24/07/2019

I’m sitting outside the bothy in late July, the wonderful cacophony of birdsong in spring and early summer having died down; now most of what I can hear are the calls of swallows and house martins as they search for insects for their young. House martins have held their own here; there are quite a few active nests around the tower, and they are onto their second brood, so often there are fifteen or so birds in the air at any one time. Swallows on the other hand are down to one pair this year, the lowest since I started coming here.
 
Other sounds at the moment include many young wrens learning to sing. They do this communally, there will be silence for a while then they are all at it, one after another. This suggests that they are learning by imitation; like humans song birds learn as much by imitation and practice as by their innate urge to sing. There must be dozens of young wrens practising in Elshieshields’ twenty acres at the moment. I can also hear young goldfinches and siskins begging for food, and the frequent contact calls of adults occasionally bursting out into snatches of song as they fly around. Despite the relative avian silence a walk around the grounds reveals plenty of young birds; family groups of young spotted flycatchers and willow warblers learning to catch insects together (the dappled young flycatchers really justify the name spotted, unlike their plain parents). Blackcaps and garden warblers call loudly as I approach, to warn their young, distract me, or both. Juvenile song thrushes and blackbirds rustle leaf litter in search of spiders and worms. 
 
Young male wood pigeons start up a chorus, each one inflecting the song slightly differently as they strive to modulate the crucial second note of the song as richly as possible-next year females will be judging the fitness and suitability of the males on the evidence of that one note, so a remarkable proportion of their energy is expended on practice. The more strident calls of starlings and great spotted woodpeckers are occasionally heard from the old horse chestnut trees. 



30/08/2019

It’s late August, the quietest time in the whole avian year. Last weekend when it was hot and still I walked around the grounds and heard little apart from the constant chirping of house martins-more young have fledged since I was here a month ago and numbers around the tower are now up in the twenties. A charm of goldfinches flew up twittering as I disturbed them in the alders by the river; otherwise birds were mostly quiet.
 
However even on a quiet day you never quite know what is going to turn up; it was not much more than a year ago, on a similarly scorching day, that I flushed a juvenile night heron in the ditch below the house. I saw it for all of ten seconds, so it will never be accepted by official recorders, but it was only a few feet away, and heard it too. I know that call from travelling overseas; the bird was too young to have flown far, so somewhere local must have been Scotland’s first ever wild breeding pair.
 
Winter surprises here in recent years have included a blue snow goose that spent a few days one February with the local pink-footed goose flock. Less rare, but equally exciting are the peregrines and merlins that occasionally hunt the surrounding fields, peregrines hoping to surprise pigeons from the wood, merlins pursuing small birds along the hedges. 
 
Elshieshields has also had its share of scarce breeding birds; there is a population of rare willow tits locally, and sometimes a pair hangs around the grounds, strangely reluctant to join the other tits on the feeders. Spotted flycatchers breed every year, and three or four years ago a delightful pair of redstarts nested near the house. For the last two years a pair of swifts has hung around the tower, so we have hopes that they may colonise. Dippers nest on the river, and one year there were a couple of pairs of sand martins in the banks. This year a pair of tree sparrows hung around the feeders. I quickly got online and ordered some nest boxes but they had moved on before we managed to get them up. Maybe next year! ​

After midnight the cricket chorus dies down and the night is punctuated only by the occasional calls of female and male tawny owls (tu-whit and tu-whoo respectively). One night I was woken by the unearthly sound of two distant groups of wolves howling exquisitely across the valley, a vivid reminder that this is a truly wild landscape with predators of all sizes.
 
A highlight of these autumn walks was a wonderful variety of butterflies including silver-studded and adonis blues, spectacular great-banded graylings, woodland graylings, pearl-bordered and silver-washed fritillaries, common and Berger's clouded yellows, wood whites. Insects, (and therefore bird food) were everywhere, butterflies, beetles, grasshoppers, bees, mantises. Many of them settled photogenically on eryngium amethystinum (below), a cousin of sea holly whose amethyst blooms light up the dry september grassland.

This week I led an early morning birdsong event with Jake Fiennes, gamekeeper turned estate manager at Raveningham Estate in Norfolk, and Simon Barnes, author of many books about birds and former chief sports writer of the Times. Jake's idea was to invite one representative of every profession we could think of involved in land management in South Norfolk.  Between us we assembled a group of 14: landowner (our generous host, Sir Nicholas Bacon), estate manager, gamekeeper, shoot owner, farm worker, solicitor, National Farmer's Union official, RSPB Warden, Norfolk Wildlife Trust landscape partnership co-ordinator, local councillor, author/journalist, ornithologist/musician, sculptor/gardener, and marketer of agricultural equipment.
 
We walked through wildlife-friendly woods and fields (Jake somehow finds time to successfully apply for agri-environment subsidies as well as getting his hands dirty on the land). Everyone knew at least a few birdsongs, and knowledge was freely shared, starting with the repeated incantations of song thrushes and lazy fluting of blackbirds . A mistle thrush piped up, similar in timbre to blackbird but with shorter, "unfinished" phrases and less clarity.  Wren song was identified by its loud succession of different trills; the farm worker located a pair of bullfinches from their soft whistling, and we contrasted their meticulous minimalism (bullfinches have been shown to have perfect pitch) with the seemingly random improvised ​cascades of robin song. We discussed the difference between the "bicycle pump" song of great tit, and the similar song of coal tit, a bit thinner with a distinctive upward slur. Someone mentioned the useful tip that if you hear something you can't identify in a wood, it is probably a great tit.  We marvelled that tiny long-tailed tits have been shown to identify their numerous brothers, sisters cousins individually by call.

 
Tomorrow, Saturday April 21st is World Curlew Day; join us for curlew walks on the Ham at Upton-on-Severn, Worcestershire (left).
 
On May 15th I'll be at the Buccleuch and Queensberry in Thornhill, Dumfries and Galloway. Archie McConnel of the Dumfries Archival Mapping Project and I will present Maps and Birdsong: a historical exploration of the ornithological landscape of Upper Nithsdale.  We will look at maps of the Thornhill area dating from 1590 to the present day, and explore how the ornithology of the area has changed with land use. I'll play recordings of birdsong made in places on the maps, and compare them with faked-up recordings of historical birdsong in the area. We will also look into bird-influenced place names on the maps-there are quite a few. 

On June 8th, at Dilston Physic Garden, Hexham, my violinist sister Liz Cowdrey and I will give an outdoor recital called Birdsong and Gypsies at 7.30pm. We'll start with the Sonata Representativa by Johann Schmelzer (1668), journey through Couperin, Rameau, Granados and Messiaen to our own transcriptions of slowed down songs of chiffchaff, goldfinch, goldcrest, chaffinch and other species that, with a bit of luck, will be singing alongside us in the garden. Click here to see a short BBC documentary including our transcription of a goldcrest song. In tune with the outdoor theme, we will also include Eastern European Gypsy tunes, which are a great speciality of Liz's. If it is raining or cold we will perform indoors in the Herbology House. Click here to see us a clip of us playing gypsy music from Serbia.

​On the following morning, June 9th, I will lead a dawn chorus walk around the Physic Garden at 5am. ​

​Last week I met with Archie McConnel, founder of DAMP (Dumfriesshire Archival Mapping Project), to plan an event about birds and maps on May 15th. Join us if you can.

We discussed the earliest existing map of Dumfriesshire (and Scotland) published by Timothy Pont in the 1590s, and wondered about evidence of birds in Scotland before then. Archie suggested searching the proceedings of Scottish Parliaments. Here are some interesting nuggets:
 
In 1235 Roger Avenel was granted 'the eyries of hawks and sparrow-hawks, so that that they are able to nest in the place in which they nest for as long as they have the habit of nesting there… trees in which they nest be assessed from the next year following until the next year following after that, whether they wish to nest in those trees or not'. This was to maintain a supply of young birds for hawking.

This didn't arrest the decline of either game or sporting prowess, so in 1600:
'persons who prefer their own inordinate appetite and gluttony either to the obedience of the said laws or to the recreation that may be had by the direct slaying of the same, have used all the said indirect means in slaying of the said wild fowl and bestial whereby this country, being so plentifully furnished of before, is become altogether scarce of such wares. … seeing in time of peace the said pastimes of hunting and hawking were the only means and instruments to keep the whole lieges' bodies from not becoming altogether effeminate, our sovereign lord and estates of parliament, finding that the discharging (forbidding) of the selling of the said wild fowl and venison shall procure a remedy of the said abuse, have therefore discharged any person whatsoever within this realm in any way to sell or buy any partridges, red grouse, black grouse, ptarmigans, wild ducks, teals, atteals (wigeon), golden-eyes (below), mortynis (guillemots/razorbills), heron, oystercatcher, snipe or any such kind of fowl commonly used to be chased with hawks under the pain of £100 to be incurred as well by the buyer as seller. And because one of the greatest occasions of the scarcity of the said partridges and red grouse is by reason of the great slaughter of their poults and young, when as for youth neither are they able to give pastime and for quantity can in no way be a great refreshment, therefore our sovereign lord has discharged all his highness's subjects whatsoever in any way to slay or eat any of the said red grouse or any of other kinds before 3 July, or any partridge poult before 8 September.

Much of this is surprisingly relevant in 2018.

​I am standing by a telescope on Upham Meadow and the Summer Leasow, 257 acres of wet grassland by the River Avon near its confluence with the Severn. This is said to be the largest hay meadow in Britain. With me are two energetic campaigners for Eurasian curlews, which are in headlong decline in the UK, and throughout their global range; BBC producer Mary Colwell, (check out her website http://www.curlewcall.org/​), and Mike Smart of Gloucestershire Wildlife Trust. 

​The grass is not yet long enough to conceal birdlife; a scan of this vast flatland reveals fourteen curlews alongside several crows and lesser black-backed gulls. We are here to record their evocative songs and calls, to discuss ways of classifying what they mean, and how this can help with their conservation. 

For an opportunity to learn more about curlews, and to observe and listen to them safely at close quarters, come to the Bolton Castle Curlew Festival in June.

​I have a couple of free hours between a meeting in St James's Square and another in South Kensington; London being what it is I can walk almost the entire journey of over two miles through green spaces; despite an icy wind I hear a dunnock singing as I emerge into Green Park. Wood pigeons graze and a pair of magpies, which have every reason to be shy birds in the countryside, allow me to approach and enjoy the wonderful cobalt sheen to their feathers. I hear a mistle thrush singing in the distance and walk over; he too allows me close enough to photograph (below).
 

​I cross into Hyde Park and spot ring-necked parakeets on some feeders; several people are photographing them with mobile phones. I was just in East Anglia where, for all the successful outreach by conservation bodies, midweek birdwatchers are inevitably mostly Anglo-Saxon and retired; here people of all ages and ethnicities stop to take a look, and maybe a selfie, as part of their daily routine. The birds would have looked equally unusual at Minsmere; ring-necked parakeets are natives of Africa and Asia, with a separate subspecies in each. They have long been popular as pets due to their colourful plumage, acrobatic skills and ability to mimic the human voice. The Ancient Greeks kept the Indian subspecies, and the Ancient Romans the African one. The Indian subspecies is declining fast in the wild, but is naturalised in many cities around the world, including London where they first bred in 1969. They are spreading fast around England and Wales.

Medieval Suffolk was wealthy, well populated, commercialised and urbanised. Dunwich was a major international port. A mile or two away, Minsmere (now a flagship RSPB reserve) was a broad tidal estuary with a small port of its own. Boats must have been everywhere. Dunwich gradually declined from the 14th century and eroded into the sea; from the early 17th century a sand spit gradually blocked the mouth of Minsmere estuary, creating a huge tidal lagoon - a haven for smugglers. The spit closed up in 1780, and briefly creating a freshwater marsh, which may have looked like it does now (above). In the 1810s it was drained and the land was reclaimed for grazing. Soon afterwards local landowners, the Ogilvies, planted up the surrounding sandlings (treeless heaths used for rabbit warrens and grazing sheep), for hunting and shooting.

​The grazing marshes remained until 1940, when Minsmere beach (above) was identified as an easy landing area for German invaders. Concrete blocks were lined up along the spit to keep out tanks (right), mines were laid, and barbed wire was stretched along the beach. The hamlet by the main sluice gate was evacuated and used by the RAF for target practice; grazing marshes were flooded.​

To counteract this the Minsmere Scrape (below) was created in 1962, a pioneering piece of artificial habitat creation by warden Bert Axell, a great conservationist and character (read this) but not a big fan of visitors ('they're wasting my bloody time'). When I first visited on a family holiday in 1974, my father had to write off to RSPB headquarters for a permit for us to be shown round on a specific day. Health and safety had yet to appear and I fell down a hole in one of the hides and broke a toe. This was a blessing in disguise, as I got a personalized wheelchair ride round the reserve; since then I have followed the reserve's development.​

The RSPB bought Minsmere in 1977, building it up to its present 2500 acres. The Scrape was enthusiastically admired and imitated by conservationists as far away as Japan, but many local people regarded Minsmere as somewhere where they were not welcome, and it was feared that increased visitor numbers would effect rare breeding species. Eventually public consultations were held about how to make the reserve attractive to locals. From 2014-16 Springwatch was filmed at Minsmere for three years, causing a massive spike in visitor numbers and public profile. On recent evenings flocks of people, not all regular birdwatchers, have convened to see murmurations of up to 40,000 starlings. Interestingly numbers of rare breeding species have risen incrementally with the number of visitors, which is now around 120,000 per year; I wonder what Bert Axell would have thought.​

Minsmere is part of Suffolk Coast and Heaths Area of Natural beauty, marketed as 'unspoiled'; its swaying reeds can conjure up an impression of remote timelessness. In fact it has frequently been 'spoiled' by both man and nature; scratch the surface and you realize that this remarkably bio-diverse landscape is in a constant state of flux. ​​​Due to rising sea levels it could to revert to a tidal estuary within this century; in the short run increased water abstraction for cooling at the new Sizewell C nuclear power station next door may alter the delicate balance between fresh and saline water.

                                           Recent colonists: nuclear power station and little egret

​I've been coming to Elshieshields near Lochmaben in South-West Scotland for the past fifteen years. During this time there have been obvious changes to birdlife in its 20 acres of mixed woodland on the banks of the river Ae. 15 years ago nuthatches were just establishing themselves in Scotland; now they are common here, encouraged by global warming and more bird feeding (left), without which cold weather such as this might have killed them in the past. On the debit side, ten years ago the fields around here resounded with the bubbling of curlews in spring; last year I heard only one, briefly. Their breeding habitat has been drained, and the few corners left are easily found and worked over by predators. Lapwings are going the same way.

​How about the more distant past? I look up Lochmaben in the Scottish Statistical Accounts; in 1845 the local minister Thomas Marjoribanks lists birds in his parish. Many are still here, sometimes under different names: white owl (our barn owl), water-ouzel (our dipper-'most destructive to the salmon fry'), golden-crested wren (goldcrest), willow or silver-wren (willow warbler and chiffchaff, lumped together as one species), white and yellow (pied and grey) wagtails. Three species Marjoribanks specifically ascribes to Elshieshields, 'missel-thrush', 'long-tailed titmouse' and jay, are still on site. Like me Marjoribanks enjoyed locating local rarities- I too have found quail, but not butcher-bird (red-backed shrike). Finches are lumped together as 'various species of linnet'; life was hard without binoculars.

The landscape was different then; in 1845 stone-chats were 'in great abundance on the Lochmaben Moors', and both black-cock and red grouse bred within a mile of town; goat-suckers (nightjars) were frequently seen. These moorland birds are long gone along with the moors. The parish church used to be thatched with dried heather; now hardly any heather grows in the parish. Marshland birds have also decreased; snipe are still here in winter but no longer 'particularly common'; water-rail was 'abundant about the outlets from the lakes', now they are rare. 
​

The remaining veterans are extraordinary characters, whose unique life experience has been filtered into wisdom, to which I look forward to creating a permanent memorial in music and art.  As young men they went through great hardship in circumstances of extraordinary crisis. Conditions were extreme; after being attacked and dispersed in summer they only travelled in winter when it was dark for most of the day. There was a constant danger of ice building up on deck and making boats unstable. Jack Patterson, (left) who we filmed recently at Thornhill near Dumfries, was a telegraphist who twice crossed the Arctic on Russian ships with only one other man on deck who spoke English. 
 
For the swans the hardship of the journey is not exceptional-they do it every year. They can fly 2000 kilometres without refuelling, and maintain a V-formation 5 kilometres up. They are legally protected throughout their range, but they are declining fast. There were 29000 in 1995, and now there are about 16000. Birds are blown off course by bad weather and can turn up thousands of miles from their destinations. They are vulnerable to poaching-25 per cent of birds at Slimbridge carry lead shot; collision with power lines and ingesting lead shot are also serious problems.

Each swan can be identified by unique markings on its beak; for many years as many as possible have been sketched by conservationists and given a name. They are welcomed at each end of their journey, and thousands of WWT members follow their journeys online, yet the decline continues. To learn more about individual swans, click here.
 
My plan is to record as many of the surviving veterans and as many Bewick's swans as possible, each in their native habitat both the UK and Russia. These recordings will form the basis of a choral and orchestral piece. A Russian choir will sing the words of the UK veterans, and a UK choir the words of the Russians. An orchestra will play music based on the calls of the swans. Russian artist Eugenie Vronskaya will paint veterans and swans and together we are planning a multi-media work which can be performed in both Russia and the UK.
 
The short film is generously funded by Motherwell and Wilshaw Rotary Club in Scotland, and the whole project is the Arctic Convoys initiative of the Russian Consulate in Edinburgh. The parallel timelines fascinate me-the birds following the route generation after generation, the humans in one exceptional burst of heroism. For me each is as important and remarkable as the other, and I look forward to honouring them both. ​