December's report written in early January has over recent years started with a list of abnormally early wildlife events. The very low temperatures have changed that this year. We are lucky that the low temperatures were associated with low wind speeds and some days with glorious sunshine.  At the beginning of December we had spring bulbs peeking through the ground in certain sheltered and warm parts of the garden.  Now in January they have made little progress and flowering will probably be at a more normal time.

Jim Gepp with others watched a Tawny Owl on top of the Old School room at 8am one morning in early December.  A few days later on the 16th Andy Goodey saw a Bumble bee flying in his garden.  I thought this must have been a queen that had emerged or not gone into hibernation yet.  But at Christmas we removed a hedge at Goulds and Mark Giles found a nest of Buff Tip bumble bee workers that though lethargic were still alive in the ground where the hedge had been.  The books usually tell you that the workers die off in the autumn and it is the queens that survive to produce a new colony.  It does indicate how mild the weather had been up till then.
Late December saw temperatures plunging, Andy reported a flock of about 20 Goldfinches on his Niger feeder and they sensibly roosted at the bottom of his garden in a Bay tree each night, a distance of 20ft!  A regular bird in his garden was a Fieldfare that fiercely guarded the fruit on a D'Arcey Spice apple tree against up to 20 Blackbirds.  When the Fieldfare first appeared he was in a 'very bedraggled condition' but this gradually improved no doubt due to eating a good apple.  Andy also watched a Goldcrest which is an insectivorous bird eating apples but this was probably due to desperation.  I also saw a Green Woodpecker pecking at a Bramley apple.  Neither bird would have gained much nutrition from the apples.

Pat and David Hart commented on the increased bird numbers visiting their garden as the cold weather set in.  A heron was seen flying off at 8.30am, luckily their pond was still netted.  A 'hoard' of Collared Doves and Starlings bathed in the stream with a Pied Wagtail.  Jackdaws also drop in one at a time for a peanut and up to three Jays are regular visitors.  I imagine the Jays are taking peanuts away to store in holes in the ground (if they can find a patch unfrozen).  Pat and David have all the regular garden visitors though the greedy Wood Pigeons are not so welcome.  Robins and Wrens are only occasional visitors and this may be due to mainly being insect eaters.  Robins will take seed but I have never seen a Wren do so yet.  We all tend to forget the insect eaters when we buy our bird food, does anybody feed insect larvae on a regular basis in their gardens, please let me know.

Barry Mouser saw a male Bullfinch along Pods Brook and on the sewage works a flock of Pied Wagtails, 2 Grey Wagtails and 2 Meadow Pippits.
At the carol service in All Saints church a bat was flying above the congregation, woken from it's hibernation by the carol singing.  Actually this is common in churches where the temperature in winter is cold and usually constant, but when there are large attendances at Christmas services the temperature rises and the bats wake from hibernation and fly around before returning to their slumbers.

Andy Voden one of our groundsmen saw his first Redwing together with a Fieldfare in the meadow grazed by their horses.  Birders may say, so what, but Andy has just started birding and it is easy for us to forget the excitement when we first saw our 'firsts' of a species.  Andy has also seen a Little Egret feeding by Pods Brook and a single Siskin in his garden.  Harold Giles also reported a Siskin in his garden at Duckend Green at about the same time.

Celia Murton has sent me a long list of birds and a rabbit that she saw at the same time in her garden.  Celia is feeding peanut kernels, peanuts and fat balls as well as having an apple tree.  The Fieldfares were fighting between themselves over the apples and chasing off the Blackbirds, Robins and even a Crow.  In the list of birds Celia had a Mistle Thrush.  This is not a common bird in the parish but a small number of pairs always nest usually in conspicuous nest sites which are often then subject to predation.

Richard?, Sunlido has had visits from 6 Long-tailed Tits, these birds have learnt to use bird feeders in recent years but usually only do so when passing through the garden as a feeding flock.

Roger Jiggins Tel. 01376 324 311, email mailto:r.jiggins@btconnect.com  (please put Wildlife as the subject)

Country Matters December 2008

Many of you with bird tables will have Coal Tits feeding on your nuts and seed. This small tit has a thick neck and a broad white strip down the back of its neck.  I always recognise it by its jizz which is very distinctive.  It usually sits some distance away from the other birds when they are feeding then when it sees an opening dashes in and grabs a piece of peanut or seed then immediately dashes off to the nearest bush.  It will eat its fill then continue collecting food taking it away to hide.  It appears to continue doing this so long as food is available.  It is said to have a very poor memory and often forgets where it stored the food.  I have taken to feeding a few whole peanuts which the Coal Tit readily takes while the other tits concentrate on the feeders.
Unfortunately this method of feeding has probably developed because it is always bullied by Blue and Great Tits if it hangs around for long.

Like the Blue and Great Tits it likes to nest in holes and cavities from ground level up and the books say it will use open fronted nest boxes.  These boxes should never be used for any bird without a metal grill to keep out predators; personally I would never put them up.  They rarely nest in 'tit boxes' because of competition with the other tits.
I have never found a Coal Tits nest, probably because when I was young I cannot remember seeing Coal Tits in the Parish.  Then I had the time to sit and watch adult birds as they tried to hide where their actual nest site was, a luxury I do not have now.  Some birds are very clever at disguising the whereabouts of their nests but when they have young to feed they become less cautious and one soon tracks the nest down.  No wonder so many nests lose their contents to Squirrels, Magpies, Jays, Crows and to a lesser extent Rooks.  Sparrow Hawks and Kestrels are also opportunists that take young but the ground nesters have an even longer list of predators such as Fox, Badger, Hedgehog, Stoat (also an excellent climber), Weasel, Rats and unfortunately Cats.  I accept that most of the cats belonging to Rayne Parishioners do not catch birds!

Mick Smith told me about a Red Kite he watched being harried by 4 Rooks.  Three of the Rooks eventually flew off leaving one to continue to annoy the Kite.  Suddenly the Kite flew up in a loop and then stooped on the unfortunate Rook.  In a flurry of feathers the Rook was knocked from the sky and plummeted towards the ground.  It regained control just above ground level and just managed to fly out of site behind some trees.  I have often wondered why birds of prey often tolerate severe harassment without retaliating but sometimes they must decide they have had enough and in this case the Rook may have paid with its life.

I have suggested before that one looks out for tracks in the garden as you will be surprised at the number of animals that use it to forage and as a highway.  Fences are rarely an obstacle especially to animals such as the badger that if unable to go through will go under and the fox which will happily go over a 2m fence if there is a rail part way up the fence.  One can find tracks in the soil, in the dew on the grass and after a frost.  If we have snow like the shower we had this winter then all becomes very plain to see.  On the one night we had the snow we had a Fallow deer 10m from our house door, 2 Badgers, a Fox and a Hare.  It was noticeable that the regular cat tracks were no where to be seen, it obviously preferred a night of comfort.  The most amusing tracks were those of badgers on our frozen lagoon, There were clear skid marks with the badger obviously ended up sitting on its bottom.  Fresh tracks continued to appear each night so there was some fascination to the badgers of frozen water.  It reminds me of Bambi in the old Disney film who after collapsing on the ice exclaimed 'it's stiff'.

A neighbour at Duckend Green whose garden has suffered from Badger excavations like ours was told by their gardener of a novel but legal way of discouraging Badgers.  This has apparently been very successful this winter.  I'm still sceptical as the badger probably causing the damage was living in a road culvert very close by all summer but has now moved on as the pipe has become waterlogged.  As this is a family magazine I am unable to reveal the full details of the method used.  I can say that it requires a male member of the household to drink copious quantities of liquid to produce the magical ingredient that discourages badgers.  If it does work there may be some difficulty in patenting the product for general sale.

Roger Jiggins