Dear Readers, as this week my own photography is completely pants (technical term) I have collaborated with my friend John Humble, who has provided some of the photos below. You might remember John from his wonderful fox photos in my Foxycology post last year. I am delighted to be working with him again.

Dear Readers, according to the RSPB there are approximately nine million breeding pairs of wrens in the UK. Yet, this is a bird that is far more often heard than seen – indeed a walk in Coldfall Wood, especially in the newly-coppiced area, can feel like walking along a corridor of ferocious wren-song, each bird announcing their territory with a new burst of enthusiastic music. Weight for weight, the song of a wren is louder than that of a cockerel, and can be heard up to half a mile away on a still day. But in spite of their loudness and their commonness, it’s unusual for me to actually see a wren in the garden.

So, it was a rare treat when I actually saw a wren picking over the debris under my jasmine on Wednesday. The bird spent a whole five minutes tossing aside dried leaves and turning over twigs before it flew off into the hedge. It was so tiny that it seemed more like a large, buzzing insect than a bird ( an adult wren weighs about the same as a pound coin). And yet, what wrens lack in size they certainly make up for in personality.

Wrens have been given the pet name of Jenny Wren which, like Robin Redbreast, seems to be a term of affection. However, as we shall see, this endearment has not saved this tiny bird from our brutality.   It is likely that the name ‘wren’ comes from the Old English word wrenna or woerna, both of which seem to have an underlying reference to lasciviousness, possibly because the male wren is unusual in having several ‘wives’ (though there may also be an insinuation that that pert, erect tail gives an indication of the bird’s wantonness) . In Germany the wren is known as Zaunkonig, the king of the hedge. In Dutch, it is winterkoninkje, or little winter king. Both names point to the apparent boldness of the wren, though in Birds Britannica, Mark Cocker points out that the bird’s attitude is more one of total indifference to us. We are just large, rather clumsy mammals who happen to lurch into the wren’s line of sight every so often, though we are very useful for providing nest sites.

The male wren builds several ‘starter-home’ nests in his territory – the average number is 6.3, though Mark Cocker mentions one Dutch bird that made 40 in 4 years. He then sings to attract a female. She will select the best of the nests and line it with moss and feathers, lay the eggs and rear the young with no help from the male, who is no doubt exhausted what with all that nest-building and singing. What is remarkable is the range and variety of nest sites selected. Again, from Birds Britannica:

‘……sites have included the base of a magpie’s nest occupied by kestrels, the floral cross on a church pulpit (the bird lining it with moss taken off the lectern) and inside the mouth of a prize pike hanging on a garage wall. Noise and movement are no deterrent whatsoever. Young wrens were successfully reared from a nest right next to a circular saw (just 8 inches/19 cm away) in use eight hours a day, while the young and eggs of another pair made a twice weekly journey from Kent to Covent Garden on the running board of a lorry‘.

Yet, although the wren uses the housing opportunities that we provide, it is a bird that does not rely on us at all. It does not visit bird tables or frequent feeders. It does not use our nest boxes to nest in (though in very cold winters the birds may roost together in them – the record is 63 wrens in one box). When there is snow on the ground and the earth is frozen, this insectivorous bird may have slim pickings, and the wren population may fall precipitously, though some people swear that hard cheese, grated under a hedge, may sometimes be taken by the desperate birds. And yet, the species bounces back, probably because each of the female wrens in a territory can rear up to 8 fledglings if conditions are good.

Fossil records tell us that wrens have been in the UK since before the last Ice Age. A bird which has lived alongside us for such a long time might be expected to have garnered a certain amount of legend and symbolism, and this is certainly true of the wren. Aesop tells how the eagle and the wren had a competition to see who could fly highest. The wren hid in the eagle’s feathers and, when the larger bird grew tired, the wren flew out above him, winning the bet. For Aesop this was a sign that cleverness could beat brawn, but it set the tone for the idea that there is something sneaky about the wren.

In Celtic mythology the bird, which is one of the few that sings even in mid-winter, was seen as a symbol of the past year, and this might be the reason for several ceremonies in which a wren is killed on or around the winter solstice.

The bird also garnered an unfortunate reputation for treachery – a wren was supposed to have betrayed Irish soldiers fighting against the Vikings by pecking on a drum and waking the Vikings up. A wren is also said to have given away the whereabouts of St Stephen by singing from a branch of the hedge in which he was hiding from his persecutors. As a result, many countries have a ‘wren ceremony’ on or about the 26th December (St Stephen’s Day). These days, no bird is killed, but in the past a wren would have been harried to death and its limp little corpse carried around the village on a pole, while the ‘Wren Boys’ begged for alms.

Carol Ann Duffy, the poet laureate, chose this for her subject for her Christmas poem last year: here is a sample. For the full poem, with some wonderful illustrations, have a look here. No wrens were harmed in the making of this poem, which is just as it should be.

Hedge-bandit, song-bomb, dart-beak, the wren
hops in the thicket, flirt-eye; shy, brave,
grubbing, winter’s scamp, but more than itself –
ten requisite grams of the world’s weight.

And here’s the craic: that the little bird
had betrayed a saint with its song,
or stolen a ride on an eagle’s back
to fly highest; traitor and cheat.

But poets named it Dryw, druid and wren,
sought its hermit tune for a muse;
sweethearts thought it a foolproof blessing for love.
Which was true for the wren? None of the above.

Credits

As usual, Birds Britannica by Richard Mabey and Mark Cocker has been invaluable for this post. I cannot recommend this book highly enough.

John Humble provided photographs One and Three. I am delighted to be collaborating with him again.

Photo Two : By Sonja Kübelbeck – own picture –Kuebi 16:31, 5 May 2007 (UTC), CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=2061952

Photo Four: By Murat Acuner – https://www.flickr.com/photos/muratacuner/3630474036

Photo Five: By National Library of Ireland on The Commons – December 26 Uploaded by oaktree_b, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=17816307

 

Dear Readers, it is always a pleasure to spot an unusual visitor to the garden, and an even greater pleasure when I actually have my camera handy. So it was with this lovely male siskin who dropped in for about twenty minutes last week, in the middle of the first bout of very cold weather that we’ve had here in London. I almost tripped over the cat in my excitement, for I know that these birds are usually just passing through, and won’t be seen again until next winter. And what an attractive bird he is, with his black cap and yellow breast. When he flew off, he looked briefly like a mottled canary.

Siskins are members of the finch family, and like most finches have, in their time, been popular cage birds. In The Birds of Norfolk, Henry Stevenson recorded no other finches that

‘…so soon became tame and contented with their new existence’.

The siskin was known to London bird-catchers as ‘Aberdevine’, and they were a premium bird, commanding a higher price than goldfinches or chaffinches on account of their rarity, and of their soft sweet song. Siskins were often crossed with canaries to create ‘mules’ who had the singing power of one parent, and the attractive plumage of the other. Fortunately, these days it’s illegal to trap wild birds in the UK, but this still happens in other parts of the world.

The name ‘siskin’ is said to be an onomatopoeic name, derived from its call. This is described in the Crossley ID guide as

‘Main call a sissy, feeble, sighing dwee with metallic ring: also making sparrow-like calls and song is quiet babbling chatter interspersed with little flatulent buzzes’.

Well, as the bird in my garden was silent, I decided to have a listen to see how accurate the description was. Having listened to the link on the RSPB website here, I can vouch for the dwees and even the sissys, but I am missing out on the flatulent buzzes.

Siskins are residents of most of the UK, mainly due to the spread of conifer  plantations in Wales, Scotland and the north and west of England – the birds’ main diet is the seeds of mature cone-bearing trees. In the rest of the country, including London, they may feed on wild birch and alder seeds as they head through to their breeding grounds, but, since the 1960’s, have increasingly been seen in gardens. We can date this sudden change of habit to the ferocious winter of 1963, when a group of siskins were suddenly spotted in gardens in Guildford, Surrey.In ‘The Secret Lives of Garden Birds’ Dominic Couzens has a very interesting suggestion about why the birds might suddenly have moved into gardens. Back in the 1960’s, most people offered food to birds in red net bags (no longer considered a good idea, as birds easily become entangled in the mesh). The alder seeds that the birds normally eat could, it’s been argued, be seen as tiny little red nets full of seeds. Imagine the surprise of a siskin suddenly noticing what seemed to be the biggest alder basket in the world! It’s a lovely idea but, as Couzens says, impossible to prove.

As siskins roost together in flocks, it’s thought that they might share information about food sources, which accounts for some gardens in the north being visited by dozens of the birds. Here in London, we have to make do with the odd pair or individual, but we are very grateful for whoever pops in!

Siskins are known to form pair bonds during the winter months, and to keep to these relationships even when they have a substantial onward migration. For, while some of these birds may make a relatively short journey to Wales or the north of England, ringed birds have been recovered in the far north of Scotland and in Scandinavia. So, the bond between male and female is strong enough to survive a crossing of the North Sea, with all the hazards that this involves. Not bad for a bird that’s smaller than a greenfinch.

Although in winter siskins can be fairly docile, they are much more secretive during the breeding season – this has led to a German legend that siskins keep a magic stone in their nests that makes them invisible. The birds have also been seen ‘allofeeding’ – this is where adults regurgitate food for more dominant individuals of the same sex, and is very unusual. It’s been speculated that this helps to maintain flock cohesion, and also indicates that there is a dominance hierarchy in the group, rather than just a collection of individuals who are staying together for safety and food location. It’s also an indication that, unlike many other birds, the siskin can store a little extra food intact in the crop, to help to feed them through the night – pigeons can also do this.

Although ‘my’ siskin was a fairly staid fellow, siskins are actually one of the few finches who seem to preferentially feed upside down, like miniature parakeets. This is another indication that the bird you’re looking at is not some unusually plumaged greenfinch, as those chaps are not ones for acrobatics.

In St Petersburg in Russia, the siskin has taken on a folkloric aspect. It is called the ‘Chizhik-Pyzhik’, and there is a statue of it near the First Engineer Bridge.

The name is used in a Russian folksong, the lyrics of which are below:

Chizhik-Pyzhik, where’ve you been?
Drank vodka on the Fontanka.
Took a shot, took another –
Got dizzy.

Oh dear. The tale goes that the students at the elite Imperial College of Jurisprudence wore uniforms in green and yellow, and so were named ‘Chizhik-Pyzhiks’ after the siskin, which is a common urban bird in the city. The statue itself has been stolen at least three times, probably because, at 11 centimetres tall and weighing less than 5 kilograms, it is a handy size to pop into a holdall and take away for scrap. There are rumours that the next replacement will be in marble, to deter the would-be thieves.

So, it turns out that my brief visitor is a European traveller, a parrot impersonator, a loyal mate and the inspiration for (possibly) the smallest statue in St Petersburg. God speed, little bird. May you have an abundance of pine-seeds and fair passage to your breeding grounds.

Photo Credits

Photo One – “Alkottar” by No machine-readable author provided. EnDumEn assumed (based on copyright claims). – No machine-readable source provided. Own work assumed (based on copyright claims).. Licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0 via Commons – https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Alkottar.jpg#/media/File:Alkottar.jpg

Photo Two – “Carduelis spinus female” by Sławek Staszczuk (photoss [AT] hotmail.co.uk) – Sławek Staszczuk (photoss [AT] hotmail.co.uk). Licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0 via Commons – https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Carduelis_spinus_female.jpg#/media/File:Carduelis_spinus_female.jpg

Photo Three –© Copyright Zorba the Geek and licensed for reuse under this Creative Commons Licence

Photo Four – “Chizhik-Pyzhik memorial” by zxc123 – Own work. Licensed under Public Domain via Commons – https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Chizhik-Pyzhik_memorial.jpg#/media/File:Chizhik-Pyzhik_memorial.jpg

All other photos copyright Vivienne Palmer

Resources used this week:

The Complete Back Garden Birdwatcher by Dominic Couzens

The Secret Lives of Garden Birds by Dominic Couzens

The Crossley ID Guide (Britain and Ireland) –  Richard Crossley and Dominic Couzens

Birds Britannica – Mark Cocker and Richard Mabey.

 

 

 

 

Dear Readers, last year my interest was piqued by rumours of a mysterious bird of prey, seen in the trees at the edge of the cemetery and in Coldfall Wood. Try as I might, by the time I got to the reported location, the bird had gone. Regardless of the time of day  that I visited the woods, or the length of time that I stood in the undergrowth, in the rain, with my binoculars glued to my spectacles, there was not a feather to be seen.  And then, last week, whilst walking in St Pancras and Islington cemetery in search of Wednesday Weeds, a bird landed in a bare tree less than ten yards away, and stayed there for a good five minutes so that I could get a few photographs.

This is a female Kestrel (Falco tinnunculus) – the males are less stripey, and more clearly grey and copper-coloured.

And what a versatile little hunter this is! Most of us are familiar with the kestrels that hover over motorways, looking for the slightest rustle of mice in the undergrowth. In rural areas kestrels prey almost exclusively on small mammals, but in cities they shift their attention to sparrows, young pigeons and even earthworms. The decline in the sparrow population in the capital has therefore had a possible knock-on effect on the kestrel population. In his book ‘Birds of London’,  Andrew Self reports that the number of kestrels breeding in the inner city has fallen from 139 pairs in 2000 to 56 pairs in 2010. This is yet another reason to be glad for the sight of this female kestrel, as from memory I think the one sighted by everybody else was a male. Fingers crossed for the patter of tiny-taloned feet.

‘My’ kestrel gave me an occasional glance just to make sure that I wasn’t being too impertinent, but she seemed to be mostly on the lookout for dinner. I was a little worried about her condition – her tail looks most unkempt, and her tameness was more of a cause for concern than celebration. I hope that it was just the damp, cold weather that made her seem a little less sharp than I would have hoped, and not the ingestion of some poisoned rodent.

The name ‘kestrel’ comes from the French crecerelle, meaning ‘rattle’ or ‘harsh voice’, and the Latin tinnunculus comes from the same kind of idea (it means ‘to ring’). Like many birds of prey, the kestrel has a rather metallic, whiny cry, much at odds with its beauty. If you would like to hear it for yourself, have a listen here.

The vernacular name ‘Windhover’ for the kestrel was, of course, the title of  my favourite bird-of-prey poem, by Gerard Manley Hopkins. No poem captures better the way the bird hovers, swings away, hovers again. And, this being Hopkins, this is more than a poem about a bird – he sees Christ in the hover and dive, the Soldier Christ plunging into hell in order to save humanity. Carol Ann Duffy has an excellent interpretation of the poem here.

For full effect, try reading the poem out loud.

The Windhover
To Christ Our Lord

I caught this morning morning’s minion, king-
dom of daylight’s dauphin, dapple-dawn-drawn Falcon, in his riding
Of the rolling level underneath him steady air, and striding
High there, how he rung upon the rein of a wimpling wing
In his ecstasy! then off, off forth on swing,
As a skate’s heel sweeps smooth on a bow-bend: the hurl and gliding
Rebuffed the big wind. My heart in hiding
Stirred for a bird, – the achieve of, the mastery of the thing.

Brute beauty and valour and act, oh, air, pride, plume, here
Buckle! AND the fire that breaks from thee then, a billion
Times told lovelier, more dangerous, O my chevalier!

No wonder of it: shéer plód makes plough down sillion
Shine, and blue-bleak embers, ah my dear,
Fall, gall themselves, and gash gold-vermilion.

Hopkins makes much of the chivalric tradition of falconry in his poem, with his use of the words ‘dauphin’ and ‘chevalier’. In medieval times, different species of birds of prey were owned by different classes of people . Lords and knights might own peregrine falcons or gyrfalcons (the latter imported by the Normans). Common people might have sparrowhawks or goshawks. Only the servant or knave would own a kestrel, these being too small to procure food for their owners. But the craze for falconry was such that almost everybody had a hawk on their hand, even in church. In the illustration below, from the 14th Century Codex Manesse, the falconry is taking place from horseback, and the prey seems to be some rather unfortunate herons.

The mortality rate of top predators in all types of animals can be truly shocking. Most kestrels live for less than two years: the mortality rate of fledglings is estimated to be 70%. This little female is a survivor, so far, and is capable of breeding in her first year, if she can find a male, and a nest site. I find my heart going out to her, willing her to succeed. We need more Windhovers, to lift our spirits and to show us the wild ecstasy of flight, the sheer mastery of the air that a kestrel can demonstrate.

Photo Credits

Photo One – By Andreas Trepte, http://www.photo-natur.de, CC BY-SA 2.5, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=6542109

Photo Two –   © Copyright Christine Matthews and licensed for reuse under this Creative Commons Licence.

Photo Three – By Meister des Codex Manesse (Nachtragsmaler I) – http://digi.ub.uni-heidelberg.de/diglit/cpg848/0024, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=193745

All other photographs copyright Vivienne Palmer

 

 

Dear Readers, I have been away from home for most of the past four weeks, and was struggling to find a subject for the Saturday blog this week. Then, I topped up the bird feeders and the subject found me, as it always does if I keep my eyes open. At this time of year, some of the birds are as beautiful as they’ll be at any time until next spring. All these photos were taken through my kitchen window, which is draped with cobwebs and coated with dust (housekeeping not being a strong point), so please forgive me if the quality isn’t quite what it might be.

Just look at the starlings, who are finally coming into their full adult plumage. Their feathers are as iridescent as oil, and they are spangled with the white spots that give them their name. ‘Starling’ means ‘little star’, and each one carries a constellation on his or her chest and back.The birds that are visiting the garden now have survived the dangerous fledgling stage, and are  about to experience their first winter. If they make it through ( and they stand more chance in the town than in the country) they will be breeding again in April next year. And so the world turns.

There was a blue tit on the suet feeder as well. What a bright little puffball this bird is – bright blue, sherbet lemon and olive green. They seem so full of energy and verve, on the go all the time. In order for a bird this small to survive when the temperature falls below zero, they need all the energy-rich food that they can get. It is vital to keep those bird-feeders topped up where possible, so that the birds can put on the fat that they’ll need to survive the cold. The last thing they need to worry about is too many calories – flying is such an energetic activity that they can never have too many while they’re in the wild.

And there were sparrows, too. The back of a sparrow is an exercise in copper and chocolate, and looks like old-fashioned polished mahogany.

And, as we know, sparrows are becoming scarcer and scarcer. Those of us who have them visit the garden should feel privileged to have a creature in such decline popping by. As with the starlings, these ‘common’ birds are no longer ‘common’, and so when I look at them I feel a special pang. Those of us who have been around for a bit remember when it seemed impossible that they should ever be in danger, and it’s poignant to think of what has already been lost.

Of course, it’s not all gloom and doom. Two collared doves are in my hawthorn tree, popping down the berries as if they were sweeties. I wonder if they can taste sweet and sour, because the haws always seem tough and astringent to me. These are birds who have increased greatly in number in my lifetime, and they have a special kind of beauty too, their feathers as soft and grey as clouds. They have a delicate elegance that makes me think that they are most fitted to the genteel suburbs, and indeed they are rarely seen in the centre of town, and are most unlikely to breed there.

In the hornbeam there’s a single hen chaffinch, waiting patiently for the woodpigeons and squirrel to clear off so she can get some sunflower seeds. The calls of finches are the soundtrack for any walk along my road at the moment – the ‘pink,pink’ calls of chaffinches, the more melodious chiming of the goldfinches. It’s a familiar music that makes me feel that I’m at home, finally, even if it’s only a short time until I’m off again. I often feel that absence heightens my senses, makes me see my ‘territory’ anew. And so, although I shall feel weary as I pack my suitcase yet again, I know that wherever I go, there will still be things to be curious about – the song of a bird, a weed by the side of the road, the buzz of an insect. There is always something new to discover, whether on the birdfeeder at home or in an office park. And each new discovery enlarges our sense of the world, and our part in it.