wildlife
Building a log pile
I started building a small log pile a couple of years ago in order to add to the environmental diversity in my back garden. There were only a few pieces of wood though, left over from some grubbing out and thinning. Then there was the incident with the dangerously overgrown eucalyptus tree which had to be taken down or severely pollarded. When the tree surgeons came to do the job I told them to leave me the logs, so this is what I had as my raw material to build my substantial log pile with.
The rest of this story can be told largely in pictures, I think. Unless there are any questions.
Rowan Tree Folk Song
The Rowan Tree
The little wild rowan tree (sorbus aucuparia) in my front garden is looking great at this time of year, although half the berries are gone already thanks to hungry blackbirds. I planted it there about ten years ago, and it’s taken its time to grow upwards in the shadow of a great big sycamore, but in the last two years it has managed to get itself firmly established and is turning into a mature specimen tree. I was told that its not uncommon for people in Scotland to plant rowan trees in front of houses, partly from sentimental attachment to the wild Scottish countryside, and also to help keep the witches away. I didn’t know anything about that at the time, but it does seem to have worked.
Rowan Tree Song
So I wrote my song about the rowan tree, whilst I was in Scotland as it happens, and then worked on the music and finishing off back home. Motivated by the approach of Halloween, which tends to get celebrated at Havering Folk Club, I’ve tried it out twice now, once at the regular Tuesday Evening 7.00pm webcast and once at the folk club last night, where it was encouragingly well received. There’s no video from the session last night, but the early prototype from the webcast is embedded below, followed by some form of the lyrics. Sometimes called the mountain ash, this is a native rowan tree, not a cultivar, and the berries glow a light red colour in the autumn sunlight, making for welcome food for blackbirds and thrushes, although they always leave the more difficult bunches at the end of delicate branches until last, due to the danger of falling off.
Lyrics of The Rowan Tree
Lyrics to “The Rowan Tree”, a folk song by Andy Roberts
Come hear my story, it’s a tale of four witches
but I could have added three more
And heed my advice if you’re troubled by witches
Just plant a Rowan tree outside your front doorAnd the branches sway in the faintest of breezes
the berries are red bright and fair.
And I’ve not had much trouble with those witchee witches
Not since I planted my Rowan tree thereWell the Witch of the West was cunning and sly
She had me always on the run
And I never knew which way her nose was pointing
Not until after she’d been there and gone.And the branch tips dance…. planted my Rowan tree there
The Witch of the East was just counting the years
and somehow that three became five.
Then her time was up and she vanished away
Now nobody knows if she’s dead or alive.And the branches sway…. planted my Rowan tree there
The Witch of the South was trouble from the start
Her fancy was playing with fire
The anger rose up as the coals glowed white
and the smoke billowed higher and higherAnd the branches sway…. planted my Rowan tree there
The Witch of the North is not like the rest
She uses her powers for good
As the Rowan tree watches and nods in approval
and keeps us both safe from the dark witchee woodAnd the branches sway…. planted my Rowan tree there
So that was my story the tale of four witches
I could have mentioned three more
Now heed my advice if you’re troubled by witches
Just plant a rowan tree outside your front doorAnd the branch tips dance in the faintest of breezes
The berries are red, bright and fair.
I’ve not had much trouble with those witchee witches
Not since I planted my rowan tree there.
Rowan Tree Berries
What’s this bug?
, originally uploaded by whiskymac.
Any idea what’s this bug might be?
It looks kind of prehistoric but it’s probably just tiny.
Green Eggs
Green Eggs, but no Ham
I still haven’t found out what these green eggs are, carefully laid out on a yellow iris leaf, like snooker balls in a frame.
If you look close up on the original picture at maximum size I think it’s possible to make out a circle of little hooks on each egg, like velcro presumably to help them stick to the leaf.
Missing Panamanian Golden Frog
What Easter Is All About
A quick video capture of a pair of mute swans mating rather gracefully on Easter Sunday in Wanstead Park.
Easter is all about eggs, (Easter, Ester, Eastre, Eostre, Estrus, Oestrus) fertility and celebrating springtime in the traditional manner so this seems quite appropriate today.
The location for this video is the Alexandra Lake, Wanstead Flats but we call it the duck pond.
How to Photograph Birds
Wild Bird Photography
Do you like watching wild birds? I do. Wherever I travel around the UK and the world the local wildlife is at least as interesting as the built environment to me. I take a lot of photographs without following any particular instructions and over the years I’ve produced very few good bird pictures, and that can be a bit frustrating at times. There are lots of pictures of small fuzzy distant ducks, little avian specs flying across a boring expanse of sky, and countless pictures of a wooden post from which a glorious example of an interesting bird species has just flown away out of sight. Why only yesterday I took a picture of a tree trunk with a goose flying behind it. How many shots have you taken like that?
Tree with flying bird behind
I’ve kind of accepted that you can’t get good pictures with ordinary cheap point and shoot cameras. But I’m not the sort of person who lugs a large camera bag around all day long, let alone a full length tripod. So which are the best compromises?
Tips On How to Photograph Birds
Most days I take a walk around the local duck pond just for a constitutional really, and keep an eye on which birds are visiting. Tame birds are easy to photograph and so are large ones like swans and geese. Birds which are preoccupied with feeding or some other essential activity may also be photographed from closer up when they are distracted by something important. Getting up close is the key here. Patiently waiting quietly is a rewarding skill to practice, so work out where is the best place to lie in wait and then stay calmly for as long as you possibly can, but be ready for when the perfect bird appearance suddenly arises.
Basic Equipment for Taking Pictures of Birds
Optical zoom is essential, at least 3 times but preferably more powerful. You then need decent lighting conditions. Really, you do eventually need a digital SLR camera, not just a pocket sized micro point and shoot affair, although you can get some good results with these if you learn how to master the manual settings and strike lucky.
A tripod is not essential if you have a steady hand, but the use of something to lean upon such as a ledge, wall rock or tree can only help to get a sharper photograph.
A pair of binoculars will help to identify distant birds and inform your choice of the best place to wait. These should be wide field of vision rather than high magnification for bird watching.
RSPB Digital SLR Competition
To celebrate the spring, the RSPB is launching a Free Prize Draw on 6 April to win an Olympus E-520 Digital SLR camera along with a copy of the RSPB Guide to Digital Wildlife Photography (together worth over £400).
Five runners-up will also receive a copy of the illustrated book by David Tipling, one of Britain’s best known wildlife photographers.
Everyone who buys an RSPB membership online between 6 April and 14 May 2009 will automatically be entered into the prize draw including adult, family, children’s and gift memberships.
RSPB membership makes a great alternative gift at Easter time – with over 100 nature reserves to visit with admission free to members.
Join the RSPBHow to Photograph Birds Video
Big Garden Bird Watch results are out
It was one of the biggest pieces of distributed research ever conducted outside of official human population census, with over half a million people investing an hour of their time to watch garden birds and then input data via the RSPB garden bird watch website. The results are now published. I wasn’t surprised to see the long tailed tit rising up the charts, having spotted a few around and about and in our garden recently for the first time since I moved here.
Long Tailed Tit
With half a million people caring enough about wild birds to take part, the garden habitat is set to become increasingly important for UK wildlife in general, with bird feeders and ordinary wild bird food now being available in so many more outlets such as supermarkets and hardware stores, not just garden centres and pet shops.
The 2009 garden birds top ten UK looks like this:
| Position | Species | Average per garden |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | House Sparrow | 3.70 |
| 2 | Starling | 3.21 |
| 3 | Blackbird | 2.84 |
| 4 | Blue Tit | 2.45 |
| 5 | Chaffinch | 2.01 |
| 6 | Woodpigeon | 1.85 |
| 7 | Collared Dove | 1.44 |
| 8 | Great Tit | 1.40 |
| 9 | Robin | 1.36 |
| 10 | Long-tailed Tit | 1.34 |
The 2009 garden birds top ten Greater London looks like this:
| Position | Species | Average per garden |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Starling | 2.78 |
| 2 | Woodpigeon | 2.77 |
| 3 | House sparrow | 2.41 |
| 4 | Blue tit | 2.05 |
| 5 | Blackbird | 1.87 |
| 6 | Feral pigeon | 1.53 |
| 7 | Robin | 1.29 |
| 8 | Great Tit | 1.21 |
| 9 | Magpie | 1.36 |
| 10 | Collared Dove | 0.88 |
Outside of the UK top ten, there are 63 other species mentioned starting with the Goldfinch, Greenfinch, Dunnock, Magpie, Coal tit , Jackdaw , Feral pigeon , Carrion crow ,Wren, Song thrush, Pheasant , Great spotted woodpecker , Common gull , Rook , Nuthatch , Siskin , Tree sparrow , Bullfinch ,Pied wagtail , Jay , Blackcap ,Fieldfare ,Black-headed gull, Goldcrest and Mallard ending with the rarest observations of Little owl , Meadow pipit , Skylark and Black redstart.
Greenfinch arrives
I just spotted a greenfinch, which is a common enough British bird, but it’s the first one I’ve seen in my East London garden. The number of species now visiting has at least doubled since I moved in here, last century.
greenfinch pic by Neil Phillips
What I’ve come to realise is that even though we are in an inner city type borough the actual location is right at the tip of a thin wedge of more or less continuous green space which acts as a funnel from Epping Forest. Having a few large trees around makes it a last refuge for non-urban wildlife.
Sea Eagles in Scotland – problems of reintroducing species
Sea Eagles Release Programme
Various attempts have been made over the years, some successful, to reintroduce wildlife species into areas where they have become extinct in the past.
The ospreys in England are one well known example, and a similar scheme is currently underway to reintroduce sea eagles into Scotland. This season is the second in a five year plan to release young sea eagles taken as chicks from Norway and already there are some breeding pairs reported. They’ve been seen around the Isle of May in Fife as well as in the North West Highlands. But there is a problem. As the farming today programme on BBC radio 4 reported, crofters in Gairloch are complaining about the sea eagles taking lambs. It is claimed that as many as 50% of one farmer’s lambs have been destroyed and that conservation groups are not taking the problem seriously.
RSPB
The RSPB pointed out that there are only three breeding pairs of sea eagle in the Gairloch area, and it would be highly unlikely the birds were responsible for the loss of all of the lambs. A spokesman for the crofting foundation said “We feel they put the birds here without our consent and without asking our advice.” So there we have a conflict of interest that may be quite hard to resolve. Sheep have been kept on hillsides ever since the land was cleared but white tailed sea eagles are historically indigenous to the country. How do we decide when to embark on a reintroduction programme? If there were a way to compete with the greys I’m sure we’d all be in favour of the reintroduction of red squirrels into the english countryside where they have been wiped out. Some people would reintroduce the wolf into Northern forests. But if it were possible to bring back the sabre toothed tiger and let them loose on Salisbury Plain I somehow don’t think it would happen.
Who decides?
Wild boar were once a common species in english woodlands and modern gastronomic tastes have brought about domestic cross bred boars, some of which have escaped and multiplied in the wild. Where this has become a problem they have been culled as an interloper, like the Canada geese in Victoria Park, Hackney. Who is entitled to make these decisions as to which species shall be allowed, reintroduced or culled? There is a difference between environmental concern and conservationism, habitat management, agricultural needs and possible pandering to a sentimental foem of tourism with attraction only to certain kinds of species which attract charity revenue.
Sea eagles have landed – video
Sea Eagles Update:
Lamb not on sea eagles’ menu, says RSPB
The Royal Society for the Protection of Birds ( RSPB ) described the claims of some crofters as nonsense and said that the birds would have taken only carrion. It said that the birds thrived mainly on a diet of herring gulls, fulmars and fish fed to them by friendly trawlermen.
another source: Timesonline
I’m not very happy abut the fulmars!
Lamb-eating sea eagles upset Scottish farmers
William Fraser, chairman of the Gairloch and Poolewe branch of the Crofting Foundation: “In a few years time there’ll be no sheep left on the hills,”
It has also been claimed that bird watching is a hobby that creates little or no income for an area, whereas crofting / farming is a way of life and an income provider. On the other hand, eagles and the largest birds of prey are more likely to live off carrion so most of the sheep may be already dead.
Thanks for reading Andy Roberts articles about wildlife on Darnet
Andy Roberts is a writer who initiated DARnet. Catch me on 
