Category Archives: London Birds

The Tree Spirit

Treecreeper (Certhia familiaris)

Dear Readers, I already knew that there were Treecreepers in Coldfall Wood. Last year, I spotted a tiny bird with a curved bill high up in an oak tree, scraping its head back and forth through the bark, but it was only there for a second before it flew away. This bird was the first Treecreeper that I’d ever seen in my fifty-five years on earth, yet this is not a rare species – there are estimated to be over 200,000 territories in the UK. They are well camouflaged, small and unobtrusive, but, once spotted, they can be very relaxed around quiet humans.

I saw this bird on Good Friday, the same day that I spotted the Song Thrush. I was walking back through the damp forest, feeling very pleased with myself, when there was a blur of wings and I realised that a Treecreeper was perched on a tree less than five metres away. What busy birds they are! This one flew to the base of the trunk and started to work his was up, methodically exploring the bark with that delicate half-moon beak for grubs and beetles and spiders. Once he got to the canopy he flew away. I congratulated myself on getting a couple of photos so that I could share him with you, and was admiring my handiwork on the screen at the back of the camera when he suddenly appeared again, on another tree which was even closer. This time, I got some film of him, though I apologise in advance (as usual) for the wobbliness. I do hope that you aren’t prone to motion sickness.

You might wonder why I am so sure that this bird is a male. Well, I’m not certain, but a Finnish study found that male Treecreepers tend to use the lower part of the trunk to feed (as this one was), whilst females use the higher areas. I imagine that this means that a pair don’t waste time covering the same area. Efficiency is important when there are vulnerable nestlings to feed.

Treecreepers are in a bird family of their own, but they are closely related to Nuthatches. They have stiff tails (like Woodpeckers) which enables them to prop themselves up against the bark. They are also very widespread, covering an area from Japan to Ireland, and with an estimated world population of 20 million birds. This makes it all the more astonishing that most of us have never seen one, but then their backs look like lichen-tangled wood. It’s their erratic, jerky movement that gives them away, that and their silvery white bellies, exposed briefly as they fly.

A few years ago I was lucky enough to visit Aigas, a Scottish estate which hosted wildlife-watching and writing courses. The Californian Redwood trees, which were planted in the grounds during Victorian times, were used as roosting places by the Treecreepers. The birds hollowed themselves out little sleeping niches in the soft bark, each about the size of a hard-boiled egg. Once, we took a walk around a roosting tree after dark with a torch, and found several birds, slumbering peacefully with their bottoms and tails protruding. Treecreepers also nest in shallow depressions in the tree trunks, often under a curtain of loose bark. This set me to wondering. In the Cemetery that abuts the wood, there are a number of Redwoods. Would I see any signs of Treecreeper activity there?

Redwood trunk from St Pancras and Islington Cemetery, featuring lots of little depressions and niches

Possible nesting/roosting site for Treecreepers?

Well, I’m no expert so I wasn’t sure if the depressions in the trunk were made by Treecreepers or some other creatures, but whoever had made them had lined them up to face the rising sun, and the first warmth of the new day. I can imagine how welcome those sun rays would be after a long, cold night.

During the winter, Treecreepers can sometimes be found associating with flocks of tits, and it’s always worth surveying such groups carefully to see if there are any unusual birds in amongst them. However, it’s been found that the Treecreepers don’t share the food of the flock, and forage on their own – they are probably just benefiting from the extra eyes and ears of the other birds. Treecreepers strike me as being quite happy to keep themselves to themselves wherever possible.

Treecreeper nest (James Lindsey at Ecology of Commanster [CC BY-SA 2.5 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.5) or CC BY-SA 3.0 )

In the spring, the Treecreepers pair up, and the female lays her five to six eggs, which are white with pink speckles. The babies are altricial (which means that they are completely helpless, unlike precocial birds which are fairly well developed at birth), so the parents have to work very hard to get them to the fledgling stage as quickly as possible. Their world is full of dangers – squirrels (both red and grey), woodpeckers, crows and martens will all eat the eggs and nestlings. This is why the split foraging technique, where male and female search different parts of a tree, is so important. In coniferous forests, ants compete with the Treecreepers for their invertebrate food, and Treecreepers have learned to spend less time on trees which have large ant populations.

Treecreeper eggs (“Certhia familiaris MWNH 1434” by Klaus Rassinger und Gerhard Cammerer, Museum Wiesbaden – Own work. Licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons)

As I walked home from my trip to Coldfall Wood I was delighted to have been able to spend a few minutes with the Treecreeper. These birds remind me of forest spirits, elusive but ever-present, watchful and serious. It was a privilege to see them. I feel as if I will never get to the bottom of my half-mile territory, because there is always something new to see or learn. And I’m sure that this is true of any half-mile territory. The world truly is full of wonders.

The First Fine Careless Rapture

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Good Friday was, as the Irish say, ‘a soft day’. The Scots have a different word for it: ‘dreich’. I could hear the rain pattering on the skylights as I lay there in the grey early morning, but still, I had to get up, to leave my warm bed and head out to the woods. I had a feeling that something was going on there, and I didn’t want to miss it.

The rain seems to soften some things, and to bring others into relief. The greens of moss and leaf leap out, new-washed.

At first, there was so much bird song that it was like a mess of wool that I needed to untangle. I picked out the wren and robin, the blue tit and the great tit. I put the crow and the parakeet to one side. Still, something was new, something I hadn’t noticed before. A Green Woodpecker yaffled and I named him. But what was it, this new song?

I walked on, trying to identify the source. Everywhere, there was the sound of water.

But then, I saw who was singing.

Song Thrush (Turdus philomelos)

Undeterred by rain, he was throwing his song into the treetops. Weight for weight, Song Thrushes have one of the loudest of all bird calls.

In his poem ‘Home Thoughts from Abroad’, Robert Browning talks of the Song Thrush:

That’s the wise thrush: he sings each song twice over

Lest you should think he never could re-capture

The first fine careless rapture!

And, listening to the bird, I could see what Browning meant: each phrase is repeated, as if the bird is riffing on a theme, trying things out. Indeed, in Mark Cocker’s ‘Birds Britannica’, he points out that an individual bird has about 100 different phrases to choose from, which the bird seems to do at random. Some song elements may be passed down from one generation to the next. But there were some notes in the song of this bird that reminded me of everything from the sound of a dustcart reversing to a mobile phone tone, and I wondered if he picked up inspiration from a variety of places. I thought that I could even hear the sound of parakeets and other birds woven into the Song Thrush’s song.

As with so many birds, Song Thrush numbers have declined by about two thirds in the past twenty-five years, and the London birds were also down by thirty-five percent. The RSPB has the Song Thrush on its Red List of birds that need urgent conservation action. In the capital, though, numbers have been increasing during this century. Coldfall Wood seems to suit them – it’s wet enough along by the streams for them to find the invertebrates that they eat, and the mature trees provide lots of nesting and roosting spots. One thing that we can all do for Song Thrushes is to cut out the slug pellets – Song Thrushes are great eaters of snails, and use a special stone, called a Snail Anvil, to hammer into the shells. I shall be keeping an eye open to see if I can spot one.

A Song Thrush’s Anvil (Anne Burgess [CC BY-SA 2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons)

Song Thrushes are sometimes confused with Mistle Thrushes, but one easy way to tell them apart is that the blotches on the Song Thrush’s chest look like arrowheads, whilst those of the Mistle Thrush are more circular. The Song Thrush is also much smaller, but I find this difficult to gauge unless you have the two species lined up next to one another, like felons in an identity parade.

I went on my way, through the rain.

What is it about the sound of this bird that lifts the heart? It feels as if it’s woven into my subconscious. Although I’m not aware of ever having listened to a Song Thrush before, it feels familiar, like an ancestral memory. Some days, I could fall on my knees lamenting for all the creatures we have lost, for the habitats destroyed and the oceans that we are poisoning. This song reminds me of how much we still have to protect and to fight for.

Bugwoman on Location – Waterloo Station

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Dear Readers, when I was at Waterloo Station last week waiting for a train, I was very impressed by the cheek of the local pigeon population. No sooner had I found a seat than a bird descended to peck over the rubbish left by the previous occupant. Before long, s/he was joined by a couple of friends. The man clearing the tables half-heartedly waved them away, but they were back within seconds, clearing up the almost invisible crumbs left behind.

What always worries me about urban pigeons is that they are often in a very sorry state. The first bird to arrive was in excellent condition. His feathers were smooth, his orange eyes were bright and, most importantly, his feet were perfect.

But this couldn’t be said for the other two birds.

I have always been curious about why feral pigeons end up in such terrible condition. There are several theories: bacterial infection, chemicals used to deter the birds from landing on prized stonework, or even hereditary diseases. But one look at these individuals and it’s quite clear that what’s happened here, at least, is that the feet have become entangled in some kind of thread. This will tighten, attract other rubbish and infections, and eventually lead to the loss of toes or even the whole foot. How they become so enmeshed in the first place is another question.

I suspect that some of it occurs when pigeons attempt to land in places protected by fine netting. This is used to dissuade the birds from roosting or nesting on buildings, or to protect garden crops. They may pick up some thread when they pick through litter as well – something as fine as a human hair is enough to cause damage. Add to that the ‘anti-pigeon’ chemicals which are used to dissuade the birds from landing, and the sticky coffee spills that they often trudge through, and this is enough to form a kind of terrible shoe that will make it more and more difficult for the bird to preen or even to walk.

I suppose the question is, does anybody care? Most of our public spaces operate a kind of Arms War against pigeons. Let’s have a look at some of the anti-pigeon measures here in the station.

Extremely ineffective model hawk on top of the cafe at Waterloo

A fine array of anti-pigeon spikes

More anti-pigeon spikes. With a baby pigeon sitting behind them.

About thirty years ago, my mother was sitting in Finsbury Square in London having her lunch. As usual, she was sharing it with the pigeons. One had thread tangled around one of its feet. As my mother watched it hobbling about, she felt that she had to do something. She had a pair of nail scissors in her bag, but being on the verge of retirement she was not quick enough to catch the bird. Plucking up her courage, she approached a besuited chap sitting on a nearby bench.

“Excuse me,” she said, “but that poor pigeon is all tangled up. If you could just hold it for a minute, I could cut the thread off very easily. Will you help me?”

He looked at her for a long minute, as if trying to work out if she was serious.

“Touch that?” he said. “You must be mad”.

And so, in a single exchange, we see that the world is divided into those who think of pigeons as living creatures, and those who think of them as ‘feathered rats’.

There are some vets who will help feral pigeons, should you find a bird that needs help, and there is also Dove and Pigeon Rescue, which has a lot of useful information not just about feral pigeons, but also about collared doves, woodpigeons and our rarer native species.

Feral pigeons remind me of Dickensian urchins, always alert to an opportunity. In Waterloo, they wait amongst the anti-pigeon spikes, watching one another and snatching up the smallest, briefest chance of food. They are marginal in every sense, unloved and unwanted. We love most things with wings: angels, cherubs, robins, eagles, even doves. But pigeons are an exception. Maybe, as we flap at them with our newspapers and shove them away with our feet, we’re seeing our own worst fears – of being outcast, homeless and forced to hassle for a living.

I was once on a bus travelling along Euston Road, when it came to a sudden halt. There in the middle of the road was an elderly lady. She wore plastic bags over her sandals, and was shouting to herself, occasionally stopping dead to harangue some invisible enemy. But circling over her head was a flock of pigeons, accompanying her as she walked like an aerial guard of honour. When she finally slumped on to a bench, they descended around her as she pulled bread from her pockets and began to feed them, gesturing at particular birds and admonishing others. As the bus pulled away, I looked back to see her finally settling back, her face calm, as the birds pecked around her feet. I had no doubt that the pigeons knew her, just as she knew them, and that there was a kind of fellowship between them. We are all just struggling animals, trying to survive the vicissitudes of life, but it takes a hard-earned wisdom to recognise the fact.

A Web of Sound

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Dear readers, when I walk into Coldfall Wood my head is often full of ‘stuff’. What to cook for dinner? How I should deal with an awkward work situation? How to project manage my parents’ accessible bathroom, where work starts next week? Some days, I think I could walk past a dragon without noticing.

Coldfall Wood Dragon Tree

But on Thursday, when I got to the coppiced area of the wood, I finally woke up and noticed that there was something new. The whole area was bursting with song.

The wood was a-thrum with bird-music. If I listened carefully, I could pick out not only the robins and the wrens, singing enthusiastically from the hedges, but the churring call of blue tits, and the ‘teecher, teecher’ call of the great tit. Parakeets flew through at speed, cackling. A magpie was racketing like a machine gun, and a green woodpecker flew past, laughing. The longer I listened, the more I could hear. It was like gently relaxing into a warm, deep bath of sound.

Having enjoyed the ebb and flow of birdsong for half an hour, I wanted to capture something of this experience for you.In the little video below, you can see one robin, but also hear another and a wren in the background.

The wrens, however, were impossible for me to film. They would pop up onto a dead tree stump for twenty seconds and then disappear, only to pop up somewhere else. The photograph below is the best that I could manage, and that after almost an hour of listening, watching and, occasionally, swearing.

Yes, there is a wren here somewhere

But for your delectation, here are some much nicer pictures by my photographer friend John Humble.

Wren (copyright John Humble)

I love the way that song seems to explode out of the throat of the wren. If he were an opera-singer, he would be hoarse in no time. There are over eight million pairs of wrens in the UK, making them our commonest breeding bird by far and yet, apart from these brief weeks of boldness they seem to exist on the periphery of our vision, disappearing as soon we become aware of a movement. When not singing, the male makes several ‘cock’s nests’, ‘starter homes’ which are built to impress the females. If a female likes his work, she will mate with him and finish off the nest to her own exacting standards. In this way, the male may be able to have several females within his territory, all looking after his offspring. With so much to gain, it’s no wonder that he’s such an energetic singer.

As I walked on through the wood, I could feel that the pulse of life here had quickened. Two parakeets were mating on a tree branch. The woodpeckers were at it as well. Everything seemed to be in a hurry. There is evidence that more experienced birds of many species mate and breed early in the year – they often already have a partner and a nest site. If the season is bad and their first brood fails, they have time for another. In a very good year, they’ll maybe breed twice. Certainly, considering that it’s only just the beginning of March no-one is hanging around here. Every little feathery body seems to be trembling with lust.

Robin (copyright John Humble)

I got to the stream at the middle of the wood, sat down on a damp log, and decided to just record the scene. There are robins and a wren singing in the background, plus the constant roar of the North Circular road and a squirrel nearly falling out of the tree at about ten seconds in. Never let it be said that you don’t get drama on Bugwoman’s Adventures in London.

I so enjoyed my time in the woods that, just before sunset, I popped back to see what else I could find. I walked up by the stream again, to find this robin still staking his territorial claim. I cannot imagine how many calories he must have to eat to keep up this performance from dawn till dusk, and sometimes even beyond it – a bird singing at night in the city is almost certainly a robin.

But what surprised me most, on this return visit, was the behaviour of the crows. Normally they are the most chatty of birds, cawing at one another constantly, as if commenting on everything that happens. But this evening, they were wheeling over the allotments without a sound, as if in stealth mode. I have had a sense of ritual with them before, and here it was again.

I do a lot of research for my pieces here on Bugwoman – it’s very important to me not to misinform my readers. I adore books and appreciate the vast amount of work that goes into them. And yet, sometimes what I read in books doesn’t tally with what I see. Crows, for example, are not meant to be social creatures, and yet in Coldfall they gather in huge groups, and communicate with one another all the time, either by call or by body language or by some other signal. In the end, there is much to be said for not relying solely on received wisdom. The world is endlessly new and full of surprises. All we have to do is put down our ‘stuff’ and notice.

The Lone Gull

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Lone Herring Gull (Larus argentatus) – this bird is in his or her third winter. By next year, s/he will have full adult plumage

When I went to Cherry Tree Wood on a cold, blustery day last week, I didn’t expect to see anything unusual. The tits were quiet, the blackbirds scuttled in the undergrowth, and even the squirrels growled less than usual. But there, next to a muddy pond in the middle of the playing field was a single gull. This was a Herring Gull, the quintessential ‘seagull’ of seaside towns. He was a young ‘un, with a few pale grey feathers on the head and a general air of melancholy. Where were the other Herring Gulls? Had he popped in and got left behind, or did he want to be alone?

Herring Gulls are not unusual in Greater London, and indeed they seem to be making themselves at home all over the place, with breeding taking place in Billingsgate Market, Beckton and even at Paddington Station. But I have only to hear their call to be transported to the seaside, and indeed, at one point when we were living in our previous house we heard them so often that we nicknamed our borough ‘Islington-on-Sea’. For anyone who is unfamiliar with their half melancholy, half manic outpourings, I suggest a little listen to this courtesy of the Garden-birds.co.uk website.

Herring Gull in flight (By JalilArfaoui (Own work) [CC BY-SA 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0) or GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html)], via Wikimedia Commons)

I have had several encounters with gulls, and have come to the conclusion that they are much more complicated, intelligent birds than we normally assume. The first time that I really noticed one was when I was on holiday in Paignton in Devon. We were staying in a splendid Bed and Breakfast establishment, but I had a terrible cold, and was laying in bed feeling sorry for myself. As I gazed out of the window I noticed that a Herring Gull on the roof of the house opposite was sliding down the tiles as if skiing down a slope. This was so unexpected that it distracted me for a moment. I levered myself up so that I could have a better look. The gull had arrived at the gutter, and had a little look around. Then, he fluttered back up to the top and slid down again. I was astonished. By the time the bird did it for the fifth time, I had come to the conclusion that he or she was playing. Furthermore, I felt much better, and was able to get up and go downstairs for breakfast.

We think nothing of it when baby mammals play, but it isn’t often observed in birds. Crows and parrots, those geniuses of the bird world, are known to find things to amuse themselves with, not just when young but throughout their adult lives too. However, Herring Gulls have been observed dropping objects and trying to catch them in mid-air, especially when it was windy and the task was therefore more challenging. I wonder how many other birds enjoy playtime without us noticing?

Adult Herring Gull (By Scottmliddell (Own work) [CC BY 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons)

We once stayed in a chalet in Lochinver in Scotland. When we arrived, we noticed a huge gull standing on the handrail of the front porch. Up close these are intimidating birds, with the pale eyes and intense stare of the monomaniac. He watched us unlock the front door, and unload the car. Eventually he flew off, so we settled in and eventually went to bed, even though the sky was barely dark, what with it being midsummer.

And then, at 4 a.m., we were awoken by a tapping sound.

The gull was pecking at the glass door. At first it was a relatively gentle sound, but, as we continued to ignore our supplicant, it got louder and louder until we were afraid that the panel would shatter. I got up and went to the kitchen. We had only arrived on the previous day, so the only food in the house was some welcome packets of shortbread biscuit. At the sight of me unwrapping them, the bird flapped energetically. I eased the door open and threw out a biscuit. The bird caught it deftly, broke it in two, ate one half and then the other, and then, sizing me up to see if there was any more, shuffled forward in that strangely mincing way that gulls have, wings half open, until I gave him the other biscuit and he flew off, granting us a few more hours sleep.

Naturally, he visited every morning for the rest of our trip, though he normally waited until about 7 a.m. Maybe he realised that he’d broken our will early on.

Seaside Herring Gull eating a starfish (© Copyright Mike Pennington and licensed for reuse under this Creative Commons Licence.)

Food is a great motivator for gulls, as ice-cream sellers at many a seaside town will attest. When we went to Greve de Lecq in northern Jersey, we were puzzled to see the vendors walking about with water pistols. And then we realised why. Half a dozen gulls were sitting on top of the spherical streetlights, surveying the scene. A family with a toddler bought an ice cream cone for their child. The little one was shuffling along, raising the cornet to his mouth when, seemingly out of nowhere, a gull flew down, arced over the child’s shoulder and snatched the ball of ice cream right out of the cone. It was a manoeuvre so beautifully timed and executed that I could only marvel at the bird’s skill, though I didn’t find it quite so funny when exactly the same thing happened to me the next day. The bird came so close that I felt its wingtip brush my hair. It seemed it would take more than a squirt from a water pistol to put these guys off.

Ambushed by Herring Gull in Ostende….(“Birdsniper” by loki11 – own work -place Oostende ( Belgium). )

Gulls always seem rather solemn birds, for all their penchant for mischief. Even when they are sliding down roofs or stealing icecream they seem to do it seriously, without the joie de vivre of crows or magpies. And this is part of their charm. On a very, very wet day in St James’s Park, I stood with a dear friend of mine and watched a Herring Gull dancing on the wet grass. The bird’s legs were jigging and shimmying back and forth, sending up little splashes of water, but all the time his body and head were completely still. He looked like nothing so much as an ornithological version of Michael Flatley from Riverdance. Every so often, the gull would stop his merry contortions and reach down to pick up a worm. The bird looked so deep in thought, so philosophical, even as his legs were executing tricky figures of eight in the mud, that it was impossible not to laugh with delight. At this, the gull looked at me with what I could have sworn was contempt, and turned his back on me.

These spikes are meant to deter birds from perching. Someone should have told the Herring Gull….(“Silbermöwe”. Licensed under Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons – http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Silberm%C3%B6we.jpg#mediaviewer/File:Silberm%C3%B6we.jpg)

So, I am intrigued to see the lone Herring Gull in Cherry Tree Wood. Will he be there for long? Will he soon be heading off to find a mate? Is he, indeed, even a ‘he’? I will probably never know. One day, he will just be gone. But I have a great respect for these clever, bold, adaptable creatures, who seem to think that they’re every bit our equals. And who knows if they aren’t right?

Bugwoman’s First Annual Report

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Dear Readers,

A year ago today, I created my first ever blog post for Bugwoman’s Adventures in London. At that time, I had no idea what I was doing, except that I had a passion for my local wildlife, and wanted to write about it, so I set myself the task of investigating the creatures that lived within a half-mile of my North London house. I wondered if anyone else was interested in the overlooked, under-reported animals that inhabit our gardens, our streets and sometimes even our houses.

Woodlouse galloping over the duvet

In a world where the creatures and plants that live with us have so often been pushed to the margins, it was a relief to see that they are not going quietly. Once I started to pay attention (and of course I had to, because I needed something to write about), I found animals everywhere. There were foxes, frogs and snails in the back garden.

The Gardener’s Friend

A very confident fox hoovering up the suet pellets from the bird table

There were mistle thrushes on the local playing fields, and crows, parrots and woodpeckers in the tiny remnant of local wood around the corner.

Ring-necked parakeet setting up house

Crow bathing in Coldfall Wood

Jays stole the peanuts that I’d intended for the tits, and finches ate a 25kg bag of sunflower seeds every month.

Goldfinches

There were damselflies and butterflies, Spanish slugs and froghoppers, early bees and leafcutter bees.

Red Admiral on Ivy

Leaf Cutter bee on Elecampane in the garden

To begin with, I concentrated on writing, but soon I discovered that I wanted to photograph the creatures that I saw, to put together word and image. I grew to love sharing the sounds of nature with the people who read the blog, and even experimented with video. It fulfilled a deep need in me, but also seemed strangely familiar. And then I remembered why.

When I ten years old, I was in charge of the nature table at school. Do schools even have nature tables these days, I wonder? It was always full of bits and pieces that the children had found, acorns and feathers, seashells and stones, even, in pride of place, a shrew’s skull. But this wasn’t enough. I created a weekly nature magazine, eight pages every week, full of competitions and animal stories and accounts of creatures spotted. The other children read it mainly, I think, for the bars of chocolate that I bought with my pocket money to offer as prizes, but for me it was a chance to share what I had discovered with anyone who would listen.

“Look”, I wanted to say. “Isn’t that extraordinary?”

The trunk of the Totteridge Yew, over 2000 years old and still going strong

It isn’t enough for me to know something, or to have seen something. I need to share it, to help other people to see it, to hear about what’s going on in their gardens or parks. I want to be told stories too, and so often that’s what I get. A fox or a robin or a magpie shared, sometimes across continents, knits a community that does see, does care. Mine is not the only heart to leap at the sight of a heron, or at the sound of the first frog-song from the pond.

But the real revelation for me this year has been the Wednesday Weed.

Yarrow

I started off knowing very little about the plants that grow in my neighbourhood – there were maybe a dozen that I could identify by sight. So, when I started writing about them, I thought that it would be a short-lived phenomenon. But instead, I realised that I was falling in love with the diverse, often scruffy, always overlooked plants that were everywhere around me. Like Londoners, they came from every corner of the world. Like Londoners, many of them were scratching out a living in the poorest of habitats, but surviving nonetheless. And like people everywhere, each species had its legends, its history and its place in the fabric of things. I loved unearthing the strange and wonderful stories of Herb Robert and White Deadnettle, of Groundsel and Yarrow, of Feverfew and Cuckoopint. It made me humble to realise how little I knew that would have been second nature to my recent ancestors. It reinforced my sense that so many people are alienated from the world around them, including myself. But it filled me with a kind of joy that it was so very easy to find out about the plants, to start to know them.

White Dead-nettle (Lamium album)

Trailing Bellflower

Pineapple Weed

There is still something of the Ancient Mariner about me as I grab passers-by to encourage them to look at some bird or plant that I’ve found. An unfortunate young man got out of a council van outside a derelict house last week, only to have me inform him that the patch of Annual Mercury in the front garden had both male and female flowers, and, look, this is how you told them apart.

“Cool”, he said, in a way that made me think that perhaps he was either very slightly interested in what I’d told him, or very polite.

Annual Mercury (Male)

The mood of the media is unrelentingly negative. I don’t have to watch it for long before I feel my anger and grief turning to helplessness and depression. What, after all, can ‘ordinary’ people do? Fortunately, ‘ordinary’ people are not ordinary at all. ‘Ordinary’ people get off their backsides and save the local woods that they love. ‘Ordinary’ people put up bird feeders, grow plants for pollinators, protest, sign petitions, fight for their communities. Only today, a report showed that urban gardens provide a haven for bees and other pollinators, and have more species than farmland. An indictment of farmland, to be sure, but how heartening for anyone with a garden or a window box or space for a container, no matter how small! Writing the blog has shown me how many people, all over the world, are noticing, caring and acting. Let’s not be downhearted, dark as things often seem. A lot of people, doing small things, can change everything.

Bugwoman on Location – Regent’s Park, London

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Young Grey Heron (Ardea cinerea)

Dear readers, you will know from previous posts that when I go to visit a zoo I am usually more interested in the wild creatures than the tame ones. So it is not surprising that for some years I have been fascinated by the Grey Herons that visit the penguin and flamingo pools at London Zoo. They stand amongst the Rockhoppers and the Humboldts, confusing the tourists and no doubt costing the zoo a small fortune in herring.

Heron and Humboldt Penguin

These are truly wild birds – there is a heronry in the middle of the boating lake in Regent’s Park, with a dozen enormous nests. There are no signs of breeding activity just yet, but I intend to visit later in the spring to provide an update.

Regent’s Park Heronry. No signs of activity just yet.

Herons are something of a success story, for once. There are an estimated 13,000 breeding pairs in the UK, approximately 65,000 individuals, and they are the commonest large predatory bird in the UK. Their success is largely due to the vast improvement in water quality, the same change which has benefited all manner of creatures, from trout and salmon to otters. Looking after an ecosystem like a river or a lake has positive effects for everything that uses it.

When in flight Grey Herons look to me like pterodactyls who have somehow become misplaced in time. Their presence is often announced by the angry cries of other birds, especially crows, who seem to bear herons a particular animosity.

Grey Heron in flight (By Charlesjsharp (Own work) [CC BY-SA 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons)

Grey Herons are tremendous fishermen, patient, fast and efficient. Such is their success that it was once believed that the feet of herons secreted a fish attractant, and so human fishermen would sometimes carry a heron’s foot for good luck. Not such good luck for the heron, obviously.

Herons will also eat amphibians and small mammals.For a while, I was Treasurer of the wonderful Culpeper Community Garden in Islington. I was told that a heron would pay an occasional visit to the garden’s pond during the time when the frogs were breeding. The bird would throw the frogs into the air one at a time, catch them in his beak and swallow them, sometimes eating twenty in a sitting. Then he would relax for a while, looking around with perfect equanimity before taking off with a few powerful wing strokes and disappearing. He only appeared when the frogs were around, and the person that I spoke to was convinced that the heron had a mental calendar of what food was available when. And who knows? Herons can live for up to twenty-five years, and strike me as quite capable of performing such a calculation.

There is something very fine about the appearance of an adult Grey Heron, with his long thin crest of dark feathers and his piercing barley-sugar eyes.

Of course, those fine feathers don’t look after themselves, and herons spend a lot of time contorting themselves into yoga positions in order to reach those awkward feathers on their backs or under their wings. Herons have special feathers on their breasts called ‘Powder Down’ – these feathers, when crushed, produce a kind of chalk which absorbs all the fish oil, scales and other secretions that are inevitable when you eat a lot of eels and other slimy creatures. The bird spreads the powder through its feathers, and then scrapes it off with a serrated claw.

There is something very thrilling about seeing such a large bird close up.The Grey Herons at the Zoo were completely unconcerned by the human visitors, even those slightly-scruffy female ones who almost dropped their cameras in an attempt to capture their distinctive beauty. The herons only raised their heads in interest when a member of the zoo staff, wearing a distinctive green jumper, stepped into the exhibit.Surely this meant that feeding time was at hand? But alas, it was a false alarm, and the zoo keeper was just there to clean up. Normality returned, and the herons settled back into placid watchfulness.

A few years ago, I was drinking a cup of tea in the kitchen of my house in East Finchley and was gazing idly out of the kitchen window when a pair of long, dangly legs began to descend slowly towards my pond. I almost spat out my breakfast in shock. A heron! But the descent was short-lived, because no sooner had the tip of the bird’s toe broken the surface when a pair of crows appeared from nowhere, cawing and cackling and flapping and harassing the heron so much that it broke off and flew back up again, pursued across the rooftops and gaining height all the time. It must have been the shortest heron visitation in living memory, which was just as well for my frogs.

It is said that captured herons are dangerous birds, and that even the young ones will not hesitate to peck directly at the eyes of their captor if given a chance. One rash fellow who, for some reason known only to himself, grabbed a heron found that the heron took hold of his nose in a piercing grip and refused to let go. A mad dance ensued, which would probably have been quite amusing to watch were it not for the danger to all involved. The man only managed to get the heron to release its grip by strangling it. Let us hope that it taught him never to mess with a Grey Heron again.

In some parts of the country, there is a tradition that, on meeting a heron, one should tip one’s hat and wish it good morrow. How refreshing it would be to greet a wild animal in just the way that you would greet a neighbour! Because, after all, we are neighbours, and whilst the heron might be indifferent to my appearance in his territory, I am certainly very glad to have made his acquaintance.

The Early Bird – Update

1 Reply

Dutch Christmas card featuring a Robin

Dear Readers, it has been pointed out to me that I was rather hasty in asserting that only people in Britain love the Robin, and that in Europe it is not held in such affection. One of my readers, London Details (who has a wonderful blog here ) pointed out that the Robin can be found on Christmas cards from the Netherlands (as in the image above), Germany and Austria, and that people cherish the bird just as much in these countries as we do here. Indeed, just a little research found Robins on cards from a variety of places.

German Christmas Robins

French Christmas card

What do these cards tell us? Well, they tell me that the British are not alone in their love of the Robin, and that when I blithely use the phrase ‘on the Continent’ I should stop first to consider that Europe is a very big, diverse place, containing many people who care for their wildlife as much as I do. Whilst there are people who shoot songbirds, I would hazard that there are many, many more who are welcoming them into their gardens and providing food for them. We need to be working together to preserve what’s left of our plants and animals, and sweeping generalisations are not helpful. Many thanks to my readers for their thought-provoking contributions, and for sharing their knowledge and experience.

The Early Bird

10 Replies

Robin ( Erithacus rubecula)

Last night, as I was having a final look around the garden before the sun set, I heard a bird singing. From the cherry tree next door, a Robin was sending a rather lonely, thin little song out into world. It was a hesitant sound, with something of a wheel in need of greasing about it, but nonetheless, it cheered me to think that someone was confident enough to be staking an early claim to my back garden. If you would like to have a listen for yourself, there is a link to a Robin’s song in the RSPB webpage.

And once I’d noticed the bird in my back garden, it seemed that Robins were everywhere.

Robin in a feisty mood

As I walked up the road towards Coldfall Wood, two Robins were having what my Nan would have described as ‘a bit of a barney’ in the crab apple tree. Both birds were fluffed up and flying sorties at one another, making an agitated chinking sound. Cute and cuddly they may be, but these two rivals were deadly serious in their animosity. They were oblivious to everything else that was going on and so was I – I almost fell over a pram in my haste to get a few photos. Robins are notoriously territorial, and, in the breeding season, are said to attack anything that vaguely resembles a rival, including bunches of red feathers and small birds belonging to other species.

Though in the UK Robins are often called ‘Robin Redbreast’, it is quite clear that their chests are more orange than scarlet. But regardless of the accuracy of their name, they are symbols of charity and compassion. One story has it that their breast colouration came about when they tried to remove the crown of thorns from Christ’s brow, and were injured themselves. Another story tells that the feathers were burnt when the Robins brought water to souls in the fiery pit of Hell, and indeed one Welsh name for the bird is brou-rhuddyn – ‘Breast-burnt’. However, the stories surrounding Robins date back further than Christianity – they were sacred to Thor, for example. No bird is held in greater affection in Britain: the Robin features on Christmas cards as a symbol of hope and energy in the snowy midwinter, and it is an unusual person who isn’t delighted to have one in their garden. This is not the case on the Continent, however, where Robins are fair game and can end up on a skewer like so many other songbirds.

The European Robin is a member of the Old World Flycatcher family, which means that it is related to such rarer birds as the Stonechat and the Whinchat. None of the other members of the family have that distinctive rotund shape, however, and none of them are as tame and confiding as the Robin.

Whinchat (Saxicola rubetra) (“Saxicola rubetra -Belgium -male-8” by Frank Vassen from Brussels, Belgium

European Stonechat (Saxicola rubicola) (By Amurfalcon (Own work) [CC BY-SA 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0) )

As the name would suggest, all Old World Flycatchers are insectivorous, which explains why the Robin is often portrayed as the gardener’s companion, waiting on a branch for a human to turn over the soil and reveal a tasty worm or grub. However, there is evidence that Robins were following wild boar about prior to our arrival in Britain, for exactly the same reason. In truth, humans are just substitutes for hairy porcines as far as the Robin is concerned.

The European Robin is also very different from the American Robin, which is a thrush rather than a flycatcher, and is several times larger than our bird.

American Robin (Turdus migratorius) (“Turdus-migratorius-002”. Licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons)

I find some of the folklore about Robins particularly evocative. There is a belief, for example, that if you kill a Robin, the hand that did the deed will always shake, as if some of the febrile energy of the bird has passed into your very bones to punish you for your iniquity. William Blake wrote that ‘A Robin Redbreast in a cage/puts all Heaven in a rage’. This little bird that has lived alongside us for so long that it is surrounded with a protective web of folklore, forbidding humans to harm it. How unfortunate that the rest of the animal world does not have similar prohibitions against cruelty and wanton slaughter.

The Mondrian Bird

4 Replies

Great Spotted Woodpecker (Dendrocopos major)

Dear readers, there is something about the stark black and white patterning of the Great Spotted Woodpecker, combined with the red patch of the vent, that reminds me of the paintings of Mondrian.

Piet Mondrian, 1926 – Composition in Red,Blue, Gold and Black

This bird is a female – the males have a small patch of red on the back of their heads, and the juveniles have a complete red cap.

Male Great Spotted Woodpecker (By Ken Billington (Own work) [CC BY-SA 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons)

Juvenile Great spotted Woodpecker (By Jason Thompson (Flickr: Great Spotted woodpecker (juvenile)) [CC BY 2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons)

But, regardless of sex, these birds are in charge of the suet feeder from the moment that they arrive on their stiff wings. They stab the suet pellets with their stiletto beaks, propping themselves up with their stiff tail feathers. They live their lives at forty-five degrees to the vertical, hopping up the trunks of trees and hammering away with such vigor that they would no doubt give themselves concussion if they didn’t have shock absorbers in their skulls.

I tend to see the woodpecker in the garden during the winter. In spring and summer, they spend much more time in Coldfall Wood. Last week, as I walked through the hornbeams, I heard an extraordinary sound, midway between a creak and a drumroll. I followed the noise, eager to see if it was what I thought it was. After some time standing at the bottom of a tree, almost falling backwards as I leaned further and further back, I saw this:

A woodpecker was drumming away on a dead branch, the sound echoing through the trees. The bird’s head was just a blur as he knocked his beak repeatedly against the wood – he is able to make between five and twenty strikes per half second. This wasn’t an attempt to make a nest hole – he was declaring his territory. After every session of drumming he looked around, as if listening, and sure enough, another bird was answering his challenge from the other side of the wood. Both male and female Great Spotted Woodpeckers drum, which makes me think that they share a territory during the breeding season, and that both sexes are involved in defending it.

I wondered if the Woodpecker was choosing his branch with care, in order to make the maximum amount of noise. If so, he joins an elite company of animals who use the world around them to create displays. I am thinking particularly of a male chimpanzee that I knew in Cameroon, who would choose a hollow tree to kick when he was displaying over all others, presumably because of its deep, bass-drum quality.

And then there was a cackle and another Great Spotted Woodpecker appeared. The two birds flew up and clashed wings, like dragonflies, before heading out over the houses. A third bird also joined in, possibly the original bird’s mate, so for a few seconds the blue sky was patterned with black and white and red shapes. And then, all was silent again. But there was no doubt in my mind that spring had already begun, and the great battle to reproduce had started all over again. As broken as the world sometimes seems, the great engine of the seasons is still working.

To see a short video of one of the woodpeckers drumming, please see below. Quality isn’t great, but you can hear the bird (though you might want to take a seasickness pill before viewing 🙂 )

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Bug Woman – Adventures in London

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Category Archives: London Birds

The Tree Spirit

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