Tag Archives: Lapwing

Love of Nature, Natural History, Nature Reserves

Nightingales at Northward Hill

Northward Hill, looking over oakwood, scrub, grazing marshes, and river

Well there are some things one just has to do, even if it means braving the traffic. Nightingales, once common all over the south of England, can now only be heard in a few special places, and Northward Hill is one of them. There are some others in the southeast, like Lodge Hill, and guess what, they want to build houses all over it. Better go and enjoy the birdsong while it lasts.

A very shy Wall Brown, now a mainly coastal butterfly, the first I’ve seen for years

I was greeted by the song of blackbird, chaffinch, robin, song thrush, and wren as I walked in. A few ‘whites’ – large white, orange tip, green-veined white – skittered about as I reached the attractively rough scrub of hawthorn in full May blossom, blackthorn, wild pear, wild plum, and wild cherry, topped by the occasional whitethroat singing away scratchily.

Into the woods, with a handsome old cherry orchard on the right. Some of the oaks were straight out of Lord of the Rings, splendidly gnarled, knobbly, with massive trunks and holes to hide a good few goblins in.

Nightingale country: a fine old Oak. It looks to have been pollarded at about 12 feet up some centuries ago, so it was probably cut to that height while smaller wood was coppiced all around it.

And yes, sure enough, a nightingale obliged by singing its hesitant but amazingly rich and varied song from the thick cover. A little further, another; and a cuckoo kindly sang its unmistakable song from an oak almost in front of me, then with a ‘gok’ call flew, sparrowhawk-like, from the tree, a special sight.

Down to the hide overlooking the pool in the top photo; I wasn’t expecting more than a coot and maybe a mallard, but there were breeding lapwings chasing off the crows; breeding oystercatchers, and an avocet sitting with them; and a couple of solitary little egrets, stalking and stabbing at small fish or frogs. A redshank gave its wild teuk-teuk-teuk call and flashed its wingbar briefly.

Little Egret Stalking

Overhead a few swallows flitted about, and three swifts raced over the marsh.

The Hoo Peninsula is still a wild, spacious, lonely place, even with the swelling villages. You can see the Shard and Canary Wharf in the distance (some 30 miles); the river with its cranes and giant ships is ever-present; but the North Kent Marshes are special, as is Northward Hill with its fine old woods, still unspoilt for birds. Go and see it while you can.

 

 

Natural History

Winter Visitors to Otmoor … or is it Spring?

Here in town, the daffodils are in bloom, the bluebells are coming into fresh green leaf, and the temperature is 10 C, so it might almost be early spring. And this morning I heard the chi-chi-chi / zheeeee! of a singing male Greenfinch, getting into the spring courtship season. But some trees on the same common are full of twittering Redwings, winter visitors from the frozen North, a cheerful and bright winter sight.

Out in the countryside, it looks much more like Winter, the trees as bare as they ought to be in early February, the only flowers a few tufts of snowdrops near the pleasantly lichened reserve signboard at RSPB Otmoor. The reserve has grown steadily better from its early day, with more and more wet scrapes, pools, and reedbeds spanning something like a mile of Otmoor’s wide, flat expanse.

A Kestrel hovered overhead; Bramblings and Chaffinches lurked in the hedges; Redshank called in the distance. Red Kites drifted by over the trees.  Seven Snipe jumped up, screeching, from wet grass and zigzagged to a muddy island. A Cetti’s Warbler sang from almost under our feet, invisible.

The luxurious hide revealed numbers of Wigeon, Shoveler, and Teal, and a flock of Linnets with a few Goldfinches feeding on the grass in full view. Yellowhammers, Reed Buntings and more Linnets sat in the bushes. The trees were full of twittering: I soaked up the soundscape with hands cupped to my ears.

Thousands of Golden Plovers
Thousands of Golden Plovers (and some Lapwings below)

When a Buzzard came over, some 3,000 Lapwings and a similar number of Golden Plover got up, all glinting gold as they turned together in the sunshine.

Golden Reedbeds from a hide with no roof
Golden Reedbeds from a hide with no roof

Over to the north, a Marsh Harrier dropped into the reeds, got up again and scoured the reedbed for signs of prey, its broad brown wings slightly raised, its broad tail quiet unlike that of the Red Kite that wheeled past it.

Natural History, Nature Reserves

Sand Martins and Sandpipers

The recent East winds and warmer weather have brought plenty of spring migrants to southern Britain. Today at the London Wetland Centre a twitch was in full swing at the Peacock Tower, the object of the lovers’ attention being a Common Sandpiper peacefully browsing along the muddy shore, happily unaware of the excitement it was causing. The breeding Redshanks, too, stalked about the shallows probing for food; the Lapwings as always alert, chasing off Carrion Crows and anything else that might have been interpreted as threatening. Around the paths, three or four early Sand Martin arrivals wheel and swoop like the small brown swallows that they are; their nest-cliff is still empty.

Around the reserve, quite a few Brimstone and Small White butterflies, and an Orange Tip gave movement and colour. I heard the first Sedge Warbler of the year, and despite being right next to the willow bush from which a Cetti’s Warbler was giving out its explosively phrased song, I couldn’t see the songster. A Blackcap however could be glimpsed behind the Sheltered Lagoon, chattering its alarm call.  A Song Thrush sang at intervals, and a Dabchick gave its beautiful trill and some small squeaks from the Lagoon, in between spending a lot of time under water.

Back at home, a queen Wasp was nosing about some Ivy-Leaved Toadflax, and a red Mason Bee dug for earth in a seedbed, flying off with a little load for her nest.

Nature Reserves

Singing in the rain

Marsh Marigolds under a dark sky
Marsh Marigolds under a dark sky

Even as I arrived the weather looked threatening. The sun sparkled dramatically off the water, under a magnificently dark cloud, making the marsh marigolds gleam golden against the almost-black water.

From the hide, redshanks could be seen scurrying about; some lapwings energetically chased off a few carrion crows, and a few snipe wandered about, right out in the open, ceaselessly probing the mud for food. Even better, the first little ringed plover of the year came out on to the marsh, flying off suddenly, its narrow wings flashing. The lapwings’ territoriality is valuable to other nesting birds, like the little ringed plover, as it protects their nests from predators of eggs and young like the crows. Lose the lapwings, as we have done across most of England – there are hardly any wet meadows left – and you lose much more. Drain and fertilise the meadows, and coarse grasses outgrow all the delicate flowers: you lose both the beauty and the bees, and the bees matter as they pollinate crops. The farmers hardly noticed they had done anything: after all, they only did a few sensible things to the land. That’s how delicate the ecological balance is.

The rain arrived, sweeping in on a cold wind that whistled through the hide windows, spattered camera lenses and binoculars with fat raindrops. In a minute, every window was closed, everyone happy to be in a warm dry place. I focused the telescope on a snipe and watched it while the rain threw up splashes all around it. Every minute or two it shook itself, keeping its feathers dry and fluffed up to maintain its insulation – clearly its plumage is nowhere near as oily and waterproof as a duck’s. But it went on feeding, its legs in the chilly water, its long beak in the mud, or retracted and rapidly opening and closing as it swallowed its catch. Living and feeding on a marsh means being cold and wet most of the year, really.

In the distance on the open water, three or four newly arrived sand martins swooped to catch insects from the surface, dashing about like the tiny brown tailless swallows that they are – I was watching them through the telescope (not something that often works well with fast birds like swallows), gently swinging from side to side to follow them as those watching with binoculars tried to count how many there were, little fastmoving specks against the water.  We were all enjoying some wildlife, small as matchboxes, over a hundred metres away, flying in the rain. It was a very light, happy atmosphere in the hide, with nobody in a hurry, all the talk on the birds we could just about see. Really, it was perfect.