fact, a blackbird.

I would be remiss in leaving the subject of the ‘four calling birds’ without a song. So here is ‘Blackbird’ by The Beatles, sung by Paul McCartney. There is something about the simplicity of this song that gets me every time. Plus it includes a real blackbird.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Man4Xw8Xypo

And so, blackbirds are those ubiquitous garden birds that in my view we don’t appreciate quite enough. And it seems that everywhere in the world has a ‘blackbird’ that makes up for its dullness in colour with its strength of character or song. Which leads us on to today’s question….

Question Four

Can you match the name of the ‘blackbird’ to the photo?

a) Common Raven

b) Ring Ouzel

c) Red-winged Blackbird

d) Great-tailed Grackle

Photo Credits

Photo One by Stuutje1979, CC BY-SA 3.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0>, via Wikimedia Commons

Photo Two by Jacob Spinks from Northamptonshire, England, CC BY 2.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0>, via Wikimedia Commons

Photo Three by Frode Falkenberg from https://www.flickr.com/photos/cyberbirding/12037866546/

Photo Four by By Walter Siegmund (talk) – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=5941742

Photo Five by Sahid Martin Robles Bello, CC BY-SA 3.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0>, via Wikimedia Commons

Photo Six by Copetersen http://www.copetersen.com, CC BY-SA 3.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0>, via Wikimedia Commons

Photo Seven by By Paco Gómez – https://www.flickr.com/photos/saganta/24871078516/, CC BY-SA 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=83752807

Recap

Here are the links to the first three days of the quiz, in case you’ve missed them…

The First Day of Christmas &#8211; A Partridge in a Pear Tree

The Second Day of Christmas &#8211; Two Turtle Doves

The Third Day of Christmas &#8211; Three French Hens

Dear Readers, when we get to ‘Three French Hens’ the thoughts of the singers are turning to dinner, and it’s no surprise that in some versions of the song, it’s ‘Three Fat Hens’ rather than French ones. But let’s stick with the French fowl. The Latin name for the domestic chicken is Gallus gallus, the Roman name for France was Gaul and one of the symbols of France is the rooster, so it seems that the bird has been associated with France in the British mind for generations. The Bresse chicken (pictured above) is seen as ‘the’ French breed, as it has blue legs, a white body and a red comb, the three colours of the French flag.

Even today French chickens are seen as being extremely desirable eating – Michelin chefs and Waitrose turn to Bresse hens when they want to impress. The first recorded reference to the breed was in 1591, and as the Twelve Days of Chrismas as a song seems to have originated in the North of England in around 1700, this could well be ‘our’ bird. The gastronome Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin (1755-1826) referred to the breed as ‘the Queen of poultry, the poultry of Kings’, so I suspect that Three French Hens would have been a most suitable gift for day three, a sign of no expense spared and of the abundance that the whole song seems to celebrate.

The chicken has gone, in my lifetime, from being a treat once or twice a year to being the most ubiquitous, cheap meat. This has come at a terrible price for most of the birds: chickens were the first animals to be intensively reared, and I don’t want to dampen your Christmas cheer with tales of what that entails. However,  I well remember watching the chickens in Cameroon – they roamed the village and the chimpanzee sanctuary that I was working in, and it gave me a chance to observe what they were like as birds. We would scatter a few breadcrumbs after breakfast in the morning, and one of the cockerels would find the food and then utter a few small calls to his ‘ladies’. He would then stand by proudly while they pecked everything up, having done his duty as provider. On another occasion, a hen was menaced by a snake and I was amazed to see all the other hens piling in to chase the snake away. When the cockerel realised what was going on he galloped across to join the affray. The variety of personalities amongst this small group of animals was so interesting – if you’ve had a chance to observe chickens (maybe you’ve had a smallholding, or are keeping chickens for their eggs) do share your stories!

Of course, the chickens in the village were sometimes eaten on high days and holidays – however, one of the women would grab a chicken by the legs and cut its throat in a matter of seconds. If I was a chicken I’d clearly rather not have my throat cut at all, but if I was destined for the pot, I’d much rather have lived out my days pottering around with my flock than stuck in a cage the size of a tabloid newspaper.

And as a special Christmas present to all of us, have a listen to this. If this doesn’t get you lindy-hopping around the kitchen I don’t know what will.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HnyB0a8G71Y

Question Three

Here are three pictures of French breeds of domestic animal. Can you match the photo to the name?

Breeds

a) Baudet du Poitou

b) Percheron

c) Bleue du Nord

Dear Readers, the presence of this bird in the song The Twelve Days of Christmas is another puzzle, as even when turtle doves were common in the UK, they were only here from April to September, preferring to winter around the Mediterranean or in North Africa. Alas, they are another bird that has declined in the UK, due to a combination of, firstly, intensive agriculture: turtle doves feed on the seeds and shoots of many ‘weeds’, especially fumitory, and these are usually herbicided (new verb :-)) to extinction. Secondly, they are shot as they fly over many European countries (Malta, I’m glaring at you). Thirdly, climate change is impacting on the timing of their migration and the availability of food en route. And finally, they may be in competition with the increasingly common collared dove for the same limited resources. Turtle doves are much shyer than the collared doves which are all over my garden, and need much more specialised habitat.

However, all is not lost – experiments in rewilding at the Knepp Castle estate in Sussex have managed to increase the number of singing male turtle doves from 3 in 1999 to 17 in 2017, which shows that with careful and sympathetic habitat management, and with patience, species can be encouraged to return even from a very low number. Fingers crossed that their success continues.

The film below gives you the sound of turtle doves at Knepp and lots of other creatures as well, including some very noisy marsh frogs.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uu1Tt11kvyw

So, here’s our question for today.

Question Two

Why are turtle doves called turtle doves?

Dear Readers, first of all, happy Christmas to those of you who are celebrating! Thank you for your support, comments, contributions and general wonderfulness this year. You are an amazing bunch, and I wish you everything that you’d hope for for yourselves.

Now, what is all this about a partridge in a pear tree? For a start, partridges are ground birds, and so most unlikely to be sitting in a tree of any kind. And why a pear tree, which at this time of year would be devoid of fruit or blossom or leaves. So first, let’s look at the bird.  We have two species in the UK, the increasingly rare grey partridge (Perdix perdix), which has declined by 94% in Europe over the past four decades, largely due to more intensive agriculture, and the use of pesticides which kill off the insects that the partridge chicks need to thrive.

However, in many areas it has been replaced by the red-legged partridge (Alectoris rufa) which was introduced to the UK from mainland Europe as a game bird (presumably as the grey partridge became rarer, there needed to be something for the usual suspects to shoot). This is a slightly larger bird, and interestingly this is the one shown on the Christmas card at the top of the post, not the native species. I imagine that gradually when someone says ‘partridge’, this is what people will think of.

However, neither of these birds is particularly likely to be in a pear tree, so what’s going on? The most likely explanation I’ve heard is that the song is a misinterpretation of the Norman French name for the bird, which is Perdrix – you can imagine that being heard as ‘per-dree’, and the rest could well be history.

How about pear trees, though? The domestic pear tree (Pyrus communis) is also an introduction,  though it probably arrived over a thousand years ago, and has since made itself at home in hedgerows and woodland margins all over the country. An individual tree can live for up to a thousand years (if not cut down for HS2 like the Cubbington pear) and in China they are considered to be a symbol of immortality. Though unlikely to be harbouring any partridges of either species, the pear tree is extremely valuable for wildlife, from the blackbirds and other thrushes who feast on the fruit to the wide variety of caterpillars who munch on the leaves. The blossom is wonderful too, and if you are thinking about a small tree for the garden, you could do much worse.

So lovely readers, as promised yesterday, here is our first question. Don’t forget, submit your answers in the comments after the Twelve Days of Christmas are finished (the last question will be on the 5th of January, and you will have until 5 p.m. on Friday 7th January to post your response).

Question One

What is the link between today’s post and this lot?

Photo Credits

Photo One by Frank Vassen from https://www.flickr.com/photos/42244964@N03/6502006513 

Photo Two by Lynne Kirton / Red-legged partridge with chicks

Photo Three by Sten Porse, CC BY-SA 3.0 <http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/>, via Wikimedia Commons