Cold weather brings unfamilar birds
With the start of the New Year and increasing day length, have we seen the worst of the winter weather, or is there more to follow? The weathermen tell us that December 2010 was one of the coldest on record and it certainly offered opportunities to see some unfamiliar birds and test our skills at identifying animal tracks in the snow.
The waxwing - at your Supermarket this month?
This autumn we had an invasion of waxwings which breed in the northern conifer belt of NE Scandinavia and Siberia. If the winter supply of rowan berries is inadequate to sustain them, they fly south and west and sometimes reach the shores of Scotland and eastern England.
Flocks appeared in Dorset in early December and are still around. Since then, they have delighted many with their approachability whilst stripping the berries from rowan, cotoneaster and pyracantha in urban areas, including supermarket car parks.
Winter bird calls
Although some of our resident birds will have suffered losses in December due to the very low temperatures and limited daylight for feeding, you can increase your awareness of those that have survived by brushing up on bird calls and song. For example, once you recognise the low plaintive ‘pew’ of the bullfinch you will locate many more pairs as they feast on the buds of a wide range of trees and bushes.
As for bird song, starlings were singing from TV aerials and chimney pots during the December cold spell and will continue into spring with their amazing range of whistles, shrieks, warbling and bill clicking, plus a few imitations of other birds for good measure.
In mid to late-January we should start to hear the song thrush, whose voice is loud and consists of short repeated phrases. In addition, the great tit with its strident ‘tea-cher’, tea-cher’ is hard to miss, although it can also confuse by imitating other species such as the ‘spink’ call of the chaffinch.
Talking to owls
Listen for the rather mournful hooting of the male tawny owl this month as he stakes out his territory. The female has a piercing ‘kee-wick’ call, with an upward inflection on the second syllable.
This common nocturnal species of woodland is found throughout Britain but is absent from Ireland. Try cupping your hands to imitate the hooting male apparently a majority of them will respond!
Tawny owls mainly feed on voles and insects which they take on the ground having first spotted them from a perch, but a wide range of food can be taken including birds, bats, fish and worms. In woodland, the bank vole is abundant and resident tawny owls will be very familiar with their network of runs across the woodland floor. The recent snow may have helped the voles to avoid the owls but will have done little to keep them safe from weasels, their main mammalian predator.
Winter plants
In early December before the cold snap, I noticed snowdrops flowering in a local garden and alexanders, the spring vegetable probably introduced by the Romans, pushing up new shoots and leaves by the wayside only to have them cut back by subzero temperatures.
The snowdrops are still in bloom but no doubt the later flowering varieties will be delayed by the low temperatures, despite their hardened leaf-tips which are designed to break through frozen ground.
The beauty of winter grasses
Whereas we may not see sweet violets in flower this January and frogs may be slow to return to their breeding ponds, there is time to admire winter grasses and lichens those unique forms resulting from the close association of a fungus and an alga. Also, take a look at the wide variety of winter buds on trees and bushes, biding their time before bursting into life again.
The plucky little long-tailed tit
And finally, we’ve recently had the pleasure of watching parties of long-tailed tits clustering around fat-balls and nuts in our garden, their tails like long dripping icicles.
Despite being only slightly heavier than our smallest bird, the goldcrest, the communal behaviour of long-tailed tits must help them to survive cold weather as they spend the night huddled together in a feathered clump to minimise heat loss.
Written by John Wright
Dorset Wildlife Trust Member & Volunteer
News Extra: Brownsea Island Spoonbill information
I really should have added this information a month ago (apologies!), but I thought you might like to know the history of one of the spoonbills that was seen on Brownsea island on October 15th and passed to me by a local bird enthusiast.
The bird was ringed in the Netherlands as a nestling in July 2006. The same bird was seen by on Brownsea in Nov 2007. It spent January 2010 on the Tamar in Cornwall and Yealm in Devon, then went off the radar until resurfacing in the Netherlands in July 2010. It was reported from the Somme as recently as 3rd October 2010. A well travelled bird!
There are still spoonbills around Poole Harbour, so it's worth looking out for these fascinating birds.
Jane Adams, Webmaster
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