 Photo: Jackdaw by Danny Chapman via Wikimedia Commons Throughout the year, but especially now in the breeding season, one of the common sights and sounds in and around Tisbury is the jackdaw - they like to breed in small towns and villages. This is our smallest member of the crow family, distinguished from the others by the silver-grey plumage around the back of its head and this, and the adult’s pale eyes, makes it easy to identify. It has a slightly stocky look and seems to strut somewhat when it walks.  Photo: immature Jackdaw via Wikimedia Commons It will take over the nests of other birds or use holes in trees and buildings. They sometimes become a nuisance by trying to form a nesting platform in a chimney by dropping lots of twigs down it. Indeed, piles of twigs scattered on the pavement in the High Street or on the station platform probably result from jackdaws’ nest building above.
Like all the crows, jackdaws are inquisitive and intelligent birds, good at problem solving and captive birds can easily be taught to do tricks. They are quite sociable and pairs, which mate for life, are often seen sitting next to each other preening. These pairs may keep close contact with each other while flying and feeding in large winter flocks. They often nest in colonies such as on Old Wardour Castle and feed in nearby fields in raucous, mixed flocks with rooks. They can be seen flying acrobatically in groups repeatedly making their hard “tchack” call from which their name may be derived. Jackdaws have a varied diet including insects and invertebrates, worms, seeds, fruit, nestlings, carrion, and scraps. They will also visit gardens to collect food. Common throughout the British Isles but for the highlands and Western Isles the jackdaw population has been rising since the 1970’s. This success may be based on its ability to exploit a variety of habitats, its varied diet, and its tolerance of man. They certainly seem happy in and around Tisbury. *R H Barham, The Jackdaw of Rheims Many are the joys of cat ownership - the comforting furry purry warmth, the welcoming miaow. The changing of the litter tray. The lugging home the crates of food. But there can be the downside of predation. The presentation of voles, woodmice, shrews- or even larger mammals such as rabbits and squirrels - and birds of different sizes and volume of plumage. Most cat owners feel pretty bad about this, but up to now there seemed to be little that could be done to prevent it. The verdict was, 'it's their natural instinct.' But at last, help may be at hand. The Guardian has publicised research which has identified things owners of predatory cats (not all are) can do to minimise this habit. The most effective were found to be: Play with the cat for 5-10 minutes a day using something like the DaBird fishing rod toy from Pets at Home
Put a brightly-coloured, flashy 'ruff' collar on the cat with a noisy bell (but a bell alone isn't any good)
Over a couple of months, in at least one case this has achieved a substantial and welcome reduction in predation. And cat owners may also like to know that the plastic food pouches can now be recycled - in aid of the Wiltshire Air Ambulance - via this website. The thing about butterfly hunting is that you don't need to be up early to see them at their best - indeed, not much before 11am and it needs to be warm, sunny and not windy. Perfect for a picnic. How about heading for Chiselbury ring (my favourite, till I'm on Winkelbury or Clearbury ...) off the Shaftesbury Way above Fovant, and scrambling down the chalk slope next to the Badges? Maybe you'll have the same luck there as Abby Eaton, who sent me this dazzling gallery of colour, including the allotment-holders' favourites (hover for the caption, click to enlarge): And if you'd like to hone your lepidopterist skills, there's our field trip on Saturday, 26 June to Garston Wood - go to Field Trips for details. Apparently, that butterflies are scented has been known since E B Ford's post-WWII New Naturalist publication, but isn't it lovely? Here's a gallery of butterfly scents (click or hover to see the caption)... Patrick Barkham in The Guardian newspaper's Butterfly watch, says the purpose of the scent is the same as ours, to attract the opposite sex. But in this case, it's the male butterflies that smell delicious rather than the females.
E B Ford's successor Martin Warren includes this discovery in his new book Butterflies, 'a compendium of the latest scientific understanding of the planet's 19,000 species.' Beetles seem to be all the rage, all of a sudden. The April issue of the RHS's The Garden (pp 28-29) had a lovely spread on predatory beetles and the Wild about Gardens bulletin highlights the Wildlife Trusts wonderful feature on everything from the 7-spot ladybird to the death-watch!  Closer to home, Abby Eaton went to the open garden event at Fonthill House earlier this month and saw some lovely Violet Oil Beetles. She said, 'I saw eight but there were probably more.' (Great antennae!) There's a survey of oil beetles going on at the moment - full details here on the BugLife website - and the PDF has some nice digestible info and contacts. Abby added, 'Fascinating life cycle for the uninitiated. I logged the sighting on iRecord.' And the RHS's latest Wild About Gardens also has a brilliant video on making a Beetle Bucket - I'm sure I can find a spot for this somewhere ...  And although of course spiders aren't beetles let alone even insects, here's an amazing photo Peter Shallcross has sent in of a harvestman. He says, 'I don't really know why the eyes would be better in any place other than the head but because the brain of a harvestman is so miniscule maybe the choice of where to wear one's eyes is of lesser importance to it?' I think I'd like mine in the back of my head ...
Just because we're out of lockdown shouldn't mean we get out less. The breeding season is at its height so there's many to look out for but one that's often heard is the woodpecker. It's usually the Greater Spotted, also known as the Pied Woodpecker, that we hear drumming away - as in this photo (left) by Andrew Carter. But there's more than one. There's also it's little friend often called unsurprisingly the Lesser-spotted Woodpecker but 'spotted' isn't a helpful differentiation and it's other name, the Barred Woodpecker is more helpful. Apart from the 'pied' vs 'barred' description, another differential is that the smaller bird drums for two seconds while its larger cousin only does so for just one, speeding up at the end. So take a stop-watch with you, too, and start looking if you hear the longer burst, as the lesser is quite rare. (I know, it's the wrong way round - perhaps remind yourself 'longer is lesser'.)  Maybe they'd both been having a go at this rotting old tree trunk alongside the path near Compton Chamberlayne.
 Beautiful blush-pink may on Martin Down ‘“Ne’er cast a clout ‘ere May is out”. Well, the flowering May or hawthorn is a bit backward this year and right now it seems sense to pay attention. But there's more to our May trees than that. Some people love the 'scent' on a warm day - it seems to breathe summer - but that scent is actually trimethylamine, one of the first chemicals formed in decaying animal tissue. So now we know, thanks to Andrew Graham's piece in this month's Focus, and maybe that's why it's supposed to be bad luck to bring it into the house. Other facts I didn't know are that the flowers are hermaphrodite, which may or may not have something to do with hawthorn being a pagan symbol of fertility, with association to May Day ceremonies and the Green Man.  The deep-red fruits are known as 'haws', the name coming from the tree rather than vice versa. 'Haw' is an Old English word for hedge, so the name means hedgethorn. Other names are whitethorn (because of the blossom) and quickthorn. This latter is nothing to do with its speed of growth but rather to its being alive – to distinguish a live quickthorn hedge from a dead hedge, i.e., one made up of stacked dead branches.
 Organiser: Peter Shallcross Reserve Manager: Patrick Cashman Our first Field Trip of the season was to the RSPB's 200 acre reserve at Winterbourne Downs, South east of Amesbury, to see stone curlews and the fruits of the conservation work Nick Tomalin described so graphically at our February meeting. We met reserve manager, Patrick Cashman and although the weather wasn't helpful with his help we did see a number of other species that inhabit this rolling chalk down-land. Andrew Graham writes that eleven members braved the grim weather forecast to visit this site which the RSPB is developing from restored arable fields into more than 200ha of new chalk grassland. The aim is to create an area of species-rich chalk grassland which forms a steppingstone between the two largest tracts of semi-natural chalk grassland in the British Isles – Salisbury Plain to the north and Porton Down to the south. As well as providing a haven for the stone-curlew in its Wessex stronghold it will form a wildlife corridor hopefully providing nature with greater resilience against climate change.
Patrick Cashman explained how the fields had been seeded to produce a mix of native flowers which attract insects in summer and provide seed for birds in winter. Cultivated strips along the field edges allow scarce arable plants to flourish while the key feature of the reserve, the fallow plots, provide nesting sites for birds such as lapwing, stone curlew, and grey partridge. We met at the car park located on part of an old railway line which forms one of the paths through the reserve. In the old hedgerows and scrub along side the old track we heard and saw four Sylvia warblers - lesser whitethroat, whitethroat, blackcap, and garden warbler – as well as yellowhammers and quite a few rabbits. From the viewing screen we had good views of at least two stone curlews out in one of the fallow plots. Their plumage provides particularly good camouflage, so it was only when they moved that we were able to spot them. There did not appear to be any lapwings on this plot although we did spy one on another fallow plot across the valley. Patrick explained how some of the site management was intended to make the place more attractive to turtle doves. Although they do not breed there currently, they do so not far away on Martin Down. By providing a pond, scrub, and seed-producing rough ground it is hoped that this increasingly scarce bird may colonise. As the weather was damp and overcast for most of our visit, we did not look closely at the butterfly banks which have been constructed and planted with suitable food plants for butterflies such as the small blue which has already colonised. As it did brighten up though, we saw a Dingy Skipper and later, as the sun came out, Peter spotted a very smart looking Marsh Fritillary butterfly which posed with its wings outspread for us all to admire. Also brought out by the sun and warmth were plenty of black St Marks flies (or hawthorn flies) with their dangling legs. We had been hoping to see a corn bunting and as we headed back to the car park one duly obliged by flying up out of the cultivated field edge to sit atop a hawthorn from which is sang its distinctive “jangling keys” song. Although the grey partridge eluded us, the weather was kinder than expected and we learned a great deal about the RSPB’s continuing work on the site and its growing success. The marsh fritillary was a bonus.  How to put a price on a river like this?
Farming Today on Thursday, 13 May included an item on the new Environmental Land Management Scheme known catchily as ELMS but causing no confusion on the part of our elm tree enthusiast Chairman. Click on this link and go to c. 6 minutes in for the ELMS item or to c. 8.40 minutes for what's happening in the Cranborne Chase AONB and a short quote from our Peter. Little by little, maybe we - and the farming community - will get the hang of this. Part of what's involved is estimating the value of the 'natural assets' like the Nadder on Peter's farm. It sounds an extremely complex process. (Thank you to Andrew Graham, aka lark, for alerting me to this.)  Photo - RSPB This Saturday, 15 May is our first Field Trip of the new programme, to the RSPB's 200 acre reserve at Winterbourne Down, near Amesbury.
If you've not yet registered, contact Dick Budden either on his email, or phone him on 07944 640900 - there may still be places, especially if you have your own transport. Departure is at 1030am, from the Nadder Closer car park. Nick Tomalin talked to us in February about his work there and elsewhere to maintain and even restore the stone curlew population. But there are also lapwing, skylark, linnets, grey partridges and yellowhammers. It's still a bit early for the best of the flowers, but there should be orange tip and brimstone butterflies if the weather let's some sunshine through. For more information, go to the website or to this recording by the Reserve Manager, Patrick Cashman, about the flowers and butterflies on the reserve - in midsummer! - but also good news about the stone curlews. |
Photo: Avocets (Izzy Fry)
The headers display photos taken by our members. Do get in touch via the Contact Form if you'd like to submit a photo for selection.
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