Wildlife Reports for April 2006

John Taylor saw a stoat bounding across School Road by Concord Farm.   Their numbers appear to be on an increase with the increase in the rabbit population.
Peter Marriage saw two Fallow Deer near Saling and Mel and Richard Whiteside and family had good views of possibly Roe Deer on the way to Bardfield.
Trevor Bottrill at 11.30 pm on a Sunday saw a fox walking up the road into the Maltings probably after an evening service at the Church.
There have been many reports of Frogs and Toads spawning and Newts present in many ponds.   Frogspawn is beginning to hatch as I write this in early April.
Andy Goodey was concerned that the frosts would have killed the frogspawn but I think the freezing has to be prolonged and then it is only the spawn sticking above the water that is killed by freezing.   Frogs always compensate by producing large quantities of spawn.   Last year Andy had a problem with the snails eating the spawn.   Andy also found his first Chiff Chaffs of the year along the Flitch Way and near the stables in Fairy Hall Lane, at the end of March.

Violets have been in abundance especially on the verges cut by Ray our village groundsman.   This shows that certain management benefits certain flowers.   Not all flowers benefit from human interference.   Our only Roadside Verge Nature Reserve in the village has had the richest part destroyed.   Designated a Nature Reserve by Essex County Council to protect Lesser Calamint a very rare plant that only grows in N.W Essex and parts of Suffolk, they then decided to construct a bus stop on the verge.   There has never been a bus stop there before and the nearest one is only 50m away.   A case of the right hand not knowing what the left was doing, they did have the sense to remove the wooden post marking the Nature Reserve when they had finished concreting it.   No doubt they will now erect a memorial plaque for the departed Calamint.

David Hearn reported a pair of Red Legged Partridges in his garden at School Road; these birds often nest next to houses.   I suspect they know humans help deter their main predators when they are nesting.   He also reported that the Swifts that nest in the old Hasler’s grain store at Enterprise Court are going to lose their long time nesting site.   They have nested on the purlins to which the asbestos sheets are attached on the south elevation.   One year I estimated we probably had 40 nesting pairs, I doubt the new houses that will probably be built on the site will have Swift boxes built into their roof design.
Mary and Keith Brunning Duckend Green, have a small garden pond on which a pair of Mallard have taken up residence.   One day they saw the duck with a goldfish in its beak, Keith chased out of the house after the duck and the pair of Mallard waddled off down the garden path the duck still carrying the goldfish.   I have never known a Mallard to eat a sizable fish before and Keith thinks the fish must have been either dead or dying.

Keith and Ben Rawlings Baytree Close, had a large hole appear under their garden fence.   It was interesting that it had been dug by an animal trying to get out of the garden as the soil was piled up on the inside.   This is typical of a Badger at work, little will stop them going in any direction they wish to.   They will go straight through wire netting and if the obstacle is substantial they will go underneath.   Their front foot claw marks give them away as fox claws are closer together and not so deep in the soil. Also hairs left round the hole will identify the culprit.   Keith is convinced an animal could not have entered the garden in the first place but Badgers and Foxes can squeeze through very small gaps.   A fox would go out the way it came in but a wooden fence would not deter a badger who wishes to go in another direction.
Harold Giles saw a pair of Bullfinches in Pods lane and has two pairs of Song Thrush’s in his garden at Duckend Green.
Lynne and Roger Johnson saw a Little Egret on Pods Brook.
Spring has arrived, our first swallow in the farmyard on 29th March, often they then disappear for several weeks before returning again.   This year they have stayed, do they think the warmer weather has arrived to stay?

Roger Jiggins 01376 324 311 if you have not emailed me before please put a word such as Wildlife in the subject matter so my mailwasher does not send your email into the ether.