SKYLARK SUE’S REFLECTIONS OF NATURE
June 2013
June brings tulips, lilies, roses
Fills the children’s hands with posies
Hmm, I’m not so sure about the tulips – mine finished weeks ago. And yet the lilies are still in tight bud even at the end of June, no doubt due to our late spring. However, Sara Coleridge is spot on with the roses; they have been beautiful this month. Not just the garden cultivates, but the delicate pale pink dog roses which have appeared in such profusion this year. Dog roses (Rosa canina – an easy one to remember) are one of my favourite ‘wild’ flowers, with their simple rounded single five-petal blooms blushed with coral, and their feathery golden sepals. These plants are very prickly, as anyone who has tried to pick one of these roses will know; the fine hooked thorns easily imbed themselves into a finger, snapping off from the main stem to leave a painful splinter. Later in the year, these roses will bear lots of scarlet hips – when I was a child, I had to have a spoonful of Rosehip syrup every day as it was thought to be highly beneficial, containing a high level of vitamin C. This thick pink syrup was sickly-sweet, and made by a company called Delrosa. Incidentally, although some people believe the flower was given the name ‘dog rose’ as a derisory term, during the 18th century the plant was used to treat bites from rabid dogs, so maybe that is how the name originated.
June began with a mixture of cloud and sunshine – when the sun shone, it was pleasantly warm though a breeze still sent the occasional goose-bumps. On the first day of the month there were three small wood mice feeding on dropped seed from the bird table. A dunnock made a welcome appearance. They are usually garden regulars but seemed to have absented themselves recently. These unassuming little birds remind me of mice, the way that they hasten along close to the ground, creeping under the bushes and behind the plant pots in their search for insects. At first glance they are drab, grey birds, but if you take the time to really study them you can see how subtly the grey, beige, chestnut and dark brown feathers blend together, making a pleasing, delicate little bird. Many people call them ‘hedge sparrows’, and at school we were taught to call them ‘hedge accentors’, though nowadays the name ‘dunnock’ seems to be the most favoured.
Also around were a robin, young starling and a blackbird, amongst others. There was lots of cuckoo spit on the fuchsia bushes in the front garden, and if you peered closely the tiny young froghopper could be seen inside. These weird, bright green nymphs with their large round eyes look almost alien. The adult froghoppers resemble beetles, some being more colourful than others. The froth is produced by the nymph which sucks the sap of the plant, extruding it from its rear end as a kind of foam, and it has an acrid taste to deter predators. There was a silk nest full of lackey moth caterpillars on one of the crab apple trees – we had one last month as well. We must have had some kind of invasion, there were dozens of caterpillars. They are very attractive with their jazzy striped colouring and blue faces, but I don't know what effect they will have on the crab apple trees, or on the other trees and shrubs in the garden, as they are bound to disperse soon. Our garden is very small, so any invasion such as this can have serious consequences. Maybe some of them will get eaten by the birds.
The blue tits still hadn’t fledged and the adults were still feeding the young, on the 2nd. I was pleased to see a female chaffinch on the feeder as they don’t frequent the garden very much. There were several starlings and sparrows too, as well as a couple of robins and the dunnock, while high overhead swifts circled. Also overhead was a hovering kestrel, but it must have seen something in another garden as it didn’t come to ours.
We had a mystery visitor in the early hours of the 4th –it had managed to drag an ice-cream container filled with pond pellets off a 3 foot high wall and move it 10 feet along a path before removing the lid. None of the fish food was spilt, but the plastic container had dozens of tiny tooth and claw marks. Mouse? Rat? Cat? Fox? Whatever it was, it must have been very disappointed after all that hard work to be faced with a heap of dry pond pellets. We missed seeing the blue tits fledge, but they had gone by the 6th. The lackey moth caterpillars were now roaming the garden, appearing on plants, shrubs and even the table! There was a young chaffinch on the feeder and a handsome male bird in the apple tree.
On the 7th another mouse-like bird appeared – this time it wasn’t a dunnock, it was a wren, which was creeping around the branches of a crab apple tree. A couple of large snails had set up home in the spout of a watering can and were eventually removed. Some years we seem to have a slug year, other years a snail year. This year it is the snails that are winning, I think. Last year we had so many slugs that several times we saw them climbing up our window, where for some strange reason they were eating bird seed from a clip-on window feeder. I hadn't realised that slugs ate dried food.
Two days later, there were some young blue tits in the garden, hopefully from the brood in our nest box. I'm hoping that next year they will use the box that has a camera fitted.
June 11th saw us back at Paradise Wildlife Park, Broxbourne for a ‘Meet the Lemurs’ experience. This was thoroughly enjoyable and we spent half an hour or so inside the large enclosure, feeding the lemurs from bowls of fruit and biscuit. Lemurs are such delightful, gentle creatures and they daintily took the food from the bowl using their long fingers. Later, we fed some vibrant lorikeets with nectar. These vividly-coloured small parakeets are beautiful, and have long tongues with tiny hair-like bristles on the tips, which help them to soak up the nectar. In one of the enclosures otters were being fed with minced meat, which provided a great food source for opportunists such as a group of sparrows, as well as a pied wagtail. The wagtail would perch on the enclosure fence, wait its chance, then fly down and grab some of the meat in its bill before the otters realised what had happened.
Next day a squirrel wedged itself inside the lantern feeder in the garden, so that nothing else could reach to the food, much to the annoyance of a young chaffinch. This feeder is especially popular with the squirrel, yet the creature looks most uncomfortable sitting so cramped up – maybe the roof gives it a sense of security. By the 14th of June the mock orange (Philadelphus) was fully open, a mass of white. The flowers are heavily fragrant with a citrus smell, almost overpowering when up close, but I am very fond of this shrub. Seen at dusk, the flowers stand out in ghostly splendour. There were two great tits in the garden today, I think they are the most handsome of the tit family. I have not yet seen a ladybird this year, something I find very worrying as they are usually about on the plants by now. The cold wet spring has killed off so many creatures; most of the butterflies have disappeared again, and I haven’t even yet found any greenfly or blackfly in the garden which is most unusual for this time of year. The next day, although there was some sun, there were some heavy showers as well, and even hail. Between the showers a great tit was feasting on the lackey moth caterpillars. A bee decided that I was a flower and landed on my T-shirt. It liked it there, and it was a long while before it moved off.
On the way to one of my special places, Hatfield Forest, on June 17th, a very small young rabbit was hopping along the roadside verge – it looked as though it had only just left the nest. There were several pheasants in the field, including one that was doing a presentable imitation of a bittern – standing stock still amongst the crops with hits head held high! At the forest, both greylags and Canada geese had goslings which they were trying to control as they ran about the grass near the lake. There was a pair of coots with three young on the small lake. However, I couldn’t see any ducklings, so whether the mallards are still sitting on the nests or whether they just haven’t bred this year, I don’t know. Of course, another scenario could be that the young ducklings were snatched by gulls or taken by pike. There were no cygnets either.
Also on the small lake were many damselflies, flitting around and pairing. The water was very calm, and so they were mirrored, making for a beautiful sight. It was fascinating to see how the reflections of these stunning, delicate creatures created colourful patterns in the lake. There were a couple of partly submerged branches, quite near the bank, which seemed to be particularly popular landing spots.
Back home, there were long-tailed tits in the garden, and the following day a young robin was around. Young robins look so different from the adult birds, with their beige and brown speckled breasts, but as soon as they move with that distinctive bobbing movement it is obvious what they are. This particular one had just the faintest blush on its chest to indicate that one day it too would be bright scarlet like its parents. It stayed around the garden for several days, probably feeling safe in the various shrubs and apple trees.
From June 22nd to June 29th inclusive, I was holidaying in North Wales, staying in a flat by the River Glaslyn in Portmadoc. I watched a cormorant fishing for eels just outside the window; it certainly seemed to be successful. Opposite the flat, along the river wall, were a series of small holes, maybe for drainage, and many of these had been appropriated by pigeons – real pigeon holes! Some of the holes contained young pigeons; these seemed almost the same size as the adults. Young pigeons are called squabs, and pigeons invariably have just two chicks, one of either sex, hence the saying ‘pigeon pair’. Many of the pigeons were very attractively marked, in shades of white, fawn, beige and buff, while at least one had a leg ring, so presumably somewhere a pigeon fancier was wondering where his bird had flown to. The pigeons regularly strutted along the paving in front of the flat, nodding their heads as they walked. There were jackdaws and house sparrows too. Along the estuary, across the road from the bridge (which could be seen from the flat), were lots of swans, and from time to time some would appear leisurely cruising along the river.
On the 24th, a warm and sunny day, we stopped to take photographs by the river of the Aberglaslyn Pass, before going on to Beddgelert, which has a picturesque stream running through the village. Here, swallows and martins were very much in evidence, swooping over the water for insects. There was a martin’s nest under the eaves of one of the cottages and a tree sparrow on some railings. At Criccieth there were oystercatchers on the beach, these could also be seen off the cob at Portmadoc.
We visited Criccieth beach in the evening when the light had that special evening glow, and it highlighted the white froth on the water as the waves broke on the shingle. There were many kinds of seaweed along the strandline, tangled and clumped together, intertwined with pebbles like an art form. Other interesting things, such as whelk egg cases and small stones with holes through them ,or pebbles with graduated lines of colour, littered the beach. I always love seeing beaches and the sea in the early evening light, especially when it is calm and the tide runs lazily up and down the shore.
Throughout the week I noticed that there was a stunning show of wild flowers along the lanes, the fields, the valleys and even along the banks of the steam railways. Foxgloves, so beloved by bees, were everywhere, as were moon daisies. I was surprised to see that in some places bluebells were still in flower, and there was also plenty of red campion, dog roses and honeysuckle.
We went along to the RSPB Cymru Glaslyn Osprey project at Pont Croesor on the 25th June, another warm and sunny day. There is a large hide there, as well as a separate building which shows live footage of the birds beamed from the nest. Several scopes were set up the hide, trained on the nest which was a fair distance away, and very difficult to see with the naked eye. The warden explained where the nest was, and eventually I managed to find it through the scope – I was thrilled to see the male bird flying to the nest with his catch of fish. There was much flapping of wings as he returned.
This is the tenth breeding season that the ospreys have been here, and their first chick of 2013 hatched on the 13th May. There are two youngsters, and it won’t be much longer before they fledge. This is the last breeding season that RSPB Cymru will manage the Glaslyn osprey project as it is being handed over to a community interest company called Bywyd Gwyllt Glaslyn Wildlife. The hide is in a beautiful setting, overlooking a deep pool formed by the river with the mountains of Snowdonia in the distance. Across the pool are the trees, one of which is home to the ospreys. There was a family of mergansers on the water, with long thin red beaks and bright red eyes.
Also at the hide was a feeder that was constantly attracting small birds and we spent a long while watching them. I find that ‘feeder watching’ is a very addictive pastime, because at a good site the birds tend to come thick and fast – and you just know that the moment you turn away something special will alight and you will have missed it!
Amongst the birds on this feeder were siskins, great tits, greenfinches, chaffinches and sparrows. At one point, ten or so house sparrows were perched along a branch, queuing up for food. The siskin in particular was such a bright colour (green and yellow) that it seemed to illuminate the area each time it landed, as did the handsome male chaffinch.
Earlier we had visited the Italianate village at Portmeirion, which is in a magnificent setting – a wooded valley that runs down to the sea. I spent a long time watching a song thrush catching insects as it roamed around a lawn strewn with daisies, buttercups and clover. Then it moved onto the cobbled path. I have mentioned before, in previous blogs, that I haven’t seen a thrush in my Essex garden for many years, and they don’t seem to be particularly common now in the area, so I was very pleased to see this one. Song thrushes are such attractive birds with their boldly speckled breasts. They are smaller and slimmer than the Mistle thrush, which has much larger, round dark spots. Those of the song thrush tend to be lighter and arrow shaped. Around the café, chaffinches, robins and blackbirds flitted between the tables gathering crumbs.
A visit to the slate museum near Lyn Padern, Llanberis, on the 26th revealed a pair of buzzards circling high above the cliff, silhouetted against the blue sky, and we stopped at another nearby lake where there were more mergansers, as well as a couple of herring gulls. The herring gulls near our flat at Portmadoc have learnt to break open mussels by dropping them on a hard surface, and so the car park was littered with broken shells. I watched a bird drop the shell, then swoop down to devour the contents.
We noticed that there were lots of fish in the river by the flat. I am not certain what they were but believe them to be mullet. There were also some jellyfish, which I was surprised to see. This tidal river has been a source of endless fascination, and I only wish that there could be a river right near my window at home, too. It's home to so many creatures, from crabs to cormorants and eels to mallards.
The next day was rather gloomy, but brightened by the sight of a red grouse through the windows of a steam train. I also had a good view of some herring gull chicks clambering unsteadily over a rooftop. The landscape view was magnificent as the train wended its way beside the river that tumbles through the Aberglasyn Pass before making its way up and through Snowdonia.
Much of the next day consisted of torrential rain, but when it ceased my daughter went for an evening walk along the cob at Portmadoc (which is a high wall that the steam trains run along, over a mile long) and saw many birds, including a lone whooper swan amongst the mutes, a curlew, oyster catchers and a heron.
When we arrived back home in Essex on the following day (29th), there was a large pile of woodpigeon feathers on the lawn. It seems as though we must have had a visit by the sparrow hawk, as I doubt a cat would have been able to get near. Most likely, the sparrow hawk took the pigeon from the top of the garden shelter, where they often sit, and brought it down onto the grass to kill and pluck.
The last day of the month, the 30th June, brought a special highlight for me – a large frog was in one of the small ponds. This is the first frog I have seen in the garden this year – a few years ago we had so many, but they suddenly disappeared. Last year we had one frog in the garden, in the same pool, so maybe it is the same one, and perhaps it is attracted to the pool by the newt tadpoles. This last day was hot and sunny –hopefully we will have some proper summer weather next month, so that we can really enjoy those lilies, roses and all the other flowers that pervade not only our gardens, but our countryside, too.
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