A walk on the wildside
As I was walking on Monday morning of last week on one of my favourite places overlooking the River at Ballyderown I saw the first swallows of the year come sweeping in.
They were full of joy at returning to the very place that they were born in last year, we can say that the cold weather of recent weeks is now but a distant memory.
Thrushes singing their hearts out, pigeons cooing to each other and the sound of a bumble bee searching in the hedgerow, all the sounds of a summer evening, yet this was an April evening last week as I walked along the road by Lucas’s Wood during one of the fine evenings last week. Whitethom is already in bloom and the hazel trees are laden with catkins, popularly known as lambs tails. There is a great mixture of trees around this area, magnificent beeches and mighty oaks and across the road from the wood, there are two fields which are lined with lime trees, but it is the smaller trees that seem to be favoured by birds at this time of year. As I walked along I was lucky enough to see a red squirrel and a tree-creeper on the same branch of a birch tree, both going about their own business. The tree creeper looked like a little brown mouse as he worked his way up the tree, picking up tiny little insects. These birds seem to defy gravity as they cling on to the underside of a tree with their long claws, working their way up to the top, then leaping off to the bottom of the next tree and starting all over again, they are incapable of climbing down a tree. They are beautiful, but very secretive birds, and with their brown back-feathers, they do resemble a mouse, but they do have distinctive white eye-stripes and a small curved, needle-like bill which enables them to reach into crevices and cracks in trees.
As they hunt in the treetops, they fan out their tails to give them leverage against the trunk of the tree as they probe for food. The Irish name of the tree creeper is Beangan, although they are known in some parts of Ireland as a snag, and Ennisnag in County Kilkenny is called after them. It is estimated that there are up to 100,000 pairs of tree creepers in Ireland, and they have a life span of about eight years. I spent about 20 minutes watching this busy little bird, while the Red Squirrel hovered about, but always, keeping a watchful eye on me. Red squirrels live in drays in the tree-tops, they prefer broad-leaf woodlands, but in Britain they have been driven into the conifer woods by the invasive grey squirrel. The latter species are known as the Dart Vader’s of the animal world, they are fitter, faster and meaner than their red cousins, and to make matters even worse, the black squirrel, first recorded in Britain in 1912, is now taking over forests, attacking trees and terrorising other species of wild life. They are prolific in Eastern parts of· England, and are now on the march northwards, targeting saplings and wild birds eggs.
Squirrels are very shy creatures, and they do not like being disturbed, they will display their annoyance by flicking their tails and making a chattering noise. All around me on that evening stroll were the first bumblebees of spring, magnificent flyers, capable of stopping in mid-flight, and suddenly taking off again, it was a wonderful evening to be out and about, and even on such a short walk there is so much to be seen and heard.