Ingham’s WORLD
LAST Sunday was cold but bright, with ice on the puddles from the deluge of the day before. I was at our local nature reserve in Surrey, watching wintering duck such as teal, shoveler and gadwall mixing with great crested grebes in their drab winter whites.
Rolling over the lake came the squealing of what sounded like a stuck pig – a water rail skulking in the reedbeds.
So I was already feeling quite content when I spotted a couple of blokes stalking across a field. One of them had a large brown bird on his wrist. They were falconers and happy to show off their prize bird – a young male goshawk eating his first rabbit.
A couple of joggers came up and asked what they were doing. “Hunting,” said the handler, which came as a shock for one runner. “He’s just caught this rabbit.”
The hawk never even looked at us as he used his hook beak to tear chunks of flesh from his trophy. But I kept my distance just in case.
According to the British Trust for Ornithology, the UK has about 430 pairs of goshawks and rising, with strongholds in the New Forest, Norfolk’s Thetford Forest, Wales, the Scottish Borders and the Highlands.
I’ve only seen them in the wild twice because, as their nickname, the Ghost of the Forest, suggests, they are very hard to see.
So I doubt I’ll ever have a better view of a goshawk or be able to admire the youngster’s brown feathers and chocolate-brown chest streaks that will turn to grey hoops when he matures.
This ghost is not our only visitor with an exotic nickname.
Smew duck from Arctic Scandinavia have turned up on lakes across 10 counties, gracing them with their striking plumage. The male stands out in white, black and grey, a strip that has earned him the nickname the White Nun.
Long-tailed duck are hardy northern visitors to our coastal waters at this time of year.
In America they are known as
Old Squaws thanks to their talkative calls. It’s a tag from days when you could get away with politically incorrect nicknames. The nickname is also unfair as it’s the male that never stops talking.
You could also watch out for another Nordic invader, the waxwing, which could be visiting berryrich trees near you. It rejoices in the nickname Silk Tail, due to its yellow-tipped tail feathers.
Then there’s Polly Dishwasher or pied wagtail, so-called because it is always so busy, or Frank, a tag given the grey heron from its deep call.
But whatever you like to call our feathered friends, I hope you see plenty over the festive break. Happy Christmas. DONALD Trump has had the honour of an animal being named after him. But what is Demorphis donaldtrumpi? A fearless lion, a wise owl, an American eagle? No. It’s a blind amphibian that buries its head in the ground.
Envirobuild paid £20,000 at a Rainforest Trust auction to name it after the president to mark his denial of climate change.
EVEN turtles face gender identity issues. The sex of turtle hatchlings is determined by the temperature in their nests on the beaches and currently there is a 50-50 malefemale balance among green turtle hatchlings. But Exeter University tells Global Change Biology that climate change could make 93 per cent of hatchlings female by 2100 – threatening the species’ survival.
GREEN TIP: Chocolate can kill cats and dogs. Be careful where you leave your festive treats. TO the mysteries of migration we can add the journey between Canada and Mexico of a dragonfly with a three-inch wingspan. The common green darner staggers the trek. One generation heads north in spring, the second heads south in autumn while the third sits tight over winter, US scientists tell Biology Letters. Who needs a Sat-Nav?
HEDGEHOGS and song thrushes got a boost this week. A pesticide in slug pellets, metaldehyde, is to be banned in Britain from 2020.
Hedgehogs love slugs and song thrushes love snails – so anything that keeps this pesticide out of their food chain has to help. Try organic alternatives instead.