Inbetweener Birds of mid-Summer

 The inbetweeners - this year's fledglings are beginning to change into their adult plumage. Clockwise from the top - a teenage blackbird boy; a starling with its speckled adult plumage spreading from its tail; a young lady black bird; and a young robin with a hint of the famous red breast that he (or she) will wear for the rest of their life. Good luck youngsters!

Muntjac Manor

 This is a muntjac deer - the one above is a mature male, as his two sharp little antlers and the bony ridges on his head show. They are said to be mainly solitary and territorial and they mark their territory using scent glands - two of which sit under their eyes (like our tear glands). This leads to the very unusual behaviour caught in the fourth little clip below. 

But first here is a female who seems very interested in the camera -

A couple of  badgers pass through - 

And here on the very same spot a fox pauses - 

Here is the marking video -

Some noisy sniffing from a male-

And another female muntjac -

Roe deer at midsummer

 

Here are two rather special sections of film showing the local roe deer. In the first you can see what I think is a mother and following behind, a quite well grown fawn. The fawn is a male - note the two little buds on his forehead that will form antlers. 

The second video shows a fast moving adult roe-buck.

Below - almost certainly the same fawn about a month later - his little antler-buds even more pronounced now. 

Tales of the Hidden Deer

The grass and the nettles are tall in the meadows and clearings and the little local deer can easily hide.

This is making finding them and getting pictures very difficult this year but here are some little bits of  film of the roe deer, including a tiny fawn. 

And here is another mother-fawn pair - spotted on the far side of a field a little earlier this month.

Into the summer wetlands

Somewhere out on the Somerset levels, not far from Glastonbury, there are three areas of wetlands that are nature reserves. Here are some images from two of them Westhay National Nature Reserve and the RSPB's West Ham Nature Reserve. 

First a few ducks happily feeding -

Mute swans in one of the canals.

A little family of coots.

A juvenile mute swan - perhaps one of last year's.

Another old coot!

A great egret.

Cormorant.

. 

A common blue damselfly

Foxgloves.

And a great crested grebe.

May Day in the Village

Here is a village locked in time for some 200 years - although some parts are older, like the Abbey (which is thirteenth century), in the photo immediately below. Its name Laycock comes from its original Saxon settlers who called it 'lacuc' or 'little stream'.

And it has been used as a backdrop for many film and TV productions, including  'Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince' , 'Downton Abbey', Cranford and the BBC’s 'Pride and Prejudice'.

And here is it on a cold but clear May Day.  More about Laycock on its National Trust pages HERE.

Busy at Badger city

Several different badgers can be seen moving large bundles of bedding (balls of what seems to be mainly long grass) down into the burrows of their sets. 

There should be cubs underground somewhere at this time and so perhaps this activity is to do with keeping them warm and dry. The nights are still very cold.

Here are some short sections of film showing this activity.

in this second clip - a rare sighting of a working badger and a supervisor.....

This badger heads to a different hole in the ground with his ball of bedding.

And d finally a roe deer passing through the woodlands near to the badger set.

Why Animal Cultures Matter

 A new paper has just come out which explains not only why animal cultures matter but also how to integrate this into conservation action. 

You can find the paper here: https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rspb.2020.2718

And here is an excellent summary diagram from the paper. 

#animalculturesmatter

Deer Parade

 

The sun is setting and this little roe buck - loosing his shaggy winter coat - is gently grazing and he is close to the spot where I first spotted the deer this time last year. It was some weeks into the first lock-down in the UK and I was wondering in the local countryside (we were allowed out for one hour of exercise) and I became aware of something coming along the edge of a field. I had no idea that there were local deer and since them I have been quietly enjoying spying on them! 

Nearby there is a procession of deer - both the muntjacs and the roe deer passing across the same area within a few minute of each other. 

Above - roe buck and roe doe - at this time of year his antler are still covered in velvet. 

Night and Day somewhere in the woods.

It's busy in the woods this Springtime - both by day and night: the roebuck is grazing and the badger doing some major refurbishment. Happy Easter/Spring Holiday.

 

Unexpected encounters with birds of prey

 

The camera trap is pointing at the badgers' set, poised just above a big dark hole in the ground and, sure enough, it catches some images of the badger. However, most unexpectedly it also catches  a tawny owl. 

Shortly after the owl flies off, here is the badger in the same spot.

This is not the only bird of prey to be unexpectedly caught by the traps. In the bottom left of the next snippet of film is a buzzard. 

Spring reaches the deer and the badgers in the wood

Sometimes if you stay in one place and just look at things, you see more than if you are running about all over the place and not really looking. 

This is the case with the remote little piece of woodland where I left a camera trap last week. The camera was poised over an area of fresh digging just outside a big hole in the ground. 

What the images show is the 'dayshift' and the night shift. During the day, a roe deer female (a doe) in moult (thick grey winter fur giving way to her ruddy Spring and Summer coat)  comes by (she has a good look at the camera as you can see in the photo mediately below) and, at night, we can see badger improving the entrance to his set. 

Not at all sure what badger is doing here - possibly he is contemplating moving the whole tree.

Meet the fox in the woods!

 

The Porpoises' Tale.

Illustration: Lucy Molleson

The conservation of harbor porpoises (Phocoena phocoena) appears to be failing in Europe. There are particular concerns about this species in the Baltic Proper, Black, and Mediterranean Seas, as well as in the Northeast Atlantic, including the Iberian population, off the Spanish and Portuguese coasts. The Baltic Proper porpoise is “critically endangered,” with a population only in the low hundreds, and the Scientific Committee of the International Whaling Commission has repeatedly called for action to ensure its survival. In 2020, the Committee issued a series of recommendations relating to it and the Iberian population. Similarly, the Black Sea harbor porpoise, Phocoena phocoena ssp. relicta, is classified by the IUCN as endangered. Another population which may be genetically distinct is the West Greenland harbor porpoise, which is hunted without quotas or close seasons. European cetaceans and their habitats are covered by a number of international and regional conventions and agreements and, under European Union law, are “highly protected.” In practice, however, these legal protections have failed to generate effective conservation. For example, Special Areas of Conservation (SACs) are required for them and, although sites have been designated in some marine areas/countries, in the absence of appropriate management plans, SACs cannot be expected to help improve the harbor porpoise's conservation status. Compared to many other species, porpoises are relatively long-lived with low reproductive capacity and only poor public recognition. Conservation and management efforts are caught up in a complicated nexus of interactions involving a web of commitments under international conventions and agreements, European environmental laws, and European fisheries policy. 

Full story HERE

Winter tracks

 A decent layer of snow reveals who is walking around the fields and woodlands.

First a view over the hills of Somerset after the fresh snow fall.

A medium-sized bird; perhaps a black bird.

A much larger bird - a pheasant.

Here some human 'tracks' - sledge marks on the hillside.

And finally the hoof prints of a very small deer. The shape is not distinct but there is little else that could make these regular marks. 

The Making of the End of Year Picture

 So, towards the end of each year since I was in my teens I have tried to make a special picture and I use this picture as a greetings card for friends and family. 

Over time this odd little ritual has moved from cartoons to something usually based on my favourite wildlife encounter from the preceding months of the year. Sometimes these pictures have just been sketches. Some have been drawn in pencil or pens but, when I have had some more time, I actually get my paints out and attempt something more serious! (Well, I think it is serious.)

This last year of the great lock downs, I was very fortunate to discover the deer living near by (described in earlier blogs), which if it had not been for my daily exercise walks I might never have seen. 

So, for the 2020 picture I knew it would have to have a roe deer focus. The background idea was provided by the golden light of a local woodland in the Autumn when the light was low, but bright, and the malingering leaves shone on the young beech trees rising from a carpet of  leaves and dark green ferns.

I decided that the deer would be based on one of the beautiful does I had 'met' and I wanted to try and catch the calm, quizzical but careful manner that she had used to watch me. I wanted her to look out of the picture but also to be at an appropriate distance from the observer. If necessary, she can get away!

These were the essential elements and in the photos below I show my work bench (the kitchen table) and how the picture came together. The medium was water colours.

First, stretch the paper and tape it wet onto the board. Next, some washes of colour as background; in particular to make sure that the blue of the sky would shine through the trees. Add the main trunks; dark shapes from which branches will flow.

Layers of details follow... twigs, leaves, ferns and a small blank space for the deer,

Finally, the doe. Her image is quite small and my thinnest brush was deployed very carefully to try to get her shape and colours, including the two distinctive white spots on her otherwise black muzzle right.(I am pretty happy that she is recognisable as a roe deer doe and she is looking out of the picture from a distance. (Her distinctive, big fluffy ears caused some problems but there is a limit to how many times you can repaint in water colours.) 

More skinny trees, more twigs and leaves and ferns and some highlighting later, the final picture emerges and the doe is fully there. She does not dominate but she is central and in the blinking of an eye she could just elegantly bounds away, as they do!

Here is the final thing.

Happy New Year Walks

 Firstly - sorry to be slow to extend New Year wishes. All was well, I was just busy. But I don't think that it is too late for this -

Just a few images here from walks across the Somerset countryside over the holidays.

Is it a path? Is it a stream? Well according to the local map. it seems it is both!

Here some linnets - a flock of forty or so that have taken up residence in the fields close to where I live. This is a UK red list species.

The low winter light can be very pretty.

And something more unexpected - a cormorant out in the countryside but he is close to a significant river and a small lake.

The fox was out on New Year's Day and took a good hard look before running off.