Winged Reproductive Ants emerging on back doorstep …
Every year, the ants that nest underneath our back doorstep form a swarm of winged reproductives that fly off on a day in July.
We were surprised to find at least 10 House Sparrows perched all around the garden, and flying up catching ants. They were joined by a male Blackbird and a Robin. The Robin, the only insect specialist among them, had its beak full of insects. The nearest Sparrow in this photo is just below the doorstep where the ants are emerging: it was just a few feet from the camera.
Three House Sparrows catching ants by the doorstep
We’ve never seen so many House Sparrows in our street. There is just one house nearby where they nest, and there are usually just two or three birds there. Maybe they had a large successful brood this spring. Whatever the case, they found the ants emerging very quickly; they whole flight took only a couple of hours, though we’d noticed increased (wingless) ant activity over the past few days.
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.
Quick! Spring is in the air, the Dunnocks are passionately singing their tuneless songs, the Great Tits are yelling Zi-Za-Zi-Za-Zi-Za endlessly, the Greenfinches are wheezing out their odd song (‘Zheee’), it’s time to fix those nestboxes. Most of those in the Gunnersbury Triangle had been “hammered” by Tits or Woodpeckers, or gnawed by squirrels. And a few had been rather roughly drilled by humans. So the warden decided that all of them should be given anti-squirrel plates; all, that is, except the Robin boxes, which have a wide rectangular opening in the front.
Nestbox hole gnawed by squirrel
A few of the boxes seemed to have been attacked by squirrels. This one has what could be toothmarks and signs of extensive tearing of the wood outwards at a shallow angle, which looks like gnawing rather than hammering. It isn’t obvious why the basically herbivorous Grey Squirrel should do this.
Extensively hammered nextbox
This box, on the other hand, seems to have been hammered at a sharp angle to the surface, whether by the Tits themselves (they certainly do this sometimes) or by Greater Spotted Woodpeckers preying on nests – although they mainly eat insects and seeds, they do take eggs and chicks when the opportunity arrives.
Old nest with tit egg inside nestbox
At least 4 of the nestboxes had substantial and reasonably fresh remnants of nests inside; this older one contained two long-addled tit eggs (just one shown here; it was 16 mm long) with a mixture of moss and down as insulation.
Tegenaria, the Giant House Spider, at home in a very messy nestbox
Finally, one very old nestbox, carefully engineered with beading around the hinged lid complete with little brass hooks, contained a Giant House Spider, Tegenaria, a lot of beetle pupae, and what could be Gypsy Moth pupae as well. The box was a messy tangle of thick sticky cobweb, and the spider was distinctly reluctant to leave, seeming to want to stand and fight off any intruder.
All in all, what might have seemed a mundane bit of metalwork turned out to be a day full of interesting natural history. (But the metalwork was fun, too.)
Animal tracks: Fox, Crow, and Squirrel prints on a snowy boardwalk
Today we woke to a snow-covered city, just a light dusting; and as often with snow, the weather was appreciably warmer than before the snow arrived.
Down at the nature reserve, the paths were empty of human footprints, but thickly sprinkled with animal tracks. Here some crows had walked to and fro across the path; there, a fox had jogged along the trail. But better was to come: the boardwalk across the pond was interlaced with tracks. On the left, a fox had gone the length of the boardwalk. In the centre, a crow had walked unsteadily along, the same way as me; and it, or another, had walked more rapidly back. On the right, more birds’ footprints: and the four-feet-together group of a squirrel, the smaller front prints clearly showing the marks of the sharp claws.
On a Birch branch above the anthill meadow, a Green Woodpecker hammered in search of food. Down by the ‘mangrove swamp’, a Jay screeched harshly, either for us or for a fox. Near the picnic meadow, a Sparrowhawk flew from its high perch, wheeled above the treetops, dived rapidly out of sight.
We carried tools and a ladder to visit the nestboxes and take down all that needed repairs. While I held the ladder, a party of four Long-Tailed Tits blew by, crossing from one Birch to the next one at a time. One of the boxes contained not just a mossy nest (like three others) but two old addled eggs, probably of Great Tit. While we struggled to prise off a somewhat too well attached box for maintenance, a Robin perched nearby, in hope of eating any grubs we might have disturbed. Several boxes had had their openings enlarged by much hammering by Blue Tits or Great Tits: nobody knows why they might do this, as it increases the threat to their nests from predators. We will make aluminium plates for the fronts of all the Tit boxes (the ones with circular holes): the Robin boxes just have a wide rectangular opening, which they definitely prefer. Inside one of the boxes was a mass of woodlice in the moss; another had a plump dead Noble False Widow Spider (Steatoda nobilis) inside.
She came along to Gunnersbury Triangle, together with two of her supporters to take some pictures and video clips of the occasion. I did my best to fit what I wanted to say into short bursts – I don’t think I’ve ever been asked to do soundbites before, but perhaps it will come in handy when anyone asks what I think about nature and politics, or for that matter to put into a few words what my book is about. (It’s about how crazy the English are about nature, and why.)
We talked about why nature matters and the benefits it brings (votes, of course; human wellbeing in an age of e-gadgets; education; mental health; knowledge of climate change; the value of the wild gene pool… ), and I suggested some topics that it would be nice to have as party policy.
Tiny Frogs (and a slug) hiding under a mat
We walked around the reserve, saying a little about its history, its current uses (school visits, corporate bonding days, volunteering, talks, picnics, family visits, bug-hunting and pond-dipping, days out for the mentally handicapped). We saw the variety of habitats, enjoyed hearing the Robins singing even on a chilly day in January, and looked under a mat at the tiny frogs sheltering there. Rupa certainly left with a deeper understanding of what nature can do for people and why it matters; and of the possibilities that the Gunnersbury Triangle reserve, at least, has to offer for her constituents.
Most of my last few visits to Gunnersbury Triangle have been taken up with untangling a mass of fallen Willow trees in the mangrove swamp. One tree fell on the next, which fell on the next … and the whole lot were in sticky mud with a rising autumn water table, covered in ivy to boot. I lopped, chopped and carried branches and lumps of ivy away, getting happily hot, tired and dirty in the process.
Lopped Trunks in the Mangrove Swamp
Yesterday I wandered around with no tools other than camera and binoculars, and was rewarded with the sight of a Grey Wagtail, a Robin and a Wren hopping about and feeding in their different styles, exactly where I had been clearing.
Grey Wagtail: it is blurred as it was moving and wagging its tail
The wagtail was gobbling mouthfuls of grubs that it grabbed from the soft mud. It constantly bobbed and wagged its tail, displaying its yellow rump in the process. Could that be aposematic – is the yellow, in other words, a warning that the bird is distasteful? If not, why does it constantly flash yellow, even when no other birds of its species are about?
Today, I finished lopping the fallen Willow branches; as these last ones were over on the side, it was a cleaner and drier job. Then I joined in with a corporate group from Lend Lease, a well led and relaxed team … of property developers. They were incredibly pleasant to be with. The next surprise was at the hut when we all had a cup of tea: a nice Indian businessman in a suit came and asked us if his firm of engineers could use the reserve … for a group meditation. They stood about quietly and respectfully in a group, at least one person with hands pressed together in the ‘namaste’ position. We went on clearing and coppicing in the delightful autumn weather.
I got a small winged bug in my mouth; it released a pungent taste of cinnamon oils. Probably that is a chemical defence too: certainly a powerful taste, probably unpleasant in any quantity; but it was not bad in a one-off dose.
I ended my day sawing off some of the tree-stumps left over from the coppicing, together with one of the very capable and enthusiastic London Wildlife Trust trainees. It’s tremendous to see such good work going on in the reserve. And a piece of excellent news: a new warden has been appointed to manage work on the reserve, along with a West London warden who will be based here, but will have the massive task of keeping all the Hillingdon reserves from getting totally overgrown with hawthorn and blackthorn, among other things. So, suddenly, the place is full of life! Let’s hope we soon get our new visitor centre, we need it.
Conservation work with property developers; meditating engineers. You couldn’t make this up, or if you did, nobody would believe you. People say nature opens your mind, helps you feel relaxed. It does, you know.
Autumn Oak Leaves (with spangle galls)
The English seem unemotional … except for their passion for nature
