a million voices for nature

The RSPB North Staffs Local Group

The Ouzel May 2013

„Do you know, Mr. Hopper, dear Agatha and I are so much interested in Australia. It must be so pretty with all the dear

little kangaroos flying about‟. (Duchess of Berwick).

Oscar Wilde, Lady Windermere‟s Fan, Act II

Please don’t forget: The Ouzel is now available online via the Group’s Website as a cost- saving alternative to hard copy.

Hello and welcome to the final Ouzel for 2012-13.

Lost for Words

I hate having to start off with an admission but sometimes words really do fail you. About 17 months ago, back in December 2011, I had a lot of difficulty in working out what to say when referring to the arson attack on the visitor centre at Parkhall Country Park in Weston Coyney a month earlier. This time my problem stems from a similar act of wanton destruction to Neston Reedbed and Parkgate Marsh on the Dee Estuary - one of the Group‟s favourite birdwatching locations - which were severely damaged by fire on Sunday April 7th. Immediately after the blaze the police were appealing for witnesses in the belief that it had been started deliberately by someone for whom, as I hope I‟ve already suggested, there just aren‟t the right sorts of words.

Colin Wells, the RSPB‟s site manager on the Parkgate Reserve, has said that the reed warblers, reed buntings and water rails, for which the area has been an important breeding area, have lost

The Ouzel

Reed Warbler: Photo Credit – Mike Richard (rspb-images.com)

their nest sites. Just as sadly the arson attack also had a catastrophic effect on the area‟s population of harvest mice, many of which are thought to have been victims of the fire.

But let‟s get back to Parkhall and try to end this item on a more positive note. Although there is still some way to go before the country park has a new visitor centre, the staff there can take

considerable pride from the fact that it is the first park in the city to win recognition as part of the Natural England‟s Country Parks Accreditation Scheme. In all, at the time of the award, it was just one of ten parks to receive the recognition in the West Midlands and 56 across the country as a whole. Natural England has described the site as a ‟natural haven in the heart of industrial Stoke-on-Trent‟ with spokesperson, Angela Smith, referring to its

„sandstone canyons where kestrels, little owls and sand martins nest‟ and „heathland and woods, which create precious homes for short-eared owls, skylarks, meadow pipits and partridge‟.

You can keep a check on what‟s happening on the Dee Estuary via www.deeestuary.co.uk. This month‟s highest spring tides there take place on 26th and 27th May at 12.28pm and 13.27pm, respectively.

Hotlines

Over the coming months, please try to remember that the RSPB has telephone hotlines for reporting any sightings of turtle doves

The Ouzel

and hen harriers you make: 01603 697527 and 0845 4600121, respectively. Hen harrier sightings can also be reported online via henharrier@rspb.org.uk. It‟s common knowledge that we‟ve lost 93% of our turtle doves since 1970 whilst there was only one confirmed breeding attempt by hen harriers in England last year, despite the estimation that there should be at least 320 nesting pairs. Incidentally, if you do want to have a chance of seeing a harrier, or „skydancer,‟ the RSPB and United Utilities are running a series of walks on the latter‟s Bowlands Forest estate in Lancashire, one of the bird‟s last major strongholds, between now and July. Tickets etc. are available from Fariha Quraishi on 01524 581001, email address farihaquraishi@rspb.org.uk

Lifelines

In the light of the somewhat bleak findings from this year‟s Big Garden Birdwatch in January recently - see www.rspb.org.uk/birdwatch/results.aspx for details - the RSPB has been keen to re-emphasise the vital role that gardens play nowadays in supporting and helping wildlife. One of our members who doesn‟t need any convincing about that is Programme Secretary, Val Lucking:

“My wildlife garden has basically evolved over the years. It started off being mostly lawn and bit by bit it has changed, with trees and bushes being planted and some years ago a very small pond was added as an experiment. Eventually we dug another small pond to transfer our goldfish to and enlarged and relined the original one. It has remained the same size since but now has no fish, just frogs, tadpoles and newts, etc. Herons have dropped in and, about four years ago, a pair of mallards tried to move in and have done so every year since then. This wouldn‟t have been too good an idea as we have foxes and I just hope the neighbours didn‟t see me trying to chase the ducks away – what a job! Years ago a vixen came into the garden every afternoon to be fed, quite hesitantly at first and then very trustingly, feeding from my hand and even putting her paws up on my knee. She

The Ouzel

only ceased coming to me after she had had cubs but she brought them into the garden and hid them under a bush while she fed.

Squirrels are the biggest problem but I now have a water squirter which is excellent (on cats too). Again, I just hope my neighbours aren‟t watching. I do everything to protect the birds, especially at nesting time. At the moment there is a wren building a nest in a hanging basket right by the back door. Amazingly one year, in a bush by my kitchen window, there was a wren nesting and a blackcap no more than a foot away. They lived side by side very peacefully. Years ago, we also had a robin that used to feed from our hands and even brought its young up to the house. It was most upsetting when it stopped appearing.

I have found the changes of food choices over the years quite fascinating. At one time peanuts were popular, then ignored for a couple of years but they are now avidly consumed again. It is the same with black sunflower seeds, but sunflower hearts are always welcome and take precedence over niger seed with goldfinch. My garden bird list has now reached a total of 48. I have a soft spot for two pairs of bullfinch, the nuthatch and great spotted woodpecker that visit and last year there was a small flock of tree sparrows. They all seem to have their favourite

A bird being

increasingly forced

into gardens in winter

Brambling:

Photo Credit - Phil Hayward

The Ouzel

feeders, the bullfinch going for the converted plastic bottle hanging from the wall. At least the squirrels can‟t raid that. This winter has been especially good for brambling and there have been a good number every day since before Christmas, with the last one seen on 30th April.

Considering I live on the outskirts of town, I think I do pretty well for wildlife and, as I am a quilter, I have done a quilt to represent my garden for posterity”.

Editor’s Note

Thanks Val, even if you are still having some difficulties in seeing your garden as somewhere special and of interest to others. Another Group Member who has found brambling in his garden this winter is Phil Hayward, who kindly supplied the accompanying photograph and wrote:

“You know how it is, you take a quick look at the birds feeding in the garden and normally it‟s the usual suspects, you just carry on with your usual routine and think nothing more about it. However, a few days ago, two birds, mainly orange in colour, were mixing it with the chaffinches on the ground. Not being too sure what they were, I decided to look in the book but was unable to find the right page - isn't that always the way! - so I decided to get my camera from upstairs. I had expected them to have moved on by the time I had changed the lens but no, they were still there. I got a few shots through the kitchen window - hence the image quality - and then managed to find a comparable picture in the bird book. That was a reminder that it‟s always worth a look at what‟s feeding and, oh yes, having the camera handy!!”

Editor’s Note

If you want to improve your garden for wildlife don‟t forget you can obtain guidance from the RSPB‟s Birds magazine and by signing up to the Society‟s „Make Your Nature Count‟ scheme at www.rspb.org.uk/naturecount

The Ouzel

Sighted at Sea

Although the RSPB has now joined forces with the RSPCA and Wildlife Trusts in calling for a ban on the discharging of polyisobutene from ships – the substance that caused all the recent pollution off the southwest coast – everything has gone fairly quiet as regards the Society‟s efforts to get the Government to take another look at its marine protection plans.

Having said that, there has been one piece of news regarding seabirds, which came when British seabird expert, Peter Harrison, revealed that a five man expedition he‟d led had identified a new form of storm-petrel, near Puerto Mott in Chile. The sparrow-sized, black and white bird, which is being called Pincoya after a Chilean goddess, is the first new member of the petrel family to be discovered in 89 years, with the Japanese Matsudaira‟s storm petrel having held the newcomer‟s record until now. The latest recruit to the petrel family is also the first seabird discovery for 55 years, with the way in which individual species regularly fly long distances, combined with their conspicuousness, making new discoveries comparatively rare.

What have Shearwaters ever done for us?

Continuing on something of a nautical theme with supernatural overtones, our former Group Leader, Jenny Wright, had a „once in a lifetime experience‟ some years ago whilst she was enjoying a „working cruise‟ around the Scottish islands as she kindly relates:

“On the eve of my birthday, we found ourselves moored off Rhum. Our skipper decided conditions were so perfect, it was safe for us to leave the luxury of our 100 year old sailing ship and climb to the top of Hallival, where the Manx shearwaters bred.

So far north, at the end of June, it hardly goes dark at all, so we had no problems finding our way up the mountain track which, although steepish, was quite straightforward. When we reached a shoulder of the mountain, we were vouchsafed a view of a herd

The Ouzel

Manx Shearwater: Photo Credit – Mike Langham

(rspb-images.com)

of red deer silhouetted against the sky, a sight still etched on my memory. We climbed even higher and finally reached a substantial tumble of rocks just below the summit. Here we were to sit and wait, well wrapped up and passing round a flask of Highland malt against the chill, for the shearwaters to come.

We were facing north-west and the sky was a glory of mother-of–pearl: pinks and greens, ochres and olives, blues and greys - absolutely magical. And the magic spread below us, too. There was a flat, boggy area with pools which reflected the sky and you could have sworn you were looking at the skylights of the Hall of the Mountain King. I was spellbound – and then, a few at a time, the shearwaters started shooting past us. At first, apart from the whooshing rocket-like sounds, they were silent but as their numbers increased, we heard their cries, eerie and eldritch like beings from another world and the grunted responses of their chicks in the holes among the rocks. We sat entranced and still they came shrieking in, until we realised the sky was brightening and it was time to go.

Awestruck, we descended the mountain as the sun strengthened, and near the bottom a whinchat perched on a bush and welcomed the day.

We crawled into our bunks for an hour or two and, at breakfast, those who hadn‟t ventured up the mountain reported that they had heard the eerie shrieks, glad to know what was making such a scary noise. Otherwise it might have been goblins or trolls and I understood how stories about them must have come about. I suppose most people have unforgettable experiences and this is certainly one which will stay with me forever.

The Ouzel

For thousands of years, nature has played an extremely important part in human culture. The Manx shearwaters prompted me to investigate this, and confirmed my belief that unless we endeavour to protect what remains of the natural world around us, our lives will become increasingly impoverished. We must keep in touch with nature, of which birds form such a significant part. Get things right for birds and they‟ll be right for the rest of the world.”

Editor’s Note

Thanks, Jenny. After all her time as a former Group Leader and a volunteer for the RSPB, it‟s hard to believe that Jenny‟s intrinsic love of nature didn‟t extend to birds when she was growing up, for the perfectly rational reason that „birds wouldn‟t stay still – flowers didn‟t fly away‟. She certainly seems to have come a long way since then.

A Funny Place to Find a Nightingale

Still on the subject of our age-old fascination with birds, April seems to have been a good month for seeing nightingales and not only in the more obvious locations. With a few unlucky exceptions, almost everyone who went on the Group‟s coach trip to Paxton Pits had views of the bird taking advantage of the sunny weather, amongst the reserve‟s other wildlife.

Nightingale:

Photo Credit - Andy Hay (rspb-images.com)

The Ouzel

Not long before that, however, Richard and Celia Abbott met the bird at even closer quarters when they toured the Pompeii and Herculaneum exhibition at the British Museum and found the species depicted on one of a number of frescoes celebrating our winged friends.

As Richard and Celia will tell you, the images, which date from over two thousand years ago, are set out in exquisite detail with a Daily Telegraph reporter having reported that the other „birds are depicted with such ornithological precision that they can be identified today: a pigeon, a jay and a golden oriole perch in the foliage, while a purple swamp hen stalks the undergrowth‟. The exhibition runs up to 29th September - birds are for life and it appears they have been for some considerable time.

Gazumped

At the end of last year‟s breeding season, Group Member Geoff Hall received some surprising information from his brother-in-law, who lives at the top end of the Lake District. The news related to a pair of house martins that had tried to build a nest under the eaves of his house, only to be forced to move slightly further away by a pair of interloping spotted flycatchers that wanted the nest site for themselves.

Territorial disputes aren‟t, of course, a new thing in the birding world but it‟s what came afterwards that provided the surprise. After the spotted flycatchers had eventually reared their young and vacated the site, the house martins were seen to go to work on tearing their nest to pieces and seemingly celebrate their neighbours‟ departure. We can‟t use our own value system in judging birds‟ behaviour, but if any of you have seen anything similar anywhere or can provide an explanation for what happened please get in touch.

Early One Morning

Let‟s be honest, 4.30am is not a good time of day, even in May, for setting off on a birding walk. For one thing, the lack of light

The Ouzel

makes the task of putting your boots on even more complicated than usual with the added risk that the feet you‟re trying to attach them to might turn out to belong to someone else at any moment. Yet there we all were, all two dozen of us or so, at Fordhall Farm on Saturday 4th May - with just a faint patch of lighter coloured sky away off in the distance - ready to make our way over the farm‟s fields to catch the first notes of that morning‟s dawn chorus.

I was actually lying, of course, when I said that bit a moment ago about all of us being there, as I‟d forgotten the two latecomers who‟d inadvertently overslept and managed to bag an extra half-hour‟s sleep. The lucky beggars!

When we did eventually manage to get going, under expert guidance from Geoff Sales, however, it was strangely enjoyable, with the sense that we were getting a rare insight into nature you don‟t get at other times of day As we walked, Geoff identified the different birds we could hear and I‟m certain most people enjoyed being able to put a particular song or call to a specific species of bird. He was also able to answer a range of questions about the wildlife around the farm in a way I found pretty impressive as the height of conversation for me was „Huh‟, repeated at regular intervals over the next few hours.

The wind probably kept our morning‟s tally down a little but we did clock up 27 different types of farmland bird during the walk and had a really good breakfast to boot afterwards.

Thanks Geoff.

All Uphill

One of the things I‟ve learnt over the last few years, whilst I‟ve been producing The Ouzel, is that you can very rarely win.

I am talking about the way in which, when you think you‟ve got a story that can be included in a forthcoming edition of the magazine, the fates often conspire to snatch it away from you.

The Ouzel

Last November, for example, I thought I‟d stumbled onto a piece I could use in some way when I found a short YouTube clip of a jackdaw staggering around a garden after getting inebriated on the over-ripe crop of a cherry tree. If I‟ve got it right, that was just days before the national media released a report about 10 young blackbirds having died from consuming too many fermented rowan berries, which led to my, possibly misguided, plan for the item going sailing merrily through the window.

The only comforting thought was that wherever it finished up it wouldn‟t be alone. Can you remember back in October when I ruminated on about whether the Bewick swans over-wintering at Martin Mere included any that had been around at the time of our first coach trip in 1982, given that swans can often live up to the right old age of 30 with a little help and protection?

During our coach trip to the Wetlands and Wildfowl Trust reserve in November, I was told by a fairly seasoned warden, rather sadly, that whilst they‟d had a bird that had reached 28, there had been no sightings of it for several years. Bewick swans did, of course, make the news headlines a few months later but only because of their improved breeding success in 2012.

For all the stories I‟ve found slipping away from me, however, there are a lot more that I‟m still waiting to hear about and they‟re the ones only you know about. They‟re the ones you that still make you smile or laugh years later, and I‟d love it if you could share them with us. At the moment there is a very real risk that The Ouzel will cease without your help and support. My contact details, once again, are: pandacartwright@madasafish.com or 01270-585721, if you are phoning.

Final Word

My many thanks to everyone who has contributed to this month‟s Ouzel and especially my regular back up team of Don, Val and Penny. While I am at it, I would also like to express my gratitude to two other, rather unsung, heroes of the Group:

a million voices for nature

The RSPB speaks out for birds and wildlife tackling the problems that threaten our environment. Nature is amazing - help us keep it that way.

The Ouzel

The Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB) is a registered charity: England & Wales no. 207076, Scotland no. SC037654

Printed by EBM Printers | 01782 535296 | www.ebmprinters.co.uk

Sandy McLauchlan, for her cartoons, and Roger Birch, who was a regular contributor to The Ouzel until he found a higher calling - namely the Group‟s impending Poetry Book, which is still inviting material up until the end of June.

At this point, I‟d like to apologise for an error I made at the end of last May‟s Ouzel, when I referred to the amount of time Don has spent over the years questioning the physical existence of redpoll. In the wake of that, several people asked me whether I had meant to raise doubts about Don‟s state of mind or eyesight with my wording and I have come to realize I made a mistake. I meant, of course, common redpoll.

Alan Cartwright

Another Final Word

We can‟t just leave the Group‟s 30th Anniversary season without recalling some of the birds we‟ve been lucky enough to see in North Staffordshire over the last three decades. Particular ones that come to mind are, but look, rather than let me ramble on about them why don‟t you just take a look at the rare and scarce bird photographs held on Staffordshire Bird News, thanks to the hard work put in by Steve Seal.

Have a good summer.