Peter Cowdrey's Blog

Elshieshields in Summer

9/6/2019

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!

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Spring and Autumn in Tuscany

9/23/2018

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Silver-studded Blue

Hide for shooting songbirds

I just spent a week in South–East Tuscany, checking out routes for our Birdsong and Music walking tour next May. The walking was glorious: old Franciscan pilgrimage paths winding through steep wooded hills opening out onto glorious vistas over the Tiber valley. The weather was perfect apart from (or perhaps including) one biblical thunderstorm. Previously I visited the same area in spring, when you could shut your eyes and create a virtual map of songbirds singing their hearts out in the scrubby fields surrounding Le Fontanelle. Last week there were still plenty of songbirds, but most were silent apart from the odd contact call. The only songs cutting through the stillness were a few descending scales from woodlarks and the occasional dry rattle of a cirl bunting.

In Autumn small birds seem even shier in Tuscany than in the UK, maybe a legacy of the old Mediterranean habit of shooting and eating anything that flies at this time of year. However this practice is less in vogue than before and is now frowned upon by most Italians, even in the countryside. We heard fewer gunshots that we would have a few years ago, but still occasionally came upon hides with evidence of elaborate decoys and perching posts carefully bent to be within range. The upside of this tradition is that scrubby margins have always been left to encourage the production of young warblers and finches for the pot. I hope these rich pockets of habitat will not be grubbed up in the name of agricultural improvement as their sporting value diminishes.

Last week the best time to see birds was soon after sunrise, when they were busy feeding. An early morning climb to the summit of the ancient fort behind the house revealed a fall of redstarts that had arrived during the night, while chiffchaffs exchanged their locations with shrill calls and loose flocks of local great, blue, coal and marsh tits chattered away as they foraged, while charms of goldfinches tinkled in the tops of bushes. A pair of migrating crag martins flew low over my head, then spiralled up and disappeared high over the ridge to the south.

Later in the day the silence was broken only by the screeching of jays, and occasional calls of nuthatches, short-toed treecreepers, green, great spotted and lesser-spotted woodpeckers. These tree-huggers may have been less vulnerable to hunters than the songbirds in scrub, and therefore could afford to make more noise. In autumn Lesser-spotted woodpeckers are some of the most secretive birds in the UK, but to my surprise last week in Tuscany they were among most evident, and with patience I got some good views.

Great spotted Woodpecker

Field Cricket

In spring nightingales are the undisputed lords of the Tuscan acoustic world, bubbling and sobbing ubiquitously above a supporting cast of warblers and exotic golden orioles. In autumn the real stars are not birds at all, but big-headed, awkward-looking male field crickets which call incessantly from afternoon until the small hours whenever the temperature exceeds 13 degrees. If you tune in and focus inside their their narrow pitch range their calls are subtle and varied, each transmitting information about age, fitness, and diet to females who cruise around in search of the best vocalist. When a female makes her choice and approaches, the male softens his tone and sings a brief courtship song before they disappear into his burrow together.

Adonis Blue

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.

Eryngium Amethystinum

Come and join us at Le Fontanelle next May to explore this richly biodiverse tapestry, enriched by its glorious songbird chorus.

Lizzie Wingfield, our host at Le Fontanelle, and my sister and co-leader Liz enjoy a well earned rest and enjoy the view from the top of Monte Verde on an ancient pilgrimage route

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A Common Interest

6/3/2018

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Coal Tit and Great Tit

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.

Fast bowler?

Simon, with his sports writer's hat on, likened chaffinch song to a fast bowler running up, whipping his arm over and delivering; that seemed to work: someone said "I'm hearing bloody chaffinches everywhere now". The ten or so goldcrests singing competitively in a wood were problematic for the ears of keen shooters such as Jake who struggled to hear their high frequency reeling with its terminal flourishes. Treecreeper (like a minature chaffinch song sped up to four times normal speed) was also too high for some. Blackcaps emerged as a frequent cause of confusion; they start scratchily and progress towards a clear, direct refrain, but it is not easy to tune into the scratchy bit; many people only focus in when it's too late, and miss the distinctive progression. A garden warbler pitched in, similar to blackcap but constant in timbre, neither scratchy nor clear, a bird that many people would never know they had in their wood or garden if they couldn't identify the song.

A great spotted woodpecker came over to check us out, its normal staccato alarm call extended into a series of buzzes as it broadcast news of our unusual procession through the wood. As we walked along thick hedges and seed-rich field margins one species in particular was noted for its absence-a few years ago there were sixteen purring turtle doves holding territory on the estate; now there are none, reminding us that not everything can be resolved by producing ideal conditions at a local level.

In all we recorded 41 species, but though plenty of binoculars were raised we saw just 20 of them, highlighting the importance of sound in locating birds at this time of year. Only a few birds were better seen than heard; male and female reed buntings flitted within the bushes and reeds in silent anxiety, peering at us through the vegetation at close range. However, most species were engaged in some form of territorial song, so we could build up a reasonable sense of breeding numbers in the area. Achieving this by sight alone would have taken far longer and involved much more disturbance, and surely less pleasure.

Afterwards over bacon butties in Raveningham Barn we discussed how we could all increase awareness of birdsong, and how this could enhance management practice and general enjoyment of the countryside. For me perhaps the most exciting thing was the way that birdsong seamlessly brought together people with such a wide variety of interests in, and knowledge about the land.

If you are within reach of Wensleydale come to the Bolton Castle Curlew Festival next weekend for a similarly eclectic and enlightening gathering.

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Birdsong events this Spring

4/15/2018

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The sun is out; swallows are chattering, willow warblers cascading; I've heard my first cuckoos and recorded a nightingale in Sussex.

I'll use this week's blog to publicise some birdsong-related events that are coming up. If you are in Oxfordshire, Worcestershire, Suffolk, Yorkshire, Northumberland or Dumfries and Galloway please come along-it would be great to see you.

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.

Tom Orde-Powlett, mastermind of the Bolton Castle Curlew Festival

Ringing a curlew chick at last year's Bolton Castle Curlew Festival

A quick dash over the Pennines and we will be at the North of England Curlew Festival, Castle Bolton, at 11.30 on 9th, joined by film-maker Sunny Moodie, filming people singing slowed down birdsongs, and then speeding them up the recordings. On the Evening of 9th Liz and I will be playing bird songs and gypsy music outside a hut high on the moor (or inside if it rains), surrounded by a magical chorus of curlews, snipe, and golden plover. On the morning of June 10th I will lead a birdsong recording session; bring your own device, even if it is just a mobile phone or i-pad, and see what we can capture.

On June 11th-15th, as part of The Wild Watch, we will in Nidderdale Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty, Yorkshire, with Isak Herman who is working with Planet Birdsong to create pioneering bird vocalization games. We will be trialling Isak's latest creations at six primary schools, and with conservation volunteers, gamekeepers and land managers. We will enable local secondary school pupils to customise the games for local needs. Sunny Moodie will again be filming a wide range people reproducing their favourite birdsongs.

On June 17th I'm leading another Dawn Chorus walk in Fishpond Wood near Pateley Bridge, as part of Niddfest.

On June 20th and July 6th I'll be leading early evening birdsong walks at On form Sculpture Festival in the gardens of Asthall Manor in Oxfordshire (above). There will be a brief presentation about birdsong and spectrographs beforehand. Click here for a short video of birdsong in the gardens.

Liz and I repeat Birdsong and Gypsies at 7.30pm on June 22nd in St Andrew's Church, Great Saxham, Suffolk; and finally at The Limes, Standlake, Oxon on July 22nd for The Exuberant Trust.

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Renaissance Laws about Birds in Scotland

4/10/2018

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Kestrel on an old Estate Map

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.

Muirburn photographed yesterday. An ancient scene? Maybe, but you'd have been fined 40s or imprisoned for 40 days for April burning in 1424.

James 1st's Parliament of 1424 decreed 'that no man make muirburn (left) after the month of March until all the corns are shorn'. Presumably this was to protect nesting grouse and waders.

At the Edinburgh Parliament of 1458: 'Concerning the keeping of birds and wildfowl grown to eat for sustenance of man, such as partridges, plovers, wild ducks, it is ordained that no man destroy their nests or eggs, nor yet slay wild fowls in moulting time when they may not fly, and that all men after their power destroy nests, eggs and birds of fowls of reif (birds of prey)… As to the rooks and crows building in orchards, kirkyards and other place, it is seen as profitable that those people to whom the trees pertain let them build and then destroy them with all their power, and in no way let them fly away. And where it is witnessed that they build and the birds are flown and the nests are found in the trees at Beltane, the trees shall be forfeit to the king. And that the said birds of prey be utterly destroyed by all manner of men by all engines and any other manner of way that may be found for this, for their slaughter shall cause great multitude of diverse kinds of wildfowl for man's sustenance.'

Rookery. In 1458 you would have had to climb the trees and destroy every nest, otherwise each tree would be forfeit to the king, and could only be redeemed on payment of 5 s.

4d for a woodcock in 1552

Increasing use of firearms and nets was seen as a threat to abundance of game as well as quality of sport, and was repeatedly, though ineffectually, legislated against. In an attempt to regulate the slaughter, compulsory prices for buying and selling game were set in 1552:
'Having respect of the great and exorbitant dearth rising in this realm upon wild fowl…it is ordained that wild meat be sold in all time coming at the prices following: crane (?heron) at 5s, the swan at 5s, the wild goose (greylag), for the great size, at 2s, the barnacle-goose, quink-goose and rood-goose (?pink-footed or bean goose and brent goose) at 18d a piece; the grouse (?capercaillie) at 18d, the plover and small muirfowl (red grouse) at 4d a piece, the black cock and the grey hen at 6d a piece, a dozen pout (poults) at 12d; the whaup (curlew) at 6d; item, the wood-cock (left) at 4d; a dozen skylarks and other small birds per dozen at 4d; the snipe and quail at 2d a piece.

Greylags-2 shillings each

Muirfowl or Red Grouse

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.

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Curlew Music

3/30/2018

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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.

Mary and Mike

Upham Meadow is too prone to flooding to have ever been improved; instead it hosts one of the main concentrations of breeding curlews in lowland Britain. Mike tells me that the meadow is still managed according to an ancient regime. It is divided into many strips owned by various local farmers; hay can be cut from June 15th, and must be cut by 4th August, Lammas day (an old harvest festival, named after the Anglo-saxon for loaf). Commoners from the local village can then graze livestock until the first winter flood - leasow is a verb meaning to graze or pasture. Traditionally the staggered timings of the hay cut on different strips maintained a perfect mosaic of long and short grass for young curlews and their invertebrate food; Natural England has negotiated an agreement with the farmers to perpetuate this. Public access is restricted in the breeding season.

Curlews are long lived, and each pair needs to produce 0.5 chicks a year to maintain the population. Sadly even in this island of apparently perfect habitat all is not well; the local group of about 30 pairs fledged only three young last year, and even in good years they are well behind the required rate. Foxes, badgers, crows and gulls have all increased rapidly, and will be on the look out for eggs and chicks when the time comes. Another change is that the M5 now crosses the meadow on an embankment and I soon realize that in the prevailing strong south-westerly my recording equipment will be completely redundant due to traffic noise.

The curlews are lounging around not appearing to do much. Occasionally a couple will rise up, their bubbling faintly audible above the roar of the motorway, and fly around the meadow, then settle and chase each other around with wings raised, before offering each other pieces of grass in a curious ritual which no-one has quite made sense of. There is still a lot to learn about curlews, and the race is on to understand them so that conservation measures can be put in place before it is too late. My job is to classify their vocalisations for use both in public engagement and specialized data collection.

Curlew on her nest at Stiperstones in Shropshire

Of all British birdsongs the curlew has a particular emotional appeal, evoking melancholy and ecstacy at the same time. Click here to listen to the high intensity song of a male. Why is it so memorable? Like most human music, and some other birdsongs, the curlew takes advantage of natural harmonics to create satisfying and far carrying vocalisations. Using its syrinx as we use a brass instrument, the curlew runs up the harmonic series to communicate excitement or alarm. The female will choose a male for the quality of the highest harmonic in his song; high harmonics are also used to show the threat of danger. Birds open and close their beaks and use their tongues to create smaller variations of pitch, in the same way as a trombonist uses his slide; any curlew vocalization slowed down to a quarter speed can easily be reproduced on a trombone. Click here to listen to the same song slowed down.

In addition to their song, curlews have a repertoire of calls, from the cheeping of unhatched chicks (curiously reminiscent of willow warbler song) to a variety of communications between adults, and between adults and chicks. I know a gamekeeper in Yorkshire who reckons he can tell at a mile's distance whether a curlew has seen a fox or a stoat. At least thirteen different vocalisation types have been identified; there are probably more, but I'll have to find somewhere quieter to record them.

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.

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City Birds

3/18/2018

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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.

In countries such as Israel, they are major pests for fruit growers, and there is also concern that they may out-compete native species in competition for food and nest holes. A cousin, the monk parakeet was recently exterminated in London as a public health hazard. However the ring-necks seem to be here to stay, and an easily viewed group such as this in the corner of Hyde Park will surely help to connect otherwise hard to reach groups with wildlife. Some native species have actually benefitted-in the last few years hobbies, agile falcons which normally feed on swallows, swifts and dragonflies, have bred in Hyde Park for the first time, feasting almost exclusively on these conspicuous colonists. Peregrines and tawny owls have also been tucking in, and as I leave the feeders the squarks of the parakeets go up in pitch and they break for cover as a female sparrowhawk flies over.

I move over to the Serpentine, where a similarly wide range of people is feeding a wide range of birds. Feral greylags, Canada geese and hybrids are joined by another colourful newcomer with a history; Egyptian geese, more closely related to shelducks than geese, are natives of sub-Saharan Africa and the Nile valley. Considered sacred by the Ancient Egyptians, they are commonly found in Egyptian art. They were introduced to England in the 17th Century, but their habit of breeding in January meant that until the 1990s they struggled to spread and were mostly restricted to Norfolk. Mild winters in the last 20 years have allowed a population explosion. Here they lap up the abundant bread on offer in a feeding frenzy with mute swans, feral pigeons, starlings, mallards, black-headed gulls (below), moorhens, coots, tufted ducks, even a pair of gadwall. Herons fly to and from their nests on the island; offshore three coots get into in a fight (above), while further out, a pair of great crested grebes, almost extinct in Britain in the 19th century, perform their spectacular display. The grebes stay too far out for i-pad photography, but anyone can capture the rest of this cosmopolitan cast at point-blank range.

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Unspoiled?

3/11/2018

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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.

After the war the Ministry of Agriculture started to reclaim the land. As flood levels dropped in 1947, four pairs of avocets (elegant wading birds which had been exterminated in the UK in the mid-19th century by hunting, drainage, and egg collecting) nested. The Ogilvies realized that protecting avocets could help maintain duck shooting enhanced by the floods. Together with the RSPB they lobbied the Ministry of Agriculture, suspended the drainage, and the RSPB started to lease the site in 1947, the Ogilvies retaining shooting rights. However through natural succession the flooded marsh quickly became overgrown with reeds (below), attracting other colonists including bitterns, bearded tits, and marsh harriers, but driving out the avocets.

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

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Birds in Time

3/4/2018

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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.

To fill the gap between Marjoribanks's time and mine I visit the Gladstones at Capernoch. Robert's grandfather Hugh was a bird obsessive, who kept lists of everything he saw and wrote a number of books, including the encyclopedic Birds of Dumfriesshire (1910). He also collected what is said to be the largest private collection of British bird books (right), kept intact by his grandson. I browse and learn that bitterns were common round Lochmaben in the 18th century; they are mentioned by Robert Burns, but must have become extinct by Marjoribanks' time, as he doesn’t mention them. Interestingly a few have been seen recently -perhaps they will recolonize. Our local speciality the willow tit was not identified as a British species until 1897, and a Scottish one until the 1910s; Marjoribanks would have called them marsh tits, a bird now thought never to have occurred in Dumfriesshire. I find a reference to curlews around Lochmaben in the 1790s, saying they were nesting in every field until recent agricultural improvements. Gladstone says that the alarm calls of the 'whaups' alerted persecuted 17th century Covenanters to the approach of troops.

The evocative calls of large flocks of whooper swans (right) and pink-footed geese (below) are a characteristic part of Lochmaben's winter landscape. It is tempting to think this is a shared acoustic experience that has been going on for centuries. I am surprised to learn from Gladstone that in 1845 most wild swans here were Bewick's rather than whoopers, and most wild geese were bean geese rather than pinkfeet. Bewick's swans are now rarely seen in South West Scotland, and bean geese are a rare species in the UK, but these must have been the 'wild swans and goose' Marjoribanks knew, with subtly different calls filling the air.

What birds will be here in 2100?

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Arctic Convoys

2/25/2018

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Last week I filmed Bewick's Swans at the Wildlife and Wetlands Trust's centre at Slimbridge in Gloucestershire. This was for a short movie publicising a large scale multi-media project about the Arctic Convoys, groups of merchant ships escorted by the Royal Navy, which braved all sorts of hardships to deliver huge volume of supplies and military hardware to Russia during World War 2.

Bewick's Swans breed on tundra in Arctic Russia and winter in the UK and the Low Countries; their migration route passes to the South of the routes used by the Convoys, but their destinations are similar-Archangelsk, the destination of many convoys, is the southern limit of the breeding range. As far as we know Bewick's Swans have been repeating this journey for millennia. They live for a long time, though not as long as the surviving convoy veterans who are in their mid-nineties; the oldest swan at Slimbridge is about thirty. Swans are famously faithful to their partners, divorce is almost unknown (3 documented cases in 40 years) and they don't pair up again for years if their partner dies, often staying single for the rest of their lives.

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.