Category Archives: Nature Reserves

The Ghettoisation of Nature

10 May 2014 Ian Alexander

I suppose you are familiar with the ghettoisation of Britain’s towns and cities. To take a few rather random examples, Bath, Bradford-on-Avon, Edinburgh, Marlborough and Oxford are seen as ‘nice’ (terrible word), become populated with the middle class, Waitrose, estate agents and boutique shops, and suffer enormous rises in house prices, while nearby places are seen as less desirable, acquire sink housing estates, crime, and scruffy concrete jungles where once there were perfectly decent town centres. Areas of London do the same, but in a more rapidly shifting way, as the sheer pressure of population, and the desperate shortage of housing, forces people into scruffier areas which thus become ‘gentrified’ (though hardly by landed gentry, actually).

Perhaps the ghettoisation of nature is a little less familiar. As a boy, I was allowed out to go and do as I pleased in between meals (ah, those happy days when we didn’t know about paedophile celebrities: mind you, nobody is actually suggesting they stalked the countryside attacking random children, they had more subtle means of approach. But I digress). We used to go down the stream and build dams — the farmer never seemed to mind, and I guess our small engineering works of sticks, mud and stones never lasted long. It was tremendous fun watching the water well up, and exciting to run for more materials as the level rose and the water found new places to escape; I don’t think we ever tried to construct an intentional spillway anywhere. Or we wandered out in autumn to gather blackberries, returning with heavy plastic bags full of the squashy fruit, demanding blackberry-and-apple pie for supper like latter-day Peter Rabbit siblings. We scarcely remarked on the Yellowhammers in every hedge, Song Thrushes in the woods, Lapwings, Skylarks and Grey Partridges in the open fields: they were just there. There were Spotted Flycatchers, Swifts and House Martins nesting in the village, too; we noticed these last as the upstairs windows couldn’t be opened for months to avoid breaking their nests.

Leaving aside whether parents will allow children to go out unsupervised nowadays — kids have to learn to take care of themselves eventually, and the sooner they learn to be sensible, the better, specially if they have fun and play adventurously at the same time, a visit to the countryside today will, on average, involve less than half as many farmland birds as in 1970, and far fewer than that in the case of Lapwings, Skylarks and Grey Partridges. The countryside has emptied of birds — and of bumblebees and primroses and much else.

Instead, if you want to see Nature (the capital letter is intentional) you go to an official Nature Reserve. If you want to see a traditional village you study the web or the official Heritage handbook, fuel the car, pack a picnic, and travel to the official Heritage site, or rather to the official Heritage car-park complete with high-visibility-jacketed attendants and ticket machines, and walk down the officially landscaped path (keep off the official bit of woodland with bulbs underfoot to the officially declared bit of Heritage. It looks pretty attractive, but for the hordes of amateur photographers taking pictures of hordes of amateur photographers, ice-cream lickers, picnickers, dog-walkers, beer-swillers and motorcycle enthusiasts (why do oily chains, throbbing Harley-Davidsons and polished chrome go with pretty places? Answers on a postcard, please) in every street.

The official Nature Reserve also has a car park, which is at least generally free, at least to members. There is a big official sign with a colourful map, sometimes painted with happy butterflies, frogs, foxes and woodpeckers — the more conspicuously coloured species seem to be favoured in this form of natural selection, perhaps aposematism has something to do with it. There are quite often free maps and nature trails, even colouring sheets and clipboards for crayon-carrying children. Sometimes the trees and flowers are officially labelled as well, complete with Heritage notes about what Comfrey used to be grown for in the days when real people lived in the countryside (it was to help healing of bones, if you’re curious), or what Hazel coppicing was and why it was practised (tufts of small straight flexible wands, cut and used to make hurdles to fence in animals temporarily, and so on).

All of this effort is quite admirable in its way: relaxation, getting out of the house for the day, being together as a family, learning a little history, a little about nature. But what has been lost in the process is more striking: freedom, simple personal discovery and exploration (think blackberry-picking, dam-building, just coming across birds singing and bees buzzing). Don’t get me wrong, given the lack of nature in ordinary farmland there is a pressing need to rescue at least some areas of habitat; and given people’s cramped urban lives, it’s right they have some attractive places to visit. All the same, Nature, like Heritage, is being ghettoised. The process has not yet run to completion in Britain — there are still magnificent areas of mountain, moorland and coast where you can wander free of twee signs and uniformed attendants — but the paraphernalia are spreading: you can find them on Access Land in Northumberland, for instance.

As Joni Mitchell sang long ago, “Take all the trees / Put ’em in a tree museum. Charge all the people / A dollar and a half just to see ’em. Don’t it always seem to go / But you don’t know what you got till it’s gone. / They paved paradise, put up a parking lot.”

Natural History, Nature Reserves, Wetlands, Wildlife

Mayflies, May Blossom… yes, it’s May at Wraysbury Lakes

9 May 2014 Ian Alexander

The sun is shining … in between the showers. Mayflies are resting all over the plants near the river. May blossom makes a bright show on every hawthorn bush. Yes, it’s May down at Wraysbury Lakes. The energetic breeze gives a cool feel, but out of the wind it’s very pleasant. Enjoying the brisk airflow are at least four Common Terns over the lakes and overhead; a few Swallows; and a small number of Swifts, newly arrived in the last few days, racing down to the water surface to catch flies — not the mayflies, which are active mainly at night. The warblers which are definitely about are hard to hear for the wind in the trees, but I caught snatches of Chiffchaff, Blackcap, many Whitethroats, plenty of Garden Warbler, a Willow Warbler, three Song Thrushes and a Blackbird, not to mention Robins and Wrens. A Cormorant lumbered past, climbing with effort, its jizz very much like that of the Boeing 747s lumbering heavily into the air.

There are some pale mayflies, with neither antennae nor the 3 tails: maybe these have broken off in the vegetation.

Beautifully iridescent green-bronze female Banded Demoiselle — Beautifully iridescent green-bronze: a female Banded Demoiselle

Also new today are quantities of damselflies: there are many brilliant iridescent blue male Banded Demoiselles, with their beautifully clear green-bronze females. This one seemed definitely to be watching me attentively. Two small blue species have also emerged, Blue-Tailed Damselfly and Common Blue Damselfly.

Over the lake, a long-winged falcon swooped at speed: I wondered for a moment if I had a Cuckoo, but the moustache and white face markings showed it was a Hobby, arrived from Africa in pursuit of the Swifts, and perhaps hunting damselflies as easier prey in this place. The low number of Swifts is worrying; they have been declining for years, as building renovation removes their old nest-holes, and increased human population pressure in Africa threatens them there too.

This small grasshopper, missing an antenna, is my first of the year.

Further along, the bare damp area that often has teasels is bright yellow with clumps of a yellow Brassica that has clasping leaves like wild turnip (or cultivated swede). There’s a definite cabbagey smell. A Whitethroat, caught out in the open, makes a dash for a bush.

Natural History, Nature Reserves, Wildlife

Endless Forms Most Beautiful … Conifers in Kew

5 May 2014 Ian Alexander

Looking Straight Up: Giant Sequoia at Kew

One of the unceasing delights of nature is the feeling, some days more clearly justified than on others, of coming into contact with Darwin’s ‘endless forms most beautiful‘. A marvellous botanic garden – it has to be a large one, like Kew – takes one perhaps more directly into that space of wonder and delight than anything else, if it is laid out taxonomically to show the variation and diversity within one group after another.

Today we wandered happily among the Conifer section of Kew Gardens, gazing straight up into the patches of sky between the radiating branches of the Giant Sequoia, feeling the soft fibrous red bark and wondering why everything is larger in America.

Chinese Hemlock Tsuga chinensis — The pattern of new spring growth in Chinese Hemlock, Tsuga chinensis

Then on to the Hemlocks and Spruces, delighting in the pattern of bright new bunches of needles scattered in diverse patterns among the older, darker growth: of course the new leaves are always at growing tips, so the patterns reveal the habit of growth of each species.

Quite a different pattern in Himalayan Spruce, Picea smithiana

Many of the spruces are adorned with new male cones; those of Picea orientalis ‘aurea’ are a surprisingly pretty pink.

Male Cones of Picea orientalis 'aurea' — Male Cones of Picea orientalis ‘aurea’

The male cones of the Bishop’s Pine, Pinus muricata, from California are, on the other hand, grouped into pineapple-like spirals and surrounded by the Pine genus’s characteristic pairs of long slender needles, forming a fine rosette.

Down at the end of the gardens, Queen Charlotte’s cottage ornée (just for picnics, never inhabited; the royal party could walk down the mile and a half from the red-brick Kew Palace, or came (often) by carriage to play a la Marie Antoinette at having a little cottage in the woods. The 37 acres of bluebell woods around the cottage form a nature reserve, complete with real badgers, inside the gardens. As well as the Bluebells, Alkanet and Ramsons made the woodland floor lovely, while around the margins skipped Orange Tips, Brimstones, Peacock butterflies and Small Coppers. Fit for a Queen.

Natural History, Nature Reserves, Wetlands

Highland Cattle Grazing in Central London

2 May 2014 Ian Alexander

Highland Cattle on the Wetland Centre Grazing Marsh

In the hope of catching a glimpse of a little more of the spring migration, and happy to take an hour off from writing, I popped in to the Wetland Centre. There was no sign of the assorted rarities that the warden had put on the board for the day – likely, they flew overhead while he was doing his morning scan of the skies – but the Sand Martins were joined by five House Martins, hawking for flies over the wildside lake.

The view from the wildside hide was pretty desolate, with the water level now low in the grazing marsh; a few Black-Headed Gulls squealed querulously at each other, their chocolate-brown heads and napes (quite a misnamed bird, really) handsome with their red legs. Two rufous Highland Cattle grazed peacefully, their close nibbling and heavy feet doing a job of mowing, disturbing the ground gently, and adding manure to attract flies, that could hardly be achieved any other way: hence the tabloid headline.

On the wildside summer route, now open, Guelder Rose bushes are elegant with their white rosettes of large florets around a disc of small ones, making a flower-like bunch all together. Their deeply divided leaves provide an easy distinction from the Wayfaring Tree.

Natural History, Nature Reserves, Wildlife

Glorious Spring Morning at the Wetland Centre

30 April 2014 Ian Alexander

Starling foraging by reedbed ... why do they think they're waders? — Starling foraging by reedbed … why do they think they’re waders?

One of the abiding mysteries of London’s natural history is why Starlings act as if they believe they are wading birds. At the Wetland Centre, the flock of Lapwings is constantly accompanied by Starlings, whether in the air or on small muddy islands.

Today, a few starlings were rootling about in front of a reedbed, their handsomely starry plumage giving back the warm sunshiine with green iridescence that for once the camera has managed to catch. They really are beautiful birds in fresh plumage; quite unlike their ‘worn’ plumage, where they just look dark grey-brown and scruffy.

Six warblers today – an early Sedge Warbler squeaking and rasping out its complex rhythms with funky discordant notes a few feet away from the path; some invisible Cetti’s as usual; Blackcaps and surprisingly Whitethroats all about, singing away; a Chiffchaff or two; and a Garden Warbler too.

Out in the pools and on the grazing marsh, a good number of Redshank with their graceful calls, and plenty of activity from Lapwings and Common Terns – these being harassed by Black-Headed Gulls; and overhead an early Hobby, circling like a small dark Peregrine with long wings, high in the sky.

Not many butterflies about – Orange Tip, a very worn Peacock, Brimstone, Small White; and several Bee Flies, like a miniature hummingbird moth with a furry body and a long straight proboscis; but while they keep up the wing action in front of a flower, actually 4 out of 6 legs perch on it! One of the bee flies was hovering over some low vegetation with no flowers, darting down rapidly and repeatedly, at once coming back up, like a damselfly laying eggs: that might be what it was doing.

Environment, Nature Reserves, Wildlife

Star Species of a Seven-Warbler Walk was … Skylark

29 April 2014 Ian Alexander

I did wonder, before I began writing a nature journal here, whether half the entries wouldn’t be ‘nothing much to report today’. Well, so far I haven’t been there.

I went down to Wraysbury again in the hope of finding the Lesser Whitethroat. I arrived rather early, driving out of town only to see a gigantic queue of cars crawling in the other way, trying vainly to beat the Tube strike. No-one was about as I wrapped up in an extra pullover and listened intently to the morning chorus.

My day was already made when I actually SAW a Cetti’s Warbler – for about a second, before the rich brown bird with the rounded tail dived for cover. A Cormorant flapped heavily, taking off from the lake like a lumbering military transport, showing glossy blue-black plumage like a giant crow, circling three times to gain height. Two pairs of Gadwall (only one pair last time) swam shyly near the far side of the lake; Green Woodpeckers laughed their loud ringing call.

Blackcaps were singing all over; Song Thrushes too, at least three of them; a considerable flock of Long-Tailed Tits made their extraordinary “Tsrrrrrp” noise (try it); Chiffchaffs spoke their name, and (Common) Whitethroats sang their rasping songs or chattered from inside their thornbushes. Great clumps of Comfrey, the medicinal herb used in mediaeval times to knit bones, have suddenly sprung up with their dark, foxglove-like leaves and clusters of flowers in a range of anthocyanin colours – reds and violets.

There were more Willow Warblers and Garden Warblers, too, making them easier to find; more must be arriving each day now.

Whitethroat habitat: Hawthorn bushes in damp open scrubland

I made my way over the bridge and out into the dry scrubland. Whitethroats were all around now, singing competitively; a few Blackcaps joined in. Then, yes, I heard the simple, flat trill of a Lesser Whitethroat. I sat down and listened, heard it a few more times to make sure: it was a Seven Warbler Walk, I think actually my first, at least when I’ve taken the trouble to count them and write them down. I took a swig of water; an Orange Tip and a Brimstone butterfly flickered past.

DSCN0214 Roe Deer slots (with penny for scale) — Roe Deer slots (with penny for scale)

Looking about the bushes carefully, I noticed a trail of Roe Deer prints, medium and small. Their numbers have been increasing steadily, certainly since 2007, and they are close to becoming a nuisance. About 350,000 are culled each year; another 74,000 or so are killed on the roads, without limiting their growth. Clearly we need some predators, though what our farmers would say to having Lynx back, let alone Wolverines, is easy to imagine. Where they are most numerous, woodland shrub vegetation and bird numbers are suffering.

On the way out, some Goldfinches sang near the road, and a Swallow flew overhead by the river Colne. I felt I’d had a good day, and braced myself for a tricky drive home. On a whim, I went via the airport road. It’s a bit slow but not uninteresting, and there’s a nice tunnel. Waiting at one of the sets of lights, I opened the window, and at once heard a Skylark singing its rippling song. I looked up, and there it was for a moment, a little flickering dark shape against the bright sky, pouring out its aerial music. The lights changed, and a jet growled in to land, the air whistling over its fully-extended flaps.

Fancy, a Skylark at Heathrow, seen and heard from a car, the highlight of a seven-warbler walk, Lesser Whitethroat and all.

Natural History, Nature Reserves, Wetlands, Wildlife

Seven Sea Swallows Don’t Make a Summer …

26 April 2014 Ian Alexander

Down at Wraysbury, I wondered what I might see now the spring migration is well and truly under way. Last year there was a single Cuckoo, a rare treat. And perhaps there would be a good number of warblers already.

The winter ducks had all vanished from the lakes, all bar a pair of shy Gadwall right at the back. There were indeed quite a few warblers about – Chiffchaffs, Blackcaps, Cetti’s, Whitethroats, Garden Warblers and one or two Willow Warblers, all singing lustily. I listened out for a Sedge Warbler to make it Seven but couldn’t find one. Still, not bad going.

But over the lake there was a high call: Pik! Cheer! Cheeri-Cheeri-Cheeri-Cheer! A pair of Common Terns, the first of the year: graceful white ‘sea swallows’, marvellously buoyant in flight. But no – there were two pairs .. no, five birds … no, seven in all. They wheeled and shrieked high above, swooped and delicately took insects from the water surface. Comically, one or two of the Black-Headed Gulls tried to do the same: they looked like tubby Sunday footballers trying gamely to keep up with their mates, flapping heavily, looking rotund and clumsy – yet, these are the same birds that gracefully wheel about the tourists at the Round Pond in Kensington Gardens, skilfully catching pieces of bread tossed into the air at any speed, any angle, any distance. It’s just that the terns are seven times more agile. Their forked tails divide into streamers as long as the rest of the tail; their wings almost pure white below, smooth ash-grey above. Do they make a summer? Almost.

Also swooping over the water was one Swallow, the first of the year for me; and about eight House Martins were hunting above the treetops. Some Alder Flies flew past; perhaps they are emerging from the water, providing a feast for the terns.

One green female Banded Demoiselle perched on some nettles; she too is the first of her kind – indeed, the first dragonfly of any kind – for me this year. And a solitary Greylag goose stood in the shallows, an unusual sight here.

Around the horses on the green grassy hill that used to be the dump, a flock of Jackdaws with some Carrion Crows, benefiting from the insects around the horses; and a second flock, more of a surprise, of Stock Doves. They are notoriously under-reported, people just assuming they are Feral Pigeons or Wood Pigeons without looking to check. They all had the same pattern, and none of them had white wing flashes.

Walking down to the road, the narrow path was carpeted with small teardrop-shaped white petals: Hawthorn flowers, May blossom.

Natural History, Nature Reserves

Sand Martins and Sandpipers

23 April 2014 Ian Alexander

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.

Conservation, Natural History, Nature Reserves, Wildlife

Of Witch’s Brooms and Anthills

21 April 2014 Ian Alexander

Down to Aston Rowant on a fine clear sunny day with a cold East wind that brought spring migrants like the Ring Ousel, a rare blackbird of mountain and moorland. I saw a probable one diving into a juniper bush; they like to stop off on the scarp of the Chiltern Hills as the next best thing to their favoured moors, before flying on to Wales or wherever.

Anthills dotting Aston Rowant chalk grassland

The scarp slope of the relatively hard Chalk falls steeply to the broad plain of the soft Oxford Clay below, to the West. Much of the grassland has been destroyed for agriculture, either falling under the plough or simply being ‘improved’ as pasture with fertiliser, encouraging long grasses at the expense of the wealth of flowers that once covered the English countryside. Happily, here in the reserve and in quite a few places on the Chilterns, the steepness of the land has discouraged improvement. The chalk grassland is dotted with hundreds of anthills, the tiny yellow ants living all their lives below ground, tempting green woodpeckers to come out and hunt for them.

The trees and flowers are visibly weeks behind those of London. The Whitebeam is just coming into its fair white leaves, which look almost like Magnolia flowers in their little clusters newly burst from the bud. But the tree’s name comes from its white wood, not its leaves.

At the bottom of the scarp, a field away from the Ridgeway which follows the line of hills for many miles, Hornbeams and Birches marked a change in the soil, which must be neutral or acid down here, compared to the strictly alkaline rendzinas and brown earths of the chalk. One of the Hornbeams looked as if it was oddly full of Mistletoe, but up close it proved to be a mass of Witch’s Brooms, growths of the tree itself caused by an infection.

Natural History, Nature Reserves

A Six Warbler Walk… First of the Year

14 April 2014 Ian Alexander

A high pressure zone is bringing bright and mainly sunny weather to Britain, but as it’s not overhead it is also bringing quite a cold breeze. Down at Wraysbury Lakes, all the winter ducks have left, with just Tufted, Mallard and a pair of Gadwall remaining. Two Great Crested Grebes wandered around each other, not quite getting into a courtship dance.

Things were more exciting on the birdsong front. Blackcaps and Chiffchaffs sang sweetly all over. A Cetti’s sang very loud, very close by the lakeside as always, first in front … I stalked up very quietly … and then behind me. Invisible, the skulker. In the thicker scrub, several Whitethroats sang their scratchy short song, the first this year; and at least three Willow Warblers sang their descending scales, also the first of the year. And, briefly, one Garden Warbler gave me a burst of his even, musical tunefulness. There’s often a Sedge Warbler near the river but not apparently today. More song came from the Robins, a Song Thrush, and a Chaffinch or two.

Overhead, a Grey Heron circled upwards towards a Boeing 747-400 and did its best to resemble a soaring stork or crane, quite impressive really with broad, downcurved wings rather like one of those air-filled kites made only of light cloth.

A small patch of St George’s Mushrooms nestled among the Potentilla leaves by the path; it’s about the only edible mushroom at this time of year, but I don’t pick them, both for conservation reasons and because I’m not keen on their rather mealy taste.

The first Speckled Wood butterflies of the year are in evidence; they are fiercely territorial already, chasing off numerous Peacock butterflies. A few Green-Veined Whites settled, frail and shy, on the thicker herbs.

Great patches, almost carpets of Ground Ivy, which sounds a lowly herb, but looks glorious among the low-cropped grass, shining in the sunshine. It’s in the Labiate or Mint family, and has pretty rather short toothed leaves, purple-tinged, with attractive blue lipped flowers that are really quite orchid-like if you ignore their long tubes.

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