Restore Nature Now!

 

The amazing march to Parliament Square on Saturday was spearheaded by Chris Packham and included all the best-known wildlife & environmental organisations including the National Trust, RSPB, Wildlife Trusts, Greenpeace, Friends of the Earth, Green Party and Extinction Rebellion, not to mention countless others. The police (who tend to estimate on the low side) estimated 80,000 to 100,000 marchers.  Carrying witty, colourful placards and props and dressed in carnival costumes, they threaded joyously through the streets of the capital.  At this time of Election, it was to remind our politicians that so many of us are hugely concerned about loss of wildlife and the massive global threat of climate change.

To paraphrase Margaret Atwood, it's not just going to be Climate Change - It's going to be Everything Change.

As voters, we might be fretting about the pound in our pocket and the price of food.  If we don't tackle Climate Change/Global Heating, these matters will worsen dramatically, whatever short-term policies the government elected presents.

Nigel was at the march, but I wasn't - my elderly parents needed support that day.  And that's my point - although 100k people turned out, behind each one of them were dozens more who would have liked to be there if they hadn't been working or unwell, or supporting another person.

So what can we still do, if we were unable to get to the march but know how much wildlife and climate matter? 

Go to your local hustings and ask an environment-related question about energy policy, or transport or house-building on the greenbelt.  Buttonhole doorstep canvassers with these questions and ring up radio phone-ins with them.  

Nothing matters more.

The pic below is a comment on the fact that the BBC did not bother to report this massive and spectacular march at which everybody was so well-behaved.

Frog chorus

 

We have just enjoyed a weekend of what I can only call audio tourism.  

Work took Nigel to the old university city of Leuven, and I joined him there. After the regular hum of several hours of train travel, arriving was a treat for the ears.  

 

In little leafy parks we heard spring birdsong. I noted how familiar favourites like blackbirds and robins had a slightly different call, like a different accent. 

 

Leuven was also hosting a festival of sound installations called Hear Here. The most memorable was in a glasshouse in the botanic gardens -  a set of 250 tiny speakers suspended from the ceiling emitted the sound of bees coming and going and one could immerse oneself in the buzz of the hive. On listeners’ faces were looks of wonder. 

 

But the best sounds of all were at the Abbey Park on the outskirts of the city. Standing by a reed bed on the edge of a lake we were startled by the bright sudden burst of notes which heralded the Cetti's warbler.  A bird which I had never seen before, and, as it remained hidden, still haven't! 

Also in the reeds were a bunch of very enthusiastic frogs. Unlike the chaps in my pond at home who sound merely as if they are suffering from dyspepsia, these frogs were loud and ebullient, like the party one hears in the distance and longs to be invited to.

 Coming home now, my ears feel as if they have had a work-out – they are all nice and ready to pick up the calls of the swifts, newly arrived in St Albans. 

NB The frog in the top photo is not the one making all that noise, but i couldn't get a pic of the noisy ones! 

Photo by Erzsébet Vehofsics on Unsplash

A Good Time For Covid?

Nigel and I have been laid low by Covid, presumably the Omicron variant.

Since I have been working in secondary schools and he has attended the odd meeting in central London, this highly contagious variant did seem unavoidable.

Long country walks are something we consider essential to happiness, but at the moment we are confined indoors.

So I have been consoling myself that if there was one good time of year to be trapped at home, then this is it – ten dry, cold, overcast January days, with daylight fleeting early.

The very countryside has appeared dormant.

Yet as I have begun to feel better, I can see how wrong I have been.

Whenever the sun shows its face, I hear birdsong, led by our robins, but including a swelling number of other species.  Blue tits are showing a great deal of interest in our nest boxes.

Our doves have begun to vie for the best nest sites in our dove cote.

Each night, foxes rend the air with their barks.

Even the hedgehog which we have been fostering this winter seems to have no interest in hibernating.

So when I finally get the all-clear to leave the house, the first intimations of spring will be awaiting me with open arms.

Video of Nigel feeding robin by Carenza

Blue tit photo by david Griffiths on Unsplash

Swift Response

If there’s one bird for me, then it is the swift.

If I am reincarnated, that's what I would opt to be.

They barrel around our summer skies in small flocks, shrieking with delight as if our rooftops are their own personal Alton Towers.  Life through the eyes of a swift must look like one long arcade game.

But maybe being a swift is not such an idyll – every May when they arrive back from Africa, they find it more difficult to nest. 

Hundreds of years ago, they nested in vast ancient trees which furnished plenty of nooks and crannies.  However, as mankind has dominated the landscape, they have used our buildings instead, colonising holes, cracks and fissures.

But as our building techniques become better at sealing every chink and gap, swifts find it harder to find a home.  Numbers have greatly decreased and the swift is now endangered in the UK.  However, it is not hard to offer help. 

Newbuilds or extensions can have hollow swift-bricks built in.  Existing buildings can have nest-boxes fitted under the eaves.

The church I attend, St Luke’s, doesn’t have much land, but is currently planning a small wildlife garden.  When we talked to Heidi from Herts and Middlesex Wildlife Trust , we discovered we had valuable vertical real estate in the shape of a North-East facing wall, ideal for swift nest-boxes.

So we’ve ordered them now, in time to put up before May.  

Let’s just hope the swifts make those lovely excited shrieks when they see them.

For more about helping swifts:

https://www.rspb.org.uk/birds-and-wildlife/wildlife-guides/bird-a-z/swift/

http://actionforswifts.blogspot.com/

https://www.swift-conservation.org/

photo by Vika Strawberrica, Unsplash

 

 

Enhanced Reality

 Pascoe showed me a phone app which gave an enhanced reality view of the world - extra information about whatever he pointed his phone at.

But I’ve been finding that taking an interest in wildlife has the effect of enhancing my reality.
The other day we walked along the Northumberland coast near Low Newton.

The dunes were more colourful than the Chelsea flower show with bloody cranesbill, burnet rose and cinquefoil.

An area of beach had been cordoned off for ground nesting birds. At first it looked to us empty, the sand broken only by hummocks of maram grass. Yet as we watched, something moved.  Finally, we made out a family of ringed plovers, the parents with their natty, black-banded plumage, the chicks brownish and fluffy yet agile, able to run and hide.
Beneath Dunstanburgh castle, a parabolic cliff magnified the onomatopoeiac cries of the kittiwakes and the cackles of the fulmars nesting there, while a raft of razor bills looked on from the water beneath
Later on, I played the RSPB app birdcalls on my phone and duetted with firstly a sedge warbler and then a reed bunting.

And last of all, the thing that set the crown on the afternoon. Nearly back at the car park, I cast a casual eye over a brackish pond and saw an avocet with its immaculate black and white plumage and its unique upturned bill.  Once nearly extinct in the UK, this was a special sighting.

Really nothing at all had happened to us that day on our eight mile hike, but the wildlife made me feel as if it had been an incredibly eventful day.

Naughty Wildlife

Wildlife is good and we should make more space for it.

That's the mantra.
And of course I agree with it.
However, wildlife doesn't always respect our boundaries.

We love our garden and have designated areas for wildlife, such as the pond, the bird feeders and the bug houses. But recently some animal has been failing to read the signs - our lawn is dotted with yellow dinner-plate-sized patches.  The grass is dead where something has been weeing on it.
Similarly my parents love feeding the birds and keep the bird food in the side passage inside a sturdy plastic bin whose lid is secured by two strong rubber bungees.  Lately, at night, something has been efficiently removing the bungees and eating the bird food. 

We don’t think it’s a robin.

Our unruly specimen of wildlife turned out to be a mangy urban fox which marks our lawn as its territory.  Since it has also been seen bringing its cubs round to salivate over our pet doves, we felt less than amicable and moved the bird bath which used to help it jump our fence.

 When my Dad met their burglar, however, it turned out to be a very winsome badger.  Dad sounded rather charmed by it.  Perhaps I should see if I can get on the internet and buy them some badger food.  They can keep it in that handy plastic bin.

ITALY TRIP - Ancient Soundscape

Living on the edge of a market town close to London, our evening soundscape is quite meagre. Rustling often turns out to be merely the neighbour watering their plants.

Police/ambulance sirens also feature.

However in a villa on a wooded hill in Tuscany we had a taste of what the soundscape could be.  Perhaps this was how it used to be in our country.

We could hear the chirring of nightjars, the staccato chirping of crickets, the distant liquid song of a nightjar. 

A tawny owl called too-wit too-woo and a fox barked. A badger rustled heavily just beyond the fence.

But the creature which completely defied identification was something which inhabited the bushes near the terrace and at regular intervals uttered a harsh “Pssst!” as if trying to attract our attention.

I did not even know whether it was a bird, reptile or mammal, so went online to research.  I was just playing a wildlife recording when Carenza happened along. (The offspring had joined us for this leg of the journey.)

“What are you doing, Mum?”

“I’m listening to recordings of Tuscan owls.”

“Oh Mum!” she said, turning on her heel. “I’ve never heard anything so middle class in my life!”

And no, I never did find out what went "Pssst".

No More Empty Nest

Recently we redesigned our back garden. 

We made sure there were holes in the base of the new fence for hedgehogs. 

We put in a pond to attract newts and frogs. 

We hung up birdfeeders to encourage finches and tits.

And now we are rewarded by seeing the little creatures in our garden.

Meanwhile, in the house, we have at last mended the hole in the bath (long story).  We have also installed electric blankets.  We have packed the fridge full of wholesome food, especially hummus, lots of hummus.

So what kind of wildlife have we managed to attract to our house? 

The answer is Twins. 

Perran and Carenza have both begun their working lives in the London area. 

For the time being, they are living with us.  

I put out fresh food each night and mostly they return.

But when their post-university bank accounts have recovered, they plan to move out and rent a flat.

I feel sorry for them that housing is so expensive right now, but quite glad they are stuck with us for a bit.

Just hope we don’t have to cut holes in the fence for them though.
They would be enormous.