Tag Archives: Blackcap

Conservation, Love of Nature, Natural History, Nature Reserves

Roe Deer at Fray’s Farm Meadows SSSI

13 April 2016 Ian Alexander

Well, it isn’t every day one visits 3 nature reserves, but today I had a look at Hillingdon NHS’s Harefield Place LNR, London Wildlife Trust’s Frays Farm Meadows SSSI, and Denham Lock Wood to boot.

These are by London standards remarkably secluded and inaccessible, which is to say you need to know where to park and which way to walk, as there’s basically no indication on the ground until you arrive, and even the LWT website is misleading.

Whatever the reason, it’s a delight on a fine spring day to find woods alive with Chiffchaffs and Blackcaps, a pair of Greater Spotted Woodpeckers calling and chittering with excitement directly overhead (and visible in the still nearly-leafless trees), the Blackthorn in delicate white clouds of new blossom, and a Roe Deer skipping away across the meadow, stotting slightly and flashing its “I’ve seen you, I’m running away, and I’m faster than you so don’t bother” white rump-patch. It’s what zoologists call an honest signal, something that benefits both predator and prey. The predator is saved a wasted chase, and the prey gets away without hassle to live another day.

I walked in on the Golf Course path, a pleasant trek down the hill, past the lakes and along the muddy track through the willow woods. There are only our resident wildfowl at this time of year – Canada Geese, Egyptian Geese, Coot, Moorhen, Mallard, Tufted Duck, Mute Swan, Great Crested Grebe: presumably all breeding right here.

The track was studded with deer slots, and it was nice to have my “Roe Deer” slot identification confirmed with a broad-daylight sighting. Out of the woods, it grew hot, and I discarded coat and pullover.

A few butterflies flitted about – Brimstone near the brambles, a Meadow Brown or two, several Peacock.

I met another LWT volunteer, Daniel, who it turned out was not only checking the local boardwalks, but had got up at 5:30 am to do the Vole Patrol on his local patch here! I said I volunteered at Gunnersbury Triangle, and he said he knew who I was, he read my blog (Hi Daniel!). We talked of Kingfishers and conservation and being bitten by small mammals. He asked me which group I particularly liked, birds, butterflies? I said dragonflies, but it was a bit early for them. Sure enough, a minute later, a damselfly flew past! I got my binoculars on to it but had no chance to identify it to species (Large Red is our earliest, but I saw no colour). Still, a distinct surprise so early in the year. Perhaps they are hatching earlier with the warmer climate.

On the way out, I passed a Vole Patrol poster. Huma, the small mammal expert in charge of the project, really can’t be getting a lot of sleep travelling all over West London like this and trapping every day.

I walked across to Denham Lock, an attractively rustic spot with a line of narrowboats, traditional wooden lock gates and a delightful lock-keeper’s cottage complete with teashop.

A pair of Grey Wagtails flew about as if they owned the place, landing in the trees beside the canal, a few steps from where I took the photo. They must be breeding here too.

Natural History

Spring Surprises: Treecreeper, First Swallows, Ground-Nesting Heron

10 April 2016 Ian Alexander

Spring is full of surprises, and this Heron, nesting not in a colony up in the trees, but all alone in an abandoned Swan’s nest in a reedbed, is certainly one of them. The London Wetland Centre this morning also boasted a mass of Blackcaps in the “Wildside” woodland, with at least three males and a female actually in sight at once, along with an obliging Chiffchaff giving me an excellent view, and a characteristically invisible Cetti’s Warbler, shouting out its amazingly loud call. The Silver Birches were in wonderfully fresh green leaf, their bark crisply white against the clear blue of the sky.

Birch in Fresh Green Leaf — “Birches in wonderfully fresh green leaf”

Yesterday, round at Wraysbury Lakes, the same set of three warblers sang, but more elusively. The most delightful surprise was a Treecreeper, not only creeping up the willow branches, but singing its sweetly plaintive little song. This used to be rendered, rather tweely, as “Tree, tree, tree, once more I come to thee”, which does capture the length and rhythm of the song. It is not unlike the Chaffinch’s song, if you know that, but without the twiddly “tissy-cheeooo” ending, and not so firm and harsh. One of the Blackcaps, in the thorn-scrub area, had a fine mimetic song. Out on Horse Hill, the first two Swallows of the year flitted overhead, a solitary Kestrel beat its way against the wind, and half a dozen Jackdaws played and chased in the air, for all the world like a gang of naughty schoolboys.

Conservation

March Winds, April Showers

7 April 2016 Ian Alexander

The ‘March Winds’ part of the old proverb came startlingly true on the night of the 27th of March, when two fine big Birch trees blew down, leaving a sad gap. We will perhaps build a wicker dead-hedge and plant a live Hawthorn hedge (to be laid) at the edge of the area, and might even plant some saplings, we’ll see.

Meanwhile, there were branches to be cleared – this one snapped from a Willow just coming into leaf and catkins – and I popped it onto the pile blocking an unwanted path at the end of the picnic meadow. Laura was so surprised to see me “carrying a tree” that I had to pose for the photo.

Spring is however arriving, the first Blackcap on the reserve starting to sing on 3 April.

Among the newly-visible insects are Brimstone and Comma butterflies, Seven-Spot Ladybirds, plenty of bumblebees and early hoverflies (that’s a species), and a few Bee-flies (bee mimics) hovering as they drink nectar.

The male Sparrowhawk, too, flew over as we worked.

Conservation, Environment, Natural History, Wildlife

Clouds of Butterflies … in London

16 July 2015 Ian Alexander

Well, what an exciting day in nature. In London, too. The meadows are now as dry as we’ve ever seen them; and they’re full of butterflies. The Small Skippers have flown; in their place are plenty of Essex Skippers, on an increasing amount of Ragwort.

They are accompanied by clouds of Gatekeepers: we must have seen 100 of them, with 35 counted on one leg of the Butterfly Transect alone (going along to the beehive behind the Anthill Meadow). And good numbers of Meadow Browns (a dozen or so) and Small Whites; with twenty or thirty Holly Blues, they were high in the woods, visiting leaves, even on the ground.

A male Sparrowhawk perched on a dead branch above the pond boardwalk.

Signs of drought were everywhere: the pond is really low, but the brief rains of the last few days have brought levels back up a little. We spend a while giving 7 barrowloads of water to the planted birches on the embankment, and even rescued a few small oaks that were really suffering. The holm oaks, from the Mediterranean maquis, however looked perfectly comfortable: presumably with their waxy leaves and closed stomata, they are barely growing in the dry season.

Girl power: fixing a batten for trellis on green hut

We fixed up a trellis on battens bolted to the extremely hard steel of the green hut; it took forever to pierce the metal, but after that it was easy to do up the bolts and screw the trellis to the battens.

And yes, the butterfly transect was crowned by a confirmed sighting of an insect we’d felt sure must be here: a Purple Hairstreak. One sat on a low-hanging Oak leaf for us to check with binoculars and shaky camera. The streaked wings with their tiny tails could not be mistaken. The conservation officer was … visibly pleased. We also saw what seems to have been a Beautiful Carpet Moth – again, the photo was distant but we all saw it with binoculars.

It was hot and humid, and we worked quite hard, but it was a beautiful and memorable day.

Nature Reserves, Wetlands

Ducklings at the Leg of Mutton Nature Reserve, Barnes (and House Martins)

16 May 2015 Ian Alexander

An unexpectedly warm and sunny afternoon in May is an opportunity too good to miss, so I went out with bicycle and binoculars along the river, and spent some time in the Leg of Mutton local nature reserve at Barnes. This is a bit of a secret corner, as it’s not far from the WWT’s London Wetland Centre which is certainly far better known. It’s also quite beautiful in springtime, the paths dressed in Queen Anne’s Lace (cow parsley to you) and the lake resplendently blue with new green borders. From the woods, Blackcaps sang all over; from the reeds, both Reed Warbler and Sedge Warbler sang their cheerful repetitive songs: I had a fine view of a Reed Warbler atop the reeds shown in the photo. A Coot with five cootlings scooted about the end of the lake (to the left); a mother Mallard escorted a neat convoy of ducklings; a few Tufted duck preened; five male Pochard dabbled heads-down; more surprisingly, a pair of Gadwall paddled about on the far side. A Mute Swan sat on a nest amongst the reeds. The flowers were visited by masses of small bees. Apart from the planes overhead, the city felt far away.

On the other side of the river (with the help of the handsome green Barnes Bridge) I had a wonderful surprise: House Martins. Four were wheeling and chattering above Chiswick Mall, right by a house decorated with a dozen House Martin nests (many of them visible in the photo), and several in usable condition. This was news to me because the old colony a few hundred yards away was abandoned for whatever reason some years ago. But it is clear that the birds have nested repeatedly in the past few years, and it certainly looks as if they’ll nest again this year. The only small fly in the ointment can be seen on the extreme left of the photo: there is the remains of at least one nest behind some netting, so the birds must have been considered a nuisance on that side of the house, at least. Let us hope that their presence on the front doesn’t trouble anyone, as the colony may well be the only one in Chiswick, and is certainly one of not very many in West London. Being by the river, there are plenty of flies, and the house’s wide eaves with stout supports are ideal for the species.

Natural History

Making Wooden Pegs (whatever next) … and a Congregation of Newts

23 April 2015 Ian Alexander

Well, I’d read John Stewart Collis’ marvellous The Worm Forgives the Plough, and his description of the bill-hook as a marvellous tool, but it’s one thing to read about something and quite another to do it with a purpose.

Today, we were tasked with making edges for a stretch of path in the reserve. You can see some lengths of birch trunk lying along the path edge below my left hand. These of course had to be pegged to keep them in place, and then wired and stapled to discourage casual vandalism. The only source of wooden pegs was … more sticks. I set to work with the bill-hook, and indeed the tool is finely adapted to its job. Well-balanced, just heavy enough, and sharp, it slices through wood with a satisfying soft chopping sound. Even so, care and skill are needed, and the job takes a bit of time.

When I had made all the pegs anyone needed, I went for a little nature walk. Down by the pond a now-scarce visitor was singing in the birch trees: a Greenfinch. In the pond, several smooth newts were flicking and darting about. The sun was glinting off the water, as you can see, but it seems two magnificently spotty males were courting a drabber female at the top.

Natural History, Nature Reserves

Moths and Warblers at Gunnersbury Triangle

16 April 2015 Ian Alexander

The dawn chorus at the reserve revealed two singing Blackcaps: one was alternately feeding on newly-emerged Cherry buds, presumably eating insect larvae, and giving short bursts of song or subsong. In a few days’ time the leaves will make such easy observation much less likely. There were two singing Chiffchaffs, one of them in full view in a Birch just coming into leaf above the main pond; and a Willow Warbler which I first heard yesterday near the picnic meadow.

A party of newly-fledged Great Tits blundered about the bushes on the steps by the main pond, and a Wren gave me a fine view at the ‘mangrove swamp’, which is fast drying up. The newly-dug extension to the seasonal pond has filled with water and is in fact deeper than the rest of the pond, probably a useful variation in depth.

Inspecting the Moth Trap at Gunnersbury Triangle

Up at the hut, the moth trap was being opened after a night’s work. Inside were some Pug moths, probably Brindled Pugs, and a much larger Noctuid moth, an Early Grey.

Also seen were Jay, Magpie, Carrion Crow, Wood Pigeon, singing Dunnock, Blackbird, Robin, Mallard. A Wren was carrying food to its nest near the ramp.

Conservation, Love of Nature, Natural History, Natural Patterns, Nature Reserves

Of Hoverflies and Bush Crickets

17 June 2014 Ian Alexander

An English Summer is, as the saying goes, three fine days and a thunderstorm. Or, going out with sunhat, suncream, sunglasses… and a pullover and raincoat, just in case. Today it started out cold with a chill north-north-easterly wind, but quietened down and became rather too hot to work comfortably.

A tree had fallen across the glade in the Gunnersbury Triangle where the beekeeper is going to station one of her hives. I soon threw off my pullover, and my rainproof jacket never left my rucksack. The soft willow wood was no trouble to saw up, and I dragged the branches to the dead-hedge without much effort. A lot of small holm oak, an invasive alien species from the Mediterranean (think Ligurian coast) has sprung up from old stumps, so they joined the pile. A Blackcap sang to me while I worked.

The butterfly transect revealed very little, though some Commas are encouragingly laying eggs. As for other insects, several species of hoverfly, from tiny and slender to large wasp mimics and a fine one largely black, perhaps a bee mimic, were active. They hover, perch and sunbathe, or dash and chase each other (specially the large black ones) aggressively. I had fun trying to photograph one actually in the air, you can see the atmospheric but not very useful result above. It does give something of an idea how much they whiz and dash about, hovering always on the qui vive.

Ragwort is getting more and more abundant on the reserve; today, Helen spotted some tiny (probably first instar) Cinnabar Moth caterpillars on one of the plants; an adult visited me while I worked.

The Peacock Butterfly caterpillars of last week seem all to have pupated in hiding somewhere; there are quite a few younger ones still on the stinging nettles, so there will be at least two lots of adults.

We found a Knot Grass moth caterpillar (a Noctuid moth) on a bramble. It is hairy and aposematic, with brown hair but without the four long brown ‘shaving brush’ tufts of the Vapourer moth caterpillar (a Lymantriid or Tussock moth), which we’ve also found here.

But perhaps the insect I was happiest to see was this young Bush Cricket, resting on a flower for no particular reason, and taking a risk as its fine spotted green camouflage was totally compromised by its white and yellow flowery background. It must be the first one I’ve seen this year.

I have always loved natural patterns. The bark of this Aspen tree looks almost as if it encodes symbols in some cuneiform notation.

Natural Pattern: Aspen bark, almost seeming like a form of writing

Conservation, Natural History, Nature Reserves, Wetlands

Demoiselles and Warblers beautiful at Wraysbury Lakes

8 June 2014 Ian Alexander

Banded Demoiselle Female with Half-Open Wings

I had a beautiful, peaceful, sunny summer walk down at Wraysbury Lakes. Away from the roar of the traffic and the enormous queues brought on by roadworks and summer weekend commuting, I was surrounded by fluttering, glittering, shimmering Banded Demoiselle males, and on the vegetation also the gloriously iridescent green females, their clear green wings like fine lace dress trimmings to accompany their dazzling emerald-jewelled and enamelled bodies.

As well, Common Blue damselflies basked in the sun; a few pairs in cop carried out their incredibly complicated sex act, all claspers (male tail to female neck, female tail to male belly with its spermatophore and secondary sexual organs, forming the startling ‘heart’ or ‘wheel’, in which the pair can, at a pinch, fly like synchronised swimmers.

At first I thought there were no warblers about, but gradually little bursts of song punctuated the afternoon, and by the end I had heard six warbler species, and good binocular views of three of them (Garden Warbler, Whitethroat and Willow Warbler).

There were some handsome Ichneumons about, but perhaps the insect I was most surprised to see was a Small Tortoiseshell butterfly. When I was a boy these were so common as to be unremarkable – as were House Sparrows, Starlings and Yellowhammers. It is almost a shock to discover that seeing just one is now a rare treat: more nostalgic than pleasurable, perhaps. Much work needs to be done on landscape-scale and farmland conservation to bring back our common butterflies.

Natural History, Nature Reserves, Wildlife

Mayflies Rising!

12 May 2014 Ian Alexander

May is the fastest time of Nature’s year. What a difference a few days make! Last time at Wraysbury, a few sluggish mayflies sitting around as if waiting for something to happen in a one horse town.

Well, today it’s happening. In places, the sky is filled with rising mayflies: a few mating, most alone. Here and there, some repeatedly dance up, and a few seconds later, down; but most just climb, and fly about, seeming frail on their large wings, their triple tail streamers hanging below them: it’s worth zooming in on the picture. Even better, here’s a short video clip. The soundtrack combines an airliner taking off and a Blackcap singing.

One of the glories of summer by water is the brilliant turquoise and green iridescence of the male Banded Demoiselle – the so-called band is actually the appearance of flickering of the wings, the dark spot on each of the four wings giving a hard-to-describe semblance of a sparkling blue jewel in flight, with bands of colour too fast and changeable for the eye to understand. But he’s pretty fine at rest, too.

Common Blue, Bluetail, and Red-eyed Damselflies have all now emerged, the Red-eyed being the scarcest of the three, seemingly.

Soldier Beetle, Cantharis rustica on Cow Parsley

On the Cow Parsley were, as well as the damsels, two cantharid Soldier Beetles, Cantharis rustica or a close relative. Another enormous cloud of rising mayflies, and suddenly behind them a pair of Hobbies, hawking for insects – whether damselflies or even mayflies is impossible to tell. One comes close, wheels away on scything wings as it sees me.

A Silver-Ground Carpet Moth, Xanthorhoe montanata, flutters weakly past me among the Hawthorn bushes and flops onto the grass. Garden Warblers sing, a Whitethroat rasps in its songflight. A Treecreeper sings its little ditty sweetly from near the river.

On the hill, three Greylag and two Egyptian Geese form a peaceful flock. Stock Doves and a mixed flock of Crows and Jackdaws rise from the grass. A Song Thrush gives a marvellous solo recital near the road.

ObsessedByNature