Western Daily Press (Saturday)
Will birds that migrate still have a home to return to?
Farmers have a role to play in conserving nesting sites, says Wiltshire dairy farmer Ro Collingbourn
WE farmers are very influenced by the weather. There’s always a lot to go wrong in farming, so farmers tend to be a less-than-optimistic race. Their cattle are generally inside in winter, so there’s less focus on the weather, unless it snows unexpectedly (problem – tanker can’t pick up milk), or freezes (water troughs frozen, big problem).
Once spring comes, the cattle would like to be out, and the farmer would also like them to be out, grass being the cheapest feed, and forage stocks generally running low. An example of a less-than-optimistic approach can be summed up by the well-known Wiltshire saying:
“When the wind is in the north east on March 21, he will stay there till June 21.”
I hear this every year from the other end of the table and it is usually accompanied a few weeks later by: “It’s a blackthorn winter.” This apparently means that when there are low temperatures and drying winds, the blackthorn’s white blossom is prolific. This year, I couldn’t help noticing that March 21 was an unusually still day, though the low temperatures and drying winds ever since have severely restricted grass growth, and there is a wonderful crop of blackthorn this spring.
I’ve never known such huge white blossoms. Low soil temperatures now are even more of a problem since last summer’s dry conditions resulted in a much lower than usual silage crop, and on our farm at least, we are having to buy in expensive silage to buffer the grass.
This year I won’t be alone, in being much more aware of the birds who live around us, and I would love to be able to recognise birds from their songs. However, I am tone deaf. I generally had good reports at school, until it got round to singing, and the comment never varied from “fair”. I think the teachers were genuinely astonished at how badly I could sing. I think being tone deaf means that I can’t get bird song, although I try really hard.
I can do the chiff chaff as it sounds like a creaky gate, and the frequent calls of the buzzard, like a cat’s meow and seagulls are also OK, as they remind me of the seaside. I ought to be able to tell the difference between robins, blackbirds and wrens as they all have lovely song, but I’d probably get the wrong answer if I had to guess.
My son-in-law is brilliant at recognising bird song, but then he is also amazing at playing any music he hears immediately with perfect tunes together with all the background cords, this with no hesitation! From my dismal experience, the two talents must be linked. My own failure in this department hasn’t dimmed my new-found interest in birds.
This was helped by two of my daughters giving me a bird feeder and a bag of sunflower seeds for Christmas,(I had suggested these would be good presents for me this year), and I’ve enjoyed the presence of the great spotted woodpecker, tits of various sizes, dunnocks and sparrows, bullfinches and gold finches and of course the robin; jackdaws and crows being the most aggressive feeders. It has been quite expensive, topping up the sunflower seed, together with fat balls and peanuts. I have also spotted an enormously fat rat, which I could have been feeding as well.
Other birds migrate to take advantage of different climatic conditions, and the swallow is a favourite visitor to our shores every spring. We saw the first swallow on March 25 this year, which made me think about the journey it had taken to reach our farm. Was it easier this year with fewer aeroplanes? Swallows winter in Africa, taking advantage of the warmer climes, feeding on insects
around herds like wildebeest and elephant. To get there, they journey through western France, across the Pyrenees, down eastern Spain into Morocco and across the Sahara desert. There are many obstacles across their way, glue sticks on French trees , shooting towers in Spain, winds that may change from downwind to up, desert storms, and most importantly loss of habitat for suitable resting places along the way.
Swallows mate for life, and return unerringly to the same nesting place each year, often using the same nest, and a swallow family may use this nest for up to 15 years. I
It is terribly important that we conserve these nesting sites, which are frequently destroyed in building conversions of old barns and stables, or removal of eaves in modern roofs. If a nesting site has to be removed, it is only kind to leave another nearby.
We used to have kingfishers nesting every year on a steep sided section of the brook. My bird expert son-in-law realised that the bank was overgrown and the nests were now too low and prone to flooding, so he trimmed the bank and made some helpful holes further up. The kingfishers are now nesting again in safer conditions, much to his delight.
This morning I came across a bird hide he had made on the other side of the brook, opposite the nest. When I straightened the electric wire surrounding it, I also discovered that he had connected his solar energiser as I got a handy electric shock!
We try to conserve habitats wherever we can, and another example is the masonry bees happily burrowing their way into the softened cement on the west side of our stone farmhouse walls. I do worry about the effect on the walls, but I try to worry about the bees more!
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