A Tiny Visitor

4 Replies

Celery Fly (Euleia heraclei)

 

Dear Readers, I was absolutely fascinated by this tiny fly on my angelica yesterday. I know that it’s a celery fly, and that its larvae will happily mine the leaves on what is currently my favourite pondside plant, but what a performer it is! My photo is far from perfect, but hopefully you can see that it has a shiny black body, wings rippled with chocolate, a bright yellow head and green eyes. All this in a critter smaller than my little fingernail.

It seemed to be displaying, though I couldn’t see anyone apart from me who was enjoying the show. The fly twisted its wings from side to side, hopped from one leaf to another, investigated the fallen pollen from the angelica flowers, disappeared briefly and then hopped back again.

And to my delight, a bit of research showed me that this male fly is actually displaying, and furthermore you can watch it too:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Euleia_heraclei_-_2015-06-17.webm#file

Celery flies lay their eggs on the leaves of the host plant, and the larvae burrow in and mine the inside, leaving a brown or yellow blotch. After four weeks, the larvae drop to the ground and pupate in the soil, with a second generation emerging later in the summer. I found it very interesting that the first generation of larvae burrow to a measly four or five centimetres down into the ground, but the second generation, who have to survive through the winter, will dig down to about 10 centimetres. Nature really is quite remarkable.

I would never have seen this fly if I hadn’t grown my angelica, and so it seems that whenever yo you plant something, you don’t just get the flora, you get the fauna that it attracts too. The angelica is now taller than me, and is attracting not just bees, but an early blue butterfly too – this one is a holly blue, and I hope that it’s found the ivy that’s overtaking my shed for its eggs. I am so delighted with this plant, and if you have a damp patch in the garden and don’t mind something huge, I’d definitely plant this beauty.

The End of May in St Pancras and Islington Cemetery

5 Replies

The highpoint of the cow parsley show?

Dear Readers, I have been fascinated by the speed at which the massed ranks of flowers come and go in the cemetery. One week it’s full of forget-me-nots and the next it’s ablaze with buttercups. This week, the rhododendrons have just opened, and, in spite of the honey made from it being hallucinogenic, the bumblebees were very enthusiastic (see the pollen baskets on the bee on the right of the photo).

The meadow in the woodland grave area is full of red campion…

And the swamp cypress is greening out nicely…..

Under the horse chestnut trees, the masses of ground ivy and violas have been completely submerged under a sea of black medick, a tiny yellow clover.

But what really catches my eye this week are the patches of germander speedwell. I thought that the forget-me-nots were blue, but this plant is an intense lavender-blue colour.

Germander speedwell

Elsewhere, the red clover is coming into flower, and I am wondering if some of these flowers are actually the slighter rarer zigzag clover (Trifolium medium). I should have bent down and had a closer look – the flowers of zigzag clover are on a stalk, whereas those of red clover are more or less stalkless. Maybe next week I’ll have the wit to bend over for a closer look.

On the path next to the North Circular Road the salsify flowers are out in force, and very pretty they look too, though I remain puzzled as to how on earth they got here.

Salsify flowers

The herb Bennett (wood avens) is in flower too.

Herb Bennett (Geum urbanum)

I have this all over my garden, along with herb Robert, greater celandine and green alkanet, and to tell you the truth I’ve rather given up the battle in some of the damper, shadier places. The plants that thrive there are perfectly suited to the habitat, and only this week I got into a gentle Facebook argument with someone who, when told that the plant they’d photographed was herb Robert, said ‘Oh, I thought it was a wild geranium’. It is, of course, a wild geranium, and not only is it very pretty in its place, but it is also often visited by pollinators, like this green-veined white (Pieris napi).

And finally, here is a last burst of germander speedwell blue, to power us through the week. Who knows what will have taken over from it by next week?

A Walk with a Good Friend at Walthamstow Wetlands

4 Replies

Dear Readers, as a society I think we often undervalue friendship in favour of familial or romantic partnerships, and yet the people who are often there for us through all of life’s uncertainties are our friends. On Thursday I visited Walthamstow Wetlands with my friend S. This year we will be celebrating our fortieth ‘friendiversary’ – we met in Scotland when we were 21 and both working as Community Service Volunteers. We haven’t seen one another since before this latest lockdown, and yet one sign of friendship for me is that we instantly drop into conversation as if we’ve never been apart. With so much shared history, there is much that we don’t have to explain to one another, and sometimes a whole incident can be retrieved from memory with a few words or a gesture that would be inexplicable to anyone else. True friendship is a very particular kind of love: my friends are often very different from me and from one another, and yet what we share is a deep concern for nature, a desire for justice and a need for real connection.

So, we grabbed a coffee at Walthamstow Wetlands café and sat down to catch up. There was much to distract us: there was a spotted flycatcher hawking from a nearby tree, and the cries of swifts from the nest boxes in the chimney of the old engine room.

However, all was not as it seemed – I got talking to a chap from the London Wildlife Trust who told me that, ahem, there weren’t yet any swifts in the nest boxes – the cheery sound of swifts nesting was a recording meant to encourage any passing swifts to take up residence. I shall have to see if it’s worked when I visit next – there were plenty of swifts over the garden in East Finchley this morning, so let’s see if it works.

S and I were just settling down with the flat whites when I noticed a Canada goose leaving the reservoir behind us and heading up the bank with a few goslings. Adorable! And then there was another gosling. And another one. And another one.

In the end we counted 17 goslings. Good grief! I wondered if they all belonged to this set of parents, or if they’d just picked up a few along the way – geese often adopt stray goslings, so strong are their parental instincts. What was lovely about these was that they paid us no attention at all, but simply grazed away naturally.

It wasn’t just the Canada geese either. We’d already seen several Greylag goose families by the entrance to the other part of the Wetlands.

At first I took this plant for viper’s bugloss, but it could also be phacelia. It was absolutely covered in bees. What do you think?

There’s a family of shelducks with tiny spotted ducklings too, but way off in the distance.

And, as we loop around and head back to the entrance, we spot this heron, no doubt keeping an eye open for tasty frogs and sticklebacks.

What is great about Walthamstow Wetlands is that although it’s still a working reservoir, it has, in the past three years, become one of London’s most important sites for biodiversity. Last year it even attracted a pair of passing spoonbills, a most unlikely visitor to East London! But even with the Canada geese, a common bird by anyone’s standards, there can be moments of magic, which are all the lovelier for being shared with a good friend. It’s so easy to take established relationships for granted, but if this last eighteen months has taught us anything, it’s that we should treasure those that we share our history with.

Saturday Quiz – Dawn Chorus – Version 2!

Leave a reply
Title Photo by Brian Robert Marshall / Song thrush near Faringdon Folly

Song thrush singing (Title Photo)

Hi Everyone, here’s a revised version of the quiz – hopefully you shouldn’t be able to see the bird names this time, which rather defeated the object :-). Same ten birds (plus one), but in a different order. Many thanks to Claire, Rosalind and Mike for letting me know. Unfortunately while I can preview the post, for some reason it appears that the mail that you get is not the same, which is most unhelpful. I shall asking WordPress if there’s any way of previewing the email before it goes out. 

Dear Readers, International Dawn Chorus Day was on the first Sunday in May, but in many places the birds are still going strong. How are your identification skills, though? Below are the songs of 10 British birds that you can often hear first thing in the morning, so let’s see how good you are at telling one from another. I’ve made this multiple choice because it ain’t as easy as it sounds. I’ve also tried not to include too many birds that sound the same, but until you get your ‘ear in’ that can be a tough call. I will do a quick post on what I’ve learned about bird songs next week.

Simply match the sounds to the birds. So, if you think song (1) is a blue tit, your answer is 1) a).

As usual, answers in the comments by Thursday 3rd June (5 p.m. UK time) and I will post the results on Friday 4th June. I will ‘disappear’ any answers that I spot, but if you are easily influenced by what came before, write them down first.

Onwards!

Species: 

A) Blue Tit

B) Blackbird

C) Song Thrush

D) Chiffchaff

E) Woodpigeon

F) Great Tit

G) Goldfinch

H) Robin

I) Wren

J) Chaffinch

The Songs….

1)

2)

3)

4)

5)

6)

7)

8)

9)

10)

And finally, this is about as un-British a bird as you could hope to find. An extra point for anyone who can guess what on earth this is…..

11)

Saturday Quiz – Dawn Chorus

5 Replies
Title Photo by Brian Robert Marshall / Song thrush near Faringdon Folly

Song thrush singing (Title Photo)

Hi all, it’s come to my attention that the mail you received this morning might have included the answers to all the questions below 🙁 – let me know in the comments if this has happened to you! What I intend to do is to mix the sound files up later this afternoon and see if I can remove any ID so you can still have a go. Blooming WordPress…..

Dear Readers, International Dawn Chorus Day was on the first Sunday in May, but in many places the birds are still going strong. How are your identification skills, though? Below are the songs of 10 British birds that you can often hear first thing in the morning, so let’s see how good you are at telling one from another. I’ve made this multiple choice because it ain’t as easy as it sounds. I’ve also tried not to include too many birds that sound the same, but until you get your ‘ear in’ that can be a tough call. I will do a quick post on what I’ve learned about bird songs next week.

Simply match the sounds to the birds. So, if you think song (1) is a blue tit, your answer is 1) a).

As usual, answers in the comments by Thursday 3rd June (5 p.m. UK time) and I will post the results on Friday 4th June. I will ‘disappear’ any answers that I spot, but if you are easily influenced by what came before, write them down first.

Onwards!

Species: 

A) Blue Tit

B) Blackbird

C) Song Thrush

D) Chiffchaff

E) Woodpigeon

F) Great Tit

G) Goldfinch

H) Robin

I) Wren

J) Chaffinch

The Songs….

1)

2)

3)

4)

5)

6)

7)

8)

9)

10)

And finally, this is about as un-British a bird as you could hope to find. An extra point for anyone who can guess what on earth this is…..

11)

Saturday Quiz – What’s the Bee? – The Answers!

4 Replies
Title Photo by Patrick Rock, CC BY 3.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0>, via Wikimedia Commons

Bumblebee….(Title Photo)

Dear Readers, we all did very well this week! Claire got 10/11, Fran and Bobby got 10 1/2 out of 11 ( Number 8 was an ashy mining bee), and the joint winners this week are Mike from Alittlebitoutoffocus and Mal from FEARN with 11 out of 11. Well done everybody!

Photo One By Kyd (Joseph Clayton Clarke) - http://www.oldbookart.com/, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=18557519

1)

This is Mr Bumble the Beadle from Charles Dickens’s Oliver Twist, so I’m looking for ‘Bumblebee’.

Photo Two By A&M Records - Billboard Magazine, page 2, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=75866990

2)

The lovely Carpenters, so this is Carpenter Bee. And here’s a link to probably my favourite Carpenters song, though it’s a close run thing between this and ‘Rainy Days and Mondays’….

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=__VQX2Xn7tI

 

3)  Alone Again (Naturally) – YouTube

Solitary Bee!

4)

Photo Four by Ben Rollman from https://www.flickr.com/photos/xadrian/7930303196/

4)a)

PLUS

Photo 4b I, MarcusObal, CC BY-SA 3.0 <http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/>, via Wikimedia Commons

4)b)

Hairy-footed flower bee. You’re welcome 🙂

Photo Five Tony Hisgett from Birmingham, UK, CC BY 2.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0>, via Wikimedia Commons

5)

This is the famous Ivy restaurant in London’s Covent Garden, so the answer is Ivy Bee

Photo Six By MesserWoland, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=985225

6)

Mason Bee

7)

Photo 7a Faizan Rabbani, CC BY-SA 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0>, via Wikimedia Commons

7a)

PLUS

Photo 7b Evan-Amos, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

7b)

Leaf-Cutter Bee

8)

Photo 8a I, MarcusObal, CC BY-SA 3.0 <http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/>, via Wikimedia Commons

8)a)

PLUS

Photo 8b from https://picryl.com/media/war-production-drive-anthracite-rallies-coal-mining-is-serious-business-an

8)b)

Ashy Mining Bee

9)

Photo 9a from https://www.flickr.com/photos/shallowend24401/2951338099 by Brian

9)a)

Photo 9b from https://barbrosthreads.com/2014/09/08/hand-carders/

9) b)

Wool Carder Bee

10)

Photo Ten by By Cuculus_canorus_vogelartinfo_chris_romeiks_CHR0791.jpg: Vogelartinfoderivative work: Bogbumper (talk) - Cuculus_canorus_vogelartinfo_chris_romeiks_CHR0791.jpg, GFDL 1.2, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=16077960

10)

Cuckoo Bee

And finally, what’s the bee-related link to these lyrics?

11)

The Bee Gees of course! And here’s the official video. Get a load of those trousers !!!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fNFzfwLM72c

And because it’s Friday, here’s some more Bee Gees with John Travolta 🙂 from 1977. Sigh.

Saturday Night Fever (Bee Gees, You Should be Dancing) John Travolta HD 1080 with Lyrics – YouTube

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Laying in Wait….

2 Replies

Honeybees on angelica

Dear Readers, for about twenty minutes today the sun shone, and so I wandered outside to take a few photos. My angelica flowers are just opening, and are already a hit with the local honeybees, much to my delight. There is such a feeling of accomplishment when you plant something to attract pollinators and it actually does.

I imagine that the recent wet weather has kept all the pollinators at home, so they will all be playing catch-up. The tadpoles have been very happy though – it’s rained so much that it’s raised the level of the pond, and they are able to forage for algae on the parts of the pond that are usually just a beach. They look very fat and happy to me, but I’ll have to make sure that none of them get stuck as the water level goes down (it’s supposed to be much warmer and drier for the next week or so). The water snails are happy too.

But who is this lurking on one of the other angelica flowers?

This is a young male running crab spider (Philodromus sp.) (many thanks to the British Spider Identification Group on Facebook for the ID). This is a group of fast-moving arachnids who hunt flies and other insects, and who also guard their eggs, which are enclosed in what looks like the tip of a medium-sized cotton bud. I shall have to keep my eyes open to see if any females turn up, and also if the male reappears, because when I popped down to see if I could get another photo he had, true to his name, done a runner. If I was a honeybee or a hoverfly, I would be very careful. Incidentally, these spiders spend the winter hibernating beneath loose bark, yet another reason to not be too tidy in the garden.

In other news, I have about 150 honesty seedlings pinging up from the seeds that my friend J gave me last year. I suspect that the good people of the County Roads in East Finchley where I live are going to have an opportunity to put them all over their gardens if the urge takes them. Now all I have to do is prick them out. I know what the bank holiday is going to hold in store for me!

 

Wednesday Weed – Sorrel

9 Replies

Common Sorrel (Rumex acetosa)

Dear Readers, what an unassuming little plant this is! if you weren’t paying attention you could easily miss it. This is sorrel (Rumex acetosa). Sorrel looks like a grass, but isn’t one. It’s a member of the Polygonaceae or knotgrass family, along with the various persicarias and bistorts and our old friend, Japanese knotweed. The zesty leaves have been eaten throughout the plant’s range, which includes Scandinavia, the rest of Europe and parts of Eurasia. Sorrel is used in spanakopita, the Greek feta, leek and greens pie, in Albanian byrek pies and in Armenian aveluk soup, with walnuts and lentils. In Eastern Europe, it’s turned into soup with hard-boiled eggs. In short, sorrel’s lemon-flavoured leaves are much enjoyed in parts of the world where citrus isn’t grown, or at times of the year when lemons aren’t available.

Photo One By Popo le Chien - Own work, CC0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=69436320

Byrek/borek pie (Photo One)

The flavour of the leaves has given rise to a whole range of vernacular names. My Vickery’s Folk Flora (by Roy Vickery) tells me that in northern England sorrel is known as bitterdabs, in Roxburghshire as Lammie sourocks, in Northern Ireland as red sour-leek and in Ross-shire as sourey souracks, which is probably my favourite. It reminds me rather of Boaty McBoatface, the name selected by the public in the UK when asked to suggest a name for a research ship (subsequently named the David Attenborough, which is more appropriate but rather less fun).

Medicinally, Scottish children used to eat the first leaves of sorrel as a cure for their spots, and John Clare describes how workers in the field would nibble on the plant to slake their thirst. It used to be believed that the plant could ward off scurvy:although the flavour comes from oxalic acid rather than ascorbic acid, it contains some Vitamin C, as do all green plants. While the oxalic acid is associated with kidney stones, you’d have to eat prodigious quantities of the plant to do yourself a damage. Plus oxalic acid is also present in foods like rhubarb, and what is the point of life without rhubarb?

Sorrel was also the source of ‘salts of lemons‘, a concentrated compound of the oxalic acid, which could be used to bleach straw, remove rust stains from linen, and remove ink stains. With the last, however, the chemical reaction only worked if the ink was made from oak galls and salts of iron.

It is eaten by various caterpillars, including those of the fiery clearwing (Pyropteron chrysidiformis), the forester moth (Adscita statices) the blood-vein (Timandra comae) and the scarce vapourer (Orgyia recens), all scarce species that it’s well worth encouraging.

Photo Two by Ferran Pestaña, CC BY-SA 2.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0>, via Wikimedia Commons

Fiery Clearwing (Pyropteron chrysidiformis) (Photo Two)

Photo Three AfroBrazilian, CC BY-SA 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0>, via Wikimedia Commons

Forester Moth (Adscita statices)(Photo Three)

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

Blood Vein (Timandra Comae) (Photo Four)

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

Caterpillar of the scarce vapourer (Orgyia recens) (Photo Five)

Sorrel can also be used as a dye, with either the whole plant or the root being used with various mordants to get a whole range of colours. The dyes in the photo come from sorrel’s close relative sheep’s sorrel (Rumex acetosella) but the results should be broadly the same. Who knew you could get so many colours from such a modest little plant? The photo comes from the Forest and the Spirit blog, which is well worth a look.

Photo Six from https://forestandthespirit.wordpress.com/2016/05/31/plant-dyes-sheep-sorrel/

Dye colours from sheep’s sorrel (Photo Six)

And finally, a poem. I love Edna St Vincent Millay, with her streak of cussedness and curmudgeonly attitude. How could I not also love this poem? Why, even the name is appropriate. I’m not exactly sure what the last verse means, so feel free to share!

Weeds by Edna St Vincent Millay (1892 – 1950)

White with daisies and red with sorrel
And empty, empty under the sky!—
Life is a quest and love a quarrel—
Here is a place for me to lie.

Daisies spring from damnèd seeds,
And this red fire that here I see
Is a worthless crop of crimson weeds,
Cursed by farmers thriftily.

But here, unhated for an hour,
The sorrel runs in ragged flame,
The daisy stands, a bastard flower,
Like flowers that bear an honest name.

And here a while, where no wind brings
The baying of a pack athirst,
May sleep the sleep of blessèd things,
The blood too bright, the brow accurst.

Photo Credits

Photo One By Popo le Chien – Own work, CC0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=69436320

Photo Two by Ferran Pestaña, CC BY-SA 2.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0>, via Wikimedia Commons

Photo Three AfroBrazilian, CC BY-SA 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0>, via Wikimedia Commons

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

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

Photo Six from https://forestandthespirit.wordpress.com/2016/05/31/plant-dyes-sheep-sorrel/

 

 

 

LNHS Talks – ‘Bats in Churches’ by Claire Boothby

6 Replies

Dear Readers, when I hear the phrase ‘Human/Wildlife Conflict’ I think of villagers fighting off elephants who are raiding their crops in Sri Lanka, or oil plantation workers chasing orang utans with machetes. But there are plenty of occasions in the UK when our hard-pressed wild creatures come into rather more contact with humans than is good for either party. I do love a talk that makes me think about something that I’d never considered before, and so it was with this one. Claire Boothby, who works for the organisation ‘Bats in Churches’ has the remit of trying to mitigate the problems that occur when bats roost in churches, and she had some very interesting things to say on the issue.

Bats have always used churches as roosts – they seem to prefer older churches with wooden roofs. One conservationist suggested that those timber beams reminded the bats of ancient woodland, which is where they would probably roost preferentially if there was enough of the habitat left. If the church is surrounded by a nice big churchyard with lots of flying insects, so much the better. In the summer, the female bats like the warmer part of the church as it’s ideal as a maternity roost. In the winter, they may favour places like crypts and undercrofts as hibernation sites.

Many churches have voids in the roof with direct access to the outside world, and in these cases the parishioners might not even know that there is a bat roost. The trouble comes if the bats have access to the interior of the church. My heart is obviously with the bats, but Boothby showed how the droppings from the bats can damage brass memorial plaques, marble tombs and stained glass windows. Many of the volunteers who clean churches are elderly, and the church can lose significant income from weddings and events if the building is soiled. One church in the study closed because of the damage from a substantial bat roost.

What to do? The bats are protected (thank goodness) but the buildings are part of our heritage, and are often also the centre of a small community. Fortunately, Bats in Churches works with all the parties involved. Funded by the National Lotteries Fund, it brings together the Bat Conservation Trust, the Church of England, Historic England and the Church Conservation Trust, and it works very closely with the parishioners and clergy at the church.

It’s easy to demonise those in the churches who are complaining about the bats, but in the video interviews with them, they were all quietly apologetic about even mentioning the problems that they were experiencing. They wanted to conserve the bats, but they were also worried about the churches, one of which was an extremely rare brick-built Tudor church. They were also worried about the cleaning burden that fell on a group of volunteers who might scrub for hours only to find that, when they returned a few days later, things were just as bad.

Photo One by By John Winfield, CC BY-SA 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=8684692

St Nicholas, Chignal Smeally (Photo One)

So, what to do? In churches where the bat population wasn’t causing too many problems, such as Holy Trinity Tattershall, the bats were turned into a feature, with a bat information board inside the church, bat walks outside it, bat teeshirts and a ‘Tatty Bat’ mascot that people could buy.

Photo Two from https://twitter.com/BatsinChurches/status/955473780750594049

‘Tatty Bat’ merchandise from Holy Trinity, Tattershall (Photo Two)

In churches where the problem was worse, however, there were capital works on the building. Bat surveyors would get an idea of the size of the roost, the species involved and their entrance and exit points. They would be watched to see how they were behaving, and then a plan was drawn up that would minimise the damage in the church without affecting the bats. In some cases, this could involve something as simple as a screen so that when the bats left the roost they were funnelled towards the outside exit, rather than flying around in the church first. In another, a bat box with heraldic symbols on it was created so that the bats had a perfect roost with the same entrance as previously. In the most expensive example, St Lawrence Radstone church had so many bats, and so many droppings, that the church had actually been closed. Part of the church had a twelfth century ceiling, but the bats were in the much later Victorian part of the roof. A plan was drawn up to create a false ceiling in the Victorian bit, so that the bats still had a void to fly around in, but could enter and exit from their original points. This was so successful that the church was able to reopen in 2020, without any damage to the bats. You can watch a video about the project here.

Photo Three by By Ben Nicholson, CC BY-SA 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=9246139

St. Lawrence Church, Radstone (Photo Three)

All of the projects mentioned are subject to monitoring for at least three years, and hopefully longer, to ensure that the bat populations haven’t been harmed by the changes. I must say that I was impressed by the imagination and dedication shown by all parties, who clearly wanted to achieve a solution.

Bats in Churches would really like some help surveying churches: you don’t need to be a qualified bat surveyor, and it sounds like an interesting and worthwhile project. They are trying to survey a sample of 1000 churches (they ground to a halt during the pandemic along with everybody else) and, excitingly, you get the loan of a bat detector and are taught how to submit bat droppings for DNA testing. Who could resist? If you think you fancy it, all the details are on the Bats in Churches website here.

Claire Boothby was a very engaging speaker who is clearly passionate about finding solutions to the tricky problems of bats, people and medieval buildings. It was a real pleasure to watch her talk, and if you’d like to do the same, you can find it here. These LNHS talks have been so fascinating and varied that I hope they continue even after the pandemic – it’s clear that they can reach and educate a much wider audience than their London evening in-person events did. Fingers crossed that we can soon have both!

Photo Credits

Photo One By John Winfield, CC BY-SA 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=8684692

Photo Two from https://twitter.com/BatsinChurches/status/955473780750594049

Photo Three By Ben Nicholson, CC BY-SA 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=9246139

Magpie Wars

7 Replies

Dear Readers, ever since I’ve been putting live mealworms in the garden I’ve been ‘adopted’ by a pair of magpies. Goodness, what pirates they are! They terrorise the collared doves by swooping into the tree in a most menacing way, though I’ve never seen them actually attack one. I do suspect that they sometimes take an unsuspecting tadpole, and so far the starling fledglings have gone unmolested.

Then yesterday there was a ridiculous amount of noise coming from the front of the house. I strolled out to the front door (almost locking myself out in the process) and saw two pairs of magpies facing off on the roof opposite. I remembered that when magpies are in a tree, the most dominant one (often the one with the longest tail) sits at the top, and I wondered if this was the case here too, with one pair claiming the ‘roof line’.

However, as I watched I came to the conclusion that the roof line was maybe the boundary between the territories – ‘my’ magpies seemed much happier once the other pair had departed back the way they’d come. After all the cackling and chuckling there was a return to calm, with ‘my’ magpies popping back into the garden to check out the mealworms again.

I’ve been reading a bit about magpie territorial behaviour, and it seems that a pair in residence will be ‘tested’ by non-breeding males on a regular basis. Often, as soon as battle is commenced a great flock of other magpies will turn up to watch the fun; it’s thought that this gives them an opportunity to review the strength of the combatants without putting themselves at risk, though by the level of excitement on such occasions I suspect the non-participants are having as much fun as primary school children when a ‘rammy’ breaks out. If a male fancies his chances, he’ll be back later to ‘have a go’. This makes me wonder if what I was seeing was not a fight between two pairs, but between a pair and two males, one fighting, one watching.

There’s a very interesting article about all this stuff online, by David Holyoak. Most of his observations were of rural birds (the data relates to the 1960s) but clearly, magpies were ever bit as rambunctious and noisy then as they are now. Holyoak wonders if the wide range of vocalisations (compared with crows) might indicate that, like jays, magpies were once birds of dense woodland, who needed auditory rather than visual signals to communicate. Certainly if there’s a magpie about, you know it.

Another study looked at the quality of territories. Generally, in towns territories tend to be smaller, because there’s more availability of food, especially for an omnivore like a magpie who eats everything from tadpoles and mealworms to chips and Kentucky Fried Chicken. I suspect that my garden has the advantage of availability of food, and the disadvantage of lots of cats and people, though as you’ll remember, one of the magpies thought nothing of challenging a sparrowhawk so I suspect a mere cat would be as nothing. What it doesn’t have is any very large trees (though the whitebeam is starting to get a bit unruly), but then there’s Coldfall Wood across the way for nesting purposes. A study of territories by Anders Pape Møller graded territories as High Quality to Low Quality, and found that birds in a High Quality territory could be there for 8-10 years. Looks like the magpies and I will have lots of time to find out about one another.