Nature Table Archive 2022
September 2022 update:
The hot, dry days of August – enjoyed by the adder Thelma photographed sunbathing and posted on Whatsapp – are now over. Adders incubate their eggs inside their body and give birth to live young – which is why you can more easily spot then on sunny banks than grass snakes, which lay eggs in compost heaps and rely on that external source of warmth to hatch them.
Cathy Evans noted two humming bird hawk moths sipping nectar from the valerian in the churchyard, and the bee colonies in the log and the church roof have been busy all summer, the latter still getting into the north aisle to some extent and perishing, alas, despite our efforts to guide them out of the north door. The rare Adonis blue butterfly has thrived as never before on the downs at Wallis Farm, according to Rupert Cake. The Cake family have been instrumental in helping to preserve these exquisite, endangered little jewels on their farm.
David Orr noticed a large congregation of house martins flying excitedly around Ellerslie just before the rain came, and surmised they might be gathering to migrate. I am guessing he was right, because since then I can hear churrups coming from only one of the housemartin nests, in the eaves of Markers, in Duck Street – presumably a late second brood which has not yet left for its mysterious tropical destination. David counted 11 nests in the street this summer, two up on last year. Their merry, hoarse chirps have enlivened the street all summer, and we will sorely miss them when the quietude of autumn falls.
A quite fat-looking young fox has been visiting my orchard to feast on fallen plums, slithering in and out of the tiny hole in the wire fence I leave for the hedgehog. The latter was joined by a male who also depended on the special hedgehog food I put out for them during the dry, slugless, wormless days of August – but now she is on her own again. I could determine their respective sexes by studying their undersides as they keeled over to scratch enthusiastically – a habit readily caught by my infra-red trail cam. If you would like to see what creatures get up to in your garden I recommend the Zimoce mini-cam which you can get online – simple to use and not too heavy on batteries.
May autumn come slowly enough for us to enjoy a last few warm and sunny days – a last swim perhaps! – before its blazing colours herald the year’s sunset.
April 25th – First the brimstones, so called because of they are the colour of sulphur, then the odd peacock which has hibernated over winter, then the occasional small tortoiseshell flapping against the window as the sun awakens it from the dark corners of our rooms… these are the first butterflies of spring.
The first bird to declare itself is the chaffinch, whose cascading song was heard in Cattistock in mid-February, followed by the blackbird practising under its breath – and finally in April the first of the summer migrants is heard: the blackcap whose indeterminate, muddled song sounds like a tap left running. And now – they are all at it! Open your window at 5.30am to hear the full dawn chorus.
The swallows came back on the 16th April. Please leave the doors of your stables, sheds and garages open to provide dark cave-like spaces for them to build their small mud nests in – and if you can provide mud too, so much the better; the air around your house and garden will be full of the archetypal sound of summer – their cosy chuckling twitters.
Two days ago the first of the house martins was inspecting one of the many nests under the eaves of Markers in Duck Street. How will the count of this year’s nesting pairs compare with last year?
Cuckoo alert! It is about eight years since I last heard a cuckoo in Cattistock – on Norden Hill, the Cakes’ farm. If anyone hears one anywhere hereabouts please let me know where and when! merrily@harpur.org Thanks!
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January 2nd – Ian Vine reports: “We have just been out for a walk towards Sandhills, and spotted 4 -6 of what I think were Little Egrets, in the first field going out of the village on the Beech Tree Close side. Neither of us had our phones with us for photographs. Lovely to see though.
February update
Last month I mentioned the hysterical outpourings of the song thrush even – or specially – during the bleakest of winter days, and now in February his optimism becomes visible – snowdrops starting up under the beech at Meech’s corner and by the cricket pitch, and in our hedges and gardens.
Poet Laureate Ted Hughes wrote a verse to the snowdrop. In just eight lines he echoes the darkness – literal and spiritual – of Hardy’s poem, and yet in the words ‘brutal’ and ‘heavy as metal’ he speaks of the ruthless inevitability of spring along with the cycle of the stars, of its universal power behind its individual fragility.
The Snowdrop by Ted Hughes
Now is the globe shrunk tight
Round the mouse’s dulled wintering heart.
Weasel and crow, as if moulded in brass,
Move through an outer darkness
Not in their right minds,
With the other deaths. She, too, pursues her ends,
Brutal as the stars of this month,
Her pale head heavy as metal.
March update: first the wildlife and then the gardens – scroll down to read Sue’s Willow Warblings
Stop press – there is a new barn owl box in the village! It was both made and installed by Simon Goodall in his barn at West Norden Farm – behind Wallis Farm. Great kudos and respect to Simon who – in the midst of building his own house – found time to build one for the barn owls too. It will no doubt be a dream residence for a pair next spring, if not this one.
Not only that, but two new man-made housemartin nests have gone up in Duck Street – one under the eaves of Nunwell, Richard Winterflood’s house, and one next door at Maria Bailey’s. The installation was most kindly undertaken by Eric and Bradley Damen with their long ladders – and strong knees and nerves.
These nests join Richard’s existing one, the Nelsons’ original two at Vine Cottage, and the two at Markers over the road – all of which had notable success last year. It was heart-warming during the first dismal lockdown to find that the street, at least, was alive with the merry chirps of four or five pairs of housemartins feeding their broods.
Housemartins are some of the most mysterious of our summer migrants; they spend their winters in Africa but no-one knows where. All we know is that they arrive in April to build their nests of mud under the deep eaves of houses – collecting it, tiny beakful by tiny beakful, from the edges of puddles and pools. They smear it on the wall of a house until it sticks and then build up the dome shape from there, making a smooth hole at the top for entry. They use up a lot of strength on their long flight from Africa, so it saves them much time and energy to find nests ready-made, or partially so. Nevertheless they like to customise the ready-made nest with mud improvements, and this is visible on one of Richard’s nests – if you squint up at his eaves you can see the smooth woodcrete adorned with extra mud at the top.
We have temporarily stuffed up the holes with paper to stop the sparrows colonising them (as they have already done at Markers, alas!) before the housemartins get here. The very second the housemartins arrive Bradley has volunteered to go up the ladder again and un-stuff them!
Some of these man-made nests were provided by the Dorset Owl and Bird Box Society. This is a non-profit group of volunteers based in and around Cattistock; it aims to help declining or endangered bird species in our area by providing them with nesting and roosting places. http://www.dobbsoc.co.uk/
If anyone has nice deep eaves on their house, or a V-shaped gable end, and would like housemartin nests of their own, please get in touch with me, Merrily on 01300 320064/ 077993 77661 or email merrily@harpur.org Or would you be prepared to host a sparrow terrace? This is a row of three or four little boxes, and would provide an alternative to their having to use the housemartin nests!
Likewise do contact us if you have tall trees and would like owl boxes, or nests for tree-hole nesting species, such as woodpecker or treecreeper. Or if you don’t have a suitable house or trees but would like to help fund a box elsewhere, that would be much appreciated! http://www.dobbsoc.co.uk/
Sue writes:
Willow Warblings
March 1st. St. David’s Day. Patron Saint of Wales, national emblem: the leek. Apparently when Norman Hartnell was designing the coronation robes he thought that leeks were far too vulgar and wanted daffodils instead. But he was overruled by HRH and the leek is there with roses, shamrocks and thistles. But daffodils are everywhere now. We veer towards the smaller, paler varieties and have increasing amounts of the wild daffs which look happier in a more informal situation. If you find your daffodils are not flowering this year it is because of the hot dry spring months last year. The bulbs need a lot of moisture to swell to flowering size as they die down and lack of rain at this stage can seriously affect them. To ensure good reflowering watering with some soluble fertilizer will always pay off. The wild daffodils planted for the millennium along the main thoroughfare of Cattistock have never thrived because they are in the wrong situation. High on a bank where it is too dry, I wonder if they should be moved?
Our hazel hedges are hung with long golden catkins. See if you can spot the tiny red female flowers on the same twig. It is these when fertilized by the pollen from the catkins that swell into hazelnuts, which in our garden are always taken by squirrels before really ready. This week, digging out the compost heap I found a great cache of peanuts taken from the bird feeders and hidden a few inches down in the compost!
The first frogspawn has been laid about a week later than usual. I hope for more to come as there are four to five visible frogs in the pond.
During the last few days the lovely pulmonarias have come into bloom. They come in pink, blue, white and almost red with leaves that range from all green to all silver with a wide range in-between. Today they are buzzing with bumblebees. All sorts of scillas are out as are the little iris reticulata. I am trying these again as I have read that to succeed you must plant them under the edge of a conifer but where they will get sun all day. They need hot, dry summer months in order to flower again. We shall see! I also have a big clump of pink violets in flower. I don’t know what variety, as over the years I have bought so many from Groves Nursery. Clive Groves is probably the most experienced violet grower in the country and has written widely on the cultivation of these plants. But they are very difficult to keep going so it is perhaps best to stick with the wild violet, viola odorata, which likes our soil. I used to pick bunches of violets up our track from Christmas onwards but now the increase in traffic has eroded the edges where these plants thrived and it is rare to see any now. There were acres of violets grown for the flower trade, a lot of them near here but now the plants suffer from viruses and bugs that make them almost impossible to grow. They are very susceptible to air pollution and as the metropolis grew the violet farms around London were the victims of coal smoke in the air.
The chickens are starting to lay again with the daylight lengthening. The first egg was so tiny I’m still not sure what to do with it. This month we gain four minutes of daylight each day, that’s two hours by the end of the month, plus the clocks go forward on the 28th.
Saw the first butterfly. A peacock that had obviously overwintered. It went from crocus to crocus getting much needed food from the wide-open blooms. I was so glad we had some early flowers to offer much needed sustenance. Usually the first butterfly to be seen in spring is the Brimstone, which gave butterflies their name. Butter fly(ing). Saw this idea for a bumble bee house this week. Fill an old teapot with some soft bedding, seal the lid down tight, then bury the whole thing in the ground with the spout sticking up. A sheltered spot under a hedge was suggested. Bumblebees can’t resist apparently!!!!Now where can I find a teapot?!!!!.