I spent a week in North Norfolk during the autumn birding in the numerous nature reserves along the coast. During the autumn migration one never knows what is going to turn up and the number of birders out and about every day means that many rarities and less common birds get picked up and reported. I was reflecting on how things had changed since I made a similar trip in the late 1970s. Back then, as well as binos and telescope, unless you knew the area and were a real expert, one had to lug around maps and field guides in pockets or a backpack. Now all you need is your phone and, depending on your interests, a handful of apps. The OS app gives you all the maps you want at a range of scales. Most reserves have a map board at the car park; a quick photo of that on arrival and you can navigate around the paths and hides with ease – rather than relying on memory as in the past.

One of the more frequent autumn migrant rarities is the Yellow Browed Warbler and there was a scattering of them along the coast on my recent visit. Like many warblers, this bird can be hard to pick out as its olive plumage and small size means you often only get a glimpse as it flits through the foliage. Now though you can prepare for your search by “swatting up” with an app. I use the Collins Bird Guide – like having the book version on your phone but with the advantage that it can play recordings of the bird’s calls and song. This is so much more useful than the somewhat bewildering verbal descriptions in the book. Telling the difference between two species on the basis of the one calls “hu-itt” and the other “hweet”? Hmmm. But after repeatedly listening to the recording on the app I found the Yellow Browed Warbler easy to identify when I heard it in the field. And after spotting it in the bushes I could then confirm my identification with another phone app – Merlin. This records birdsong and calls around you and identifies the species. It is not infallible but, with sufficient understanding of what you are expecting to see, it can be really useful to clinch sightings.

Other apps such as Obsidentify and Picture This are available which help you identify plants and other species of animals from a photo and in most cases to report where you found it. Similarly for birds, Birdtrack run by the British Trust for Ornithology allows you to record what you are seeing while in the field and then submit the results when you get home. Other apps are available for other groups or species. Ideally, we want to be able to report our sightings of wildlife and so enlarge our knowledge of its distribution and health, so these apps are a real boon.

Even if you don’t have an appropriate app, a photo can later be shared with local experts – often in area or species focussed WhatsApp Groups or forums – who may be able to identify what you have snapped.

So, the combination of all these phone apps and GPS which allows data loggers to track where you are at all times has really changed looking for and recording wildlife. With ever advancing AI one does wonder whether we will soon be able to wander through an area, scanning what we can see and hear through the phone, and this will instantly convert into geographically positioned and dated species lists. Which, although great from the point of view of getting good records, rather removes the sense of achievement from seeking things out and identifying them. We’ll see, but a phone is much lighter than loads of guidebooks, so I know which my back prefers.

​Andrew Graham

Andrew Graham will lead us on a walk around Arne RSPB Reserve where we will pass through varied habitats of heathlands, woods and wetlands with views over Poole Harbour. Arne is a terrific place for wildlife and BBC Seasonwatch has been broadcast from here a number of times, it is so good. It would therefore be a shame not to see a good part of its varied habitats. So, weather permitting, we will aim to spend the day here and we will be walking 4-5 miles. 

Please let us know if you are planning to join the trip and where you will meet us. No dogs. 
 
Meet at the Nadder Centre car park at 9:30am or at the Arne car park at 11:00 am    (OS Grid reference SY972 878) or What3Words wings.poetic.crown. The car park (charges for non- RSPB members) is located on the right at the beginning of Arne village from the Stoborough direction.
 
Distance, Difficulty and Footwear: There is relatively easy walking on paths and tracks with some slopes. Stout shoes should suffice unless wet. Bring binos, a packed lunch and refreshments.

Anticipated end time: Conclude at Arne by 3pm returning to Nadder Centre by 4pm.
 
https://www.rspb.org.uk/days-out/reserves/arne/location

On Saturday 6th July, we have a visit to Wild Woodbury, Bere Regis, with a walk of approximately 4km/2.5 miles across uneven ground around this rewilding community project guided by Dorset Wildlife Trust Ranger, Seb Haggett. There is a portaloo on site at the car park.

If you are used to walking poles it will be worth bringing them. Walking shoes/boots are advised and please bring a packed lunch and refreshments. The weather is looking good for Saturday, with dry, sunny spells forecast. There are ticks on site, along with longer vegetation, so trousers are recommended. Also bring along any wildlife spotting equipment, binoculars, cameras etc. 

Please let us know if you are planning to join the trip and where you will meet us. No dogs. 

Meet at the Nadder Centre car park at 9:30am or at 10:30am up a short track off Southbrook Road, opposite Eldon Road in Bere Regis.
https://maps.app.goo.gl/qXbC482vgk4pZ6Qt6
What3words:  permanent.kings.chef

Those of you that came along to our meeting in January will recall the fascinating presentation by Rob Farrington of the work he has been leading for the past two and a half years to re-wild the 170-hectare site, south-east of Bere Regis. The plot acquired by Dorset Wildlife Trust was In September 2021 with plans to return what was previously intensively farmed arable land to its natural state. The goal was to create an example of sustainable land use, contribute to tackling the climate and ecological crises, reduce high nitrate levels in the area (and prevent them from entering Poole Harbour), and to engage the local community.

In the first year of the project, the land was allowed to naturally regenerate: there was an immediate increase in biodiversity and abundance, with the site list reaching 1300 species. During 2023, the second year of the project, work was carried out to ‘re-naturalise’ the headwaters of the River Sherford that run through the site. More information: https://www.dorsetwildlifetrust.org.uk/blog/tag/wild-woodbury

Anticipated end time:  Returning to Tisbury by 3:30pm

On Saturday 8th June we have planned a field trip to Ham Wall RSPB Nature Reserve near Glastonbury with Andrew Graham and Debbie Carter as your guides. The focus will be on birds but there should be many other wildlife to see. Bring binoculars if you have them. No dogs.

Please let us know by Thurs 6th June evening whether you plan to go on this trip and whether you will car share from the Nadder Centre or meet us at the Reserve because we need to know numbers in advance. Without this information there is risk that this field trip could get cancelled. We do require a booking for each field trip in our programme.

Meet at the Nadder Centre car park for a departure at 9.30am or at the Ham Wall Nature Reserve BA6 9SX for 10:30-45am. The car park is at OS ST44893959. What3words biggest.sharpened.clots https://www.rspb.org.uk/days-out/reserves/ham-wall/location
 
Anticipated end time: Departing Ham Wall at 3:00pm to arrive back at the Nadder Centre by 4:15pm.
 
Distance, Difficulty and Footwear: Approximately 5 km/3 miles on flat gravel paths which may be a bit muddy if there has been recent rain. Good stout shoes should suffice rather than wellingtons. Climbing steps may be necessary to enter hides. Bring a packed lunch and refreshments.​

I love to hear skylarks singing on sunny days above the downs and the fields around Tisbury. It must be one of our most well-known birds, as there must be few who do not recognise its song, delivered from high in the sky. An inspiration to artists, poets and composers, the skylark is often easier to hear than see, and when on the ground, its drab inconspicuous plumage can make it difficult to spot. It may only be up close that you can spot its distinctive crest, which clearly separates it from the somewhat similar, but less stocky, meadow pipit, which has a far less exuberant song.

Although there is a good handful of lark species to be found on the continent, there is just one other that you might see in the UK, the rarer woodlark. This is a bird of the heaths, so the best place to look for them near here would be in the New Forest. Slightly smaller than the skylark, with a short tail that makes it look a bit like a bat when in flight, the woodlark shares the same brown streaky plumage as the skylark.

The plumage of larks and pipits provides effective camouflage for the birds when feeding and nesting on the ground. This is a common adaptation for ground nesting birds and serves well to protect them from conventional predators. Unfortunately, it does little to protect them from challenges brought by the loss of stubbles, and other changes to agricultural practices. Numbers have dropped by 15% over the last 30 years and the bird is now Red Listed in the UK. Ground nesting birds are particularly vulnerable to straying dogs. This is one of the reasons why the Countryside Code makes it a legal requirement to have your dog on a lead on open access land between 1 March and 31 July, and under effective control for the rest of the year. Responsible pet owners will help our endangered birds to have a successful breeding season.

​Andrew Graham

Mike Read is a wildlife photographer and he (and his wife) have spent many hours traversing the Somerset Levels recording the flora and fauna of this ancient land. For over 5,000 years, people have visited this area. Bordered by the sea at Bridgewater Bay, receiving the rain run-offs from the Mendips, Quantocks and Blackdown Hills, and being the flood plains of several low gradient rivers (the River Parrett, for example, declines by 11.5 inches over a stretch of 11 miles) the water levels are now more controlled than in ancient times and a variety of nature conservation organisations manage the land to support and encourage a wide and varied array of wildlife.

Having set out the parameters of the area, Mike introduced us to an ancient walkway, said to date from 3806 BCE precisely! This raised boardwalk was known to our ancestors as the Sweet Track and helped them to navigate their way through the reeds and vegetation, above the water while hunting and gathering their food and resources.

Peat continues to be cut from the nutrient rich soils and reeds harvested for use in basket making and for thatch. Mike’s favourite product of the area is the apples used in cider making and having been drunk by everyone instead of the unclean water.

Our talk started with a photograph of a telegraph pole with a curious carving of a bird on top. The bird was a dalmatian pelican. Remains of this species have been found preserved in the peat and so they must have lived there.

We were treated to a selection of superb photographs of the Somerset Levels through the seasons, starting with spring and alder catkins, marsh marigold, lapwings, 6 species of heron, egrets, marsh harrier, peregrine, the heronry at Swale Wood (visited by several members last spring), the early nesting mistle thrush while it’s cousin, the song thrush, is still singing to attract a mate, and the first migrants, chiff chaff and blackcaps. Nestled down in the reeds, we saw images of bittern and then a series of shots of great crested grebe doing a cat display followed by a weed dance, all part of their courtship rituals. The number of curlews has increased since the nature bodies have had a say in the optimum level of the water. The first butterflies and dragonflies were photographed among the water lilies and iris while a hobby was captured with a dragonfly in its beak.

In summer, the bees are swarming and the yellow and white flowers of spring are superseded by the darker, richer colours of great willowherb, purple loosestrife and tufted vetch. Swallows arrive and the great egret chicks fledge. Kingfisher, moorhens, mallards and others are hunted by buzzards and marsh harriers. Towards the end of the summer, apples ripen, ditches are cleared and migrants pass through including the whitethroat and osprey.

Hops, hips, elderberries and blackberries glisten in the autumn sunshine and provide food for speckled wood and red admirals. Fungi appears including fairy ink caps and glistening ink caps. Flocks of lapwing grow in number day by day. Golden plover arrive from the northern UK and Iceland. Mike told us about the successful reintroduction programme of the common crane and how many pairs are now breeding on the levels and some pairs have moved away to South Wales.

In winter, lapwings, golden plovers, black-tailed gobwits and cormorants can be seen and wetland fowl of all kinds will be displaying and wing flapping in order to attract a mate. During the winter months, it is the best time to see bearded tits, short-eared owls and barn owls and also the now world famous murmurations of starlings.

All captured through Mike’s lens and accompanied by interesting and amusing anecdotes, we are eagerly anticipating our visit to the levels this summer.

The society’s visit to Ham Wall is on Saturday June 8th, 2024.

​Emma Procter

Our next meeting, at the Victoria Hall on Tisbury High Street on Thursday 14th March at 7:30pm (doors, and the bar will be open from 7:00) will hear from Mike Read who is going to share with us his view of ‘The land of the Somer people’.

Mike, who lives at Ringwood in Hampshire, has worked as a free-lance wildlife photographer for over 40 years.  His pictures are often used as nature illustrations, including in books he has written or co-authored such as 'The Robin' & 'The Barn Owl' both published by Blandford Press and a number on aspects of the New Forest: 'New Forest Moods', 'Perfect New Forest', 'Spirit of the New Forest', 'Spirit of the New Forest Pony', and 'New Forest National Park' all published by Halsgrove Publishing and 'Red Kite Country' published by Wild Guides Ltd. 

The Land of the Somer People, is one of a number of talks Mike delivers to societies like ours, illustrated with pictures he has taken over the years. He will take us through a typical year on the Somerset Levels, a wonderful place to watch wildlife at any time of year.

The Levels have changed greatly since Stone Age man first visited the area and laid bundles of hazel sticks to be able to cross the boggy ground.  Over 5,000 years later, pollarded willows, pumping stations, drainage ditches or ‘rhynes’ and other man-made constructions, have created a very controlled landscape. But wildlife still thrives with birds, flowers and insects all enjoying the Levels’ landscapes and the nature reserves that have been established. 
​
In the spring and summer, flowers add colour to the place as do butterflies, dragonflies and damselflies.  Birds include up to six species of the heron family, raptors such as marsh harriers, buzzards, peregrines and hobbies as well as huge flocks of wintering waders and wildfowl.  There is the successful reintroduction of common cranes to the area and the marvellous spectacle of the weaving, ever-changing patterns of ‘murmurations’ as tens of thousands of starlings fly in to roost in the reedbeds at sunset, while hawks and harriers try to secure a final meal of the day. 

(c) Natural England (male hen harrier) 

The talk last week given by Flemming Ulf-Hansen and Sofia Muñoz from Natural England was illustrated with photographs and videos from their project headquarters near Salisbury Plain where their captive hen harriers from France have spent a year acclimatising to their new location, surrounded by species rich grassland. The deliberately low maintenance management of the land on Salisbury Plain makes this location ideal for hen harriers as it is richly populated with voles and farmland birds like corn buntings, linnets, pipits and skylarks, which are the mainstay of their diet.

Hen harriers nest on the ground, preferring deep heather on moors or tucked down amongst high arable crops. It is thought that 50-60% of the young die in any year as they are vulnerable to predators such as foxes, badgers and stoats. Early harvesting in arable fields also brings danger if the nests remain undetected. The captive hen harriers in France and Spain have typically been rescued as fledglings from abandoned nests. 

Male hen harriers are polygynous so they may need to supply several females with food, which adds another precariousness to their young’s chances of reaching adulthood. With 5-10 journeys to each nest per day, bringing food in the first 15 days, a male hen harrier has the sole responsibility for nourishing the chicks before the female begins hunting for supplementary food. With no parental lessons in hunting given, the juveniles have to adapt fast to survive when the time comes to leave the nest. Since hen harriers like to return to their natal area, it is hoped that any juveniles born this year will provide the breeding stock for the future.

For further information about this interesting breeding project and Natural England’s outreach work with gamekeepers and the farming community, please go to their Project blog.

Ravens are beginning to breed this month; usually laying eggs in late February.

By the beginning of the 20th Century, persecution had reduced the distribution of ravens to the coastal and upland districts of the west and north of the UK. Where I grew up in Weymouth, ravens were a rarity only occasionally seen on the Purbeck coast. Similarly, when I lived in Essex and Berkshire before moving to Tisbury, I just never saw them. So, their obvious presence was one of the things I first noticed on our arrival here. The raven's range has increased again, spreading south and east, with Tisbury well within the area recolonised during the last 50 years. Nationally, there has been an estimated population increase of 40% in the last 25 years. As that growth has taken place, so nesting has expanded beyond the cliffs and crags previously favoured, to tall trees.

For nesting sites, they seem to prefer wooded areas with large expanses of open land nearby, which sounds like a fair description of our local landscape. They currently avoid urban areas, although in earlier centuries when they were more common, they frequented cities, alongside other birds such as kites.

The raven is distinguished from its cousins, the crows, by its greater size – comparable to a buzzard – and by its larger, heavier, black beak and shaggy feathers around the throat. Its entirely black plumage has a purple iridescent sheen when seen close up. It also has a longer, wedge-shaped tail which shows up well in flight. This involves less wing flapping and more soaring and acrobatics than crows. Indeed, they seem to enjoy goofing around in the sky, often in pairs, flipping over to fly upside down, closing wings to drop steeply and engaging in mock battles with their mate.

Their call may grab your attention before you see them: a deep croak of “cronk cronk”  or “pruck pruck” may alert you to a pair circling high above the village or in woodland treetops.

They are long-lived birds and live for 10 -15 years or more in the wild although some at the Tower of London have lived beyond 40. They mate for life, usually nesting in the same location once paired.
Ravens feed mainly on carrion but are omnivorous and opportunistic. When available, they’ll eat grains, acorns, berries and fruit as well as invertebrates, amphibians, reptiles, small mammals and birds. The raven’s brain is among the largest of any bird species. They are intelligent and show problem solving skills. This may have contributed to its ability to find food which has helped the speed of its recolonisation.

Supposedly, the kingdom will not fall to a foreign invader as long as there are ravens (presently captive) at the Tower of London. It is not clear where this idea comes from, although it may be another romantic invention of the Victorian era. It does, though, offer people a chance to get up close to these magnificent birds.

​Andrew Graham

On Thursday 8th February, we start our evening earlier with the AGM at 7.00pm. Doors and the bar open at 6:30pm. We hope that all our members will be able to attend the AGM.

Sofia Muñoz and Flemming Ulf-Hansen from Natural England (see below) will start their talk on the Hen Harrier Southern Reintroduction Project at 7:30pm.  They will share updates about the conservation breeding programme for hen harriers and how the project team are working with local farmers, landowners, game keepers and conservation groups to alleviate concerns about hen harrier recovery in the region.

Having disappeared from the mainland as a breeding species by the late 19th century, hen harriers recolonised naturally in the uplands from the northern isles, but continuing illegal persecution of these birds of prey has hampered recolonisation in the south. In August 2022, ten captive hen harriers from a rescue centre in France were transported to the UK and they have spent the last 17 months settling into their new home and adapting to each other. It is hoped that in 2024 these hen harriers will breed and their progeny will be released wild into the arable landscape of Wiltshire. 

If you'd like to read up about their project in advance, please see the Project's blog

Flemming Ulf-Hansen, Lead Adviser Salisbury Plain and Hen Harrier Southern Reintroduction at Natural England [B.Tech. Environmental Science, MSc Plant Science, PhD Ecology]

Sofia Munoz, Senior Adviser Hen Harrier Southern Reintroduction Complex Case Unit [BSc (Hons.) Biology, specialization Zoology, MSc Biology Conservation]