Stonechats

One of the signs of Autumn down at my local RSPB reserve is the arrival of the Stonechats. Related to the Robins and Redstarts, these charming little denizens of the open countryside descend on the marshes fringing the Thames estuary from their breeding habitats on higher ground, perhaps on the continent or in upland western Britain.  Their harsh calls, reminiscent of two flints being struck together may give them their name, although the generic  Saxicola comes from a latin root meaning “stone dweller”, perhaps referring to the often rocky moorland and heathland habitats on which they breed. They are also among the only insectivorous birds to spend the winter in Great Britain, supplementing their diet with seeds, berries and molluscs. A hard winter can be devastating, causing very high juvenile mortality and knocking back populations hard. Some individuals in the British breeding population are migratory but they do not go further than the Mediterranean. Other populations, such as those in Siberia, are much longer distance migrants, and wintering populations are found in sub-Saharan Africa and in India, though some in Britain are thought to be near sedentary.  These sedentary birds get to begin their breeding season early, in March or April, typically sitting on eggs or feeding chicks when their nearest relative in Britain, the Whinchat (S. rubetra) is still making its way back from Africa, and can raise 3-4 broods compared to the Whinchat’s average of one. While migration presents its own challenges, there is a cost to its long distance travel in breeding opportunity.  Unlike long range migrants, the Stonechats in Britain also look set to gain from climatic change, as winters become milder.

Pair of Stonechats at Purfleet Marshes.

Stonechat numbers at RSPB Rainham Marshes, as it is known to the RSPB, or Purfleet Marshes as it is known to everyone else, begin to rise in September. These birds are often accompanied by Whinchats, similar but distinguished by their more slender shape and bold pale supercillium.  The Whinchats are gone by the time the winter sets in, down to Subsaharan Africa like so many British-breeding insectivorous birds, but Stonechats however must tough it out. They are related to Robins and share many of their relatives’ charm, and are often very confiding and will allow people to get quite close, and get good views. They are striking, even in winter when their fresh plumage is duller, before it wears down to reveal its breeding finery. The male has an orange breast, and near black upperparts with a white partial collar around his neck, and white wing markings.  I met a pair last weekend at the reserve, perched on the dry, upright remains of an umbelliferous plant, against a grey and forbidding sky.  They tolerated my slow approach, even when I was concerned I had flushed the female from her perch she had simply taken off to snatch an insect out of the air, and returned to it.  Somewhat romantically, stonechats, like some other species, typically move in pairs throughout the year.   Eventually she dropped down into the reeds as I walked by, although she rose occasionally to hover and seize passing insect, taking advantage of the continuing mild spell which allows these creatures to remain on the wing. Her mate eventually followed.

Walking on a moor near Bakewell in Derbyshire with my partner in the last days of October, tenacious Stonechats were still present, and are likely to remain so through the winter.  The moors are sparse, the vegetation faded to the colour of a red grouse, though a few small insects were flying around boggy patches. Wild animals were few and far between, Meadow Pipits were present in ones and twos, and a predatory Merlin flew over us, but a gaze across the damp and dead vegetation would typically reveal only sheep. The wind was cold, and as the winter progresses it will only get colder.  One handsome male perched on emergent fronds of dry bracken as Red Grouse flew out of the heather around them, watching us, calm and confiding as a garden robin.   He may spend the winter up here, or perhaps move down to open spaces such as wetlands at lower altitudes, but he, a tiny insectivore, will not be visiting gardens or attending feeders like his relatives from the Christmas card, he will be out here, toughing it out.

Male Stonechat at Purfleet Marshes

Open Letter #2 Open letter to the RSPB regarding the campaign to ban driven shooting and save the threatened Hen Harrier.

I am writing firstly to express my thanks and gratitude for your wonderful feature in this season’s edition of Nature’s Home, in which you address the plight of the Hen Harrier (Circus cyaneus) at the hands of criminals within the grouse shooting industry. However, while I support the RSPB’s campaign to see grouse shooting properly licenced, I felt compelled to express my disagreement with the implication that those who want to see driven grouse shooting consigned to the dustbin of history are not “pragmatic,” and the curious efforts to defend the ‘sport’ on subsequent pages, which included quotes from the Moorland Association, a front group for the grouse shooting industry.

The campaign to criminalise Grouse shooting is a grassroots one, and at Derwent Water this August I was among many people, protesting the Hen Harriers’ plight, who largely agreed that radical change is needed. The petition, started by Mark Avery, has attracted over 18,500 signatures, and even cosmetics chain Lush has taken up the cause. Moved by the illegal killing of Bowland Betty, a Hen Harrier who was raised not far from my alma mater at Lancaster,  in countryside so beautiful yet so tragically devoid of sky dancing harriers, a truly grass roots movement to save the species has begun and is gaining momentum. Statements like those in the article seem designed to take away that momentum.  Remember that popular movements have led to the criminalisation of Fox Hunting, and prevented the sale of the Forests. It seems very strange indeed that the RSPB would, in one line, seek to so undermine just such a movement, designed to save the Hen Harrier, and also destroy an industry which, by the RSPB’s own admission, probably has a net negative impact on upland conservation.  

It is worth noting that a great range of approaches have failed to address the problem of Hen Harrier persecution, as gamekeepers and their landed masters continue to prove pathologically incapable of leaving Hen Harriers and other raptors alone, in spite of criminal penalties for raptor persecution, endless photocalls in such unsavoury company as the Countryside Alliance,  and sympathetic spots on the Really Wild Show, emphasising the role of keepering in sustaining the habitat of certain upland waders on their Southern and Western range margins.  Co-operation does not work, and it is too late for another attempt. The RSPB has gently suggested to estates that they may wish to shift to walked up shooting, a form of grouse shooting which may be better equipped to co-exist with natural raptor populations, and the Game and Wildlife Conservation Trust threw the suggestions back in our faces, and then no more was heard.  Perhaps cold, hard legislation, casting these landlords and their servants as the criminals they are, will finally represent a language of approach which they will understand.

I suspect the RSPB fears criminalisation will alienate some of their supporters in the uplands, but I wonder if this will be the case if the other issues surrounding grouse shooting are fully explained to them. Exaggerated claims of the value of shooting, which is heavily subsidised from the public purse, are made by its supporters, but one wonders what these can be. Surely if a profit was forthcoming, public subsidies would not be required, and how can an industry which excludes ordinary tourists from the uplands when the heather is in bloom and the moors at the height of their expansive purple beautiful, be beneficial to rural economies? Something in their claims does not add up. Aside from the economic damage, and damage to rural peoples’ quality of life, caused by grouse shooting, the overuse of burning reduces floristic diversity, damages peat bogs and peaty moorland soils, contributing to the problem of climate change.

With this in mind, I return to the question of why the RSPB appears to be brushing off the popular movement for criminalising grouse shooting.  I worry that the commitment to non-interference in field sports, as the bloody slaughter of wildlife in our countryside is so euphemistically called, which stems from the heroic ladies from Didsbury’s fear of their husbands, is causing the RSPB to fight the battle to save raptors with one hand behind its back.  Clearly this would need to be abandoned if the RSPB was to offer its full support to the campaign for a ban. I do not ask the RSPB to become an opponent of shooting, merely to take a “pragmatic” approach, giving full attention to the needs of threatened wildlife like the Hen Harrier.   Do you perhaps also fear losing the “Royal” prefix? Perhaps you may, but for what gains in the grassroots conservation movement?

The Hen Harrier needs saving, and the campaign to ban driven grouse shooting may the best hope it has, especially given its broad public support, unlike the Moorland Association, whose PR team you allow column space in Nature’s Home. The Moorland association wants to translocate Hen Harrier chicks away from grouse moors under threat of criminal prosecution, in a classic display of the gangster tactics we have come to expect from such front groups and the criminals they represent.  Why are you giving them the oxygen of publicity while dismissing a popular campaign?

 The criminals stalking our uplands seem understand no negotiation, if the last couple of centuries of persecution are any indication, and as long as they can hide their crimes in the vastness of the open moorland, will continue to kill Hen Harriers and escape prosecution. It is far harder to conceal a grouse shoot than conceal a trap, or the destruction of a nest, and hard to grasp public subsidy, or widely advertise an illicit one.  Monitors from the RSPCA and the League Against Cruel Sports already help the law enforcement agencies crack down on illegal hunting with dogs, and I have no doubt that such or similar organisations will eagerly keep an eye on walked up shoots to ensure no grouse are driven from cover by beaters.   The campaign to criminalise driven shooting can occur alongside the campaign to licence it, but please do not undermine the former by implying it is not pragmatic, or by giving column inches to its vocal opponents.  It is the most exciting conservation campaign in the UK to gain public support for decades.

Many thanks again for helping to spread the word about the Hen Harrier, and I remain a loyal supporter of the RSPB, and hope to remain so for years to come.

Open letter #1 An open letter to my local MP in support of a ban on Driven Grouse Shooting.

I am writing to express my support for the campaign to criminalise the driven shooting of Red Grouse (Lagopus lagopus scotius), and in support of the E-petition to ban it, started by Dr Mark Avery, which has received over 18,500 signatures at time of writing.  The campaign brings together grassroots conservation campaigners and seeks to address the tragic and unacceptable decline and potential extinction of the Hen Harrier (Circus cyaneus) as an English breeding bird.  It is my belief that a full ban on driven grouse shooting- where grouse are flushed from the heather by beaters onto the waiting guns-is the only way we can stop the criminal elements in this industry, who have proved themselves pathologically incapable of leaving magnificent birds of prey alone. The Hen Harrier, despite a range of efforts to save it, has now been reduced to a few breeding pairs in England and Wales.  After several decades, co-operation between Grouse shooting enterprises and government conservation agencies and NGOs has been a failure, and the English Hen Harrier population has continued its catastrophic downward trajectory.  If grouse shooting itself were criminalised, the profit in killing Hen Harriers would be wiped out overnight. It is already illegal to kill Hen Harriers, but gamekeepers and their landed masters continue to flout the law, as enforcement is minimal and the vast uplands hard to police, especially on wildlife crime budgets reduced by the Conservative party.  It is easy to discretely destroy a nest, or place bait or a trap, or shoot these trusting birds, as they are highly reluctant to abandon their nests and young.  It is far harder to conceal a party of guns and a band of hired beaters, and harder still to market a criminal shoot.  I am sure the League Against Cruel Sports or similar organisations would be able to support the law enforcement agencies, as they do in the case of Fox hunting, which has mercifully been criminalised, ensuring prosecutions where grouse are deliberately chased from cover onto the waiting guns.

The pro-shooting lobby claim that a ban on driven grouse shooting would damage rural economies, and grossly inflated figures tend to be trotted out by bodies such as the Game and Wildlife Conservation Trust and the Countryside Alliance, figure which typically represent the economic value of shooting as a whole, and not that of driven grouse shooting exclusively. It seems unlikely that driven shooting is of great benefit to the rural economy. It is seldom profitable and relies heavily on public subsidy, which surely undermines the Conservative values of enterprise and market freedom which are so often espoused by the clients, landowners and the current government of which you are a part.   Furthermore, shooting sees large swathes of access land closed to the public during the summer school holidays, at the height of the tourist season, and when the purple moorland is in full bloom and at its most beautiful. This cannot benefit areas like the Forest of Bowland and the North Yorkshire Moors National Park, where business relies so heavily on tourism. A restored Hen Harrier population, with watch points run by organisations such as the Wildlife Trusts and the RSPB, and by local entrepreneurs however, could make a substantial economic contribution, more than replacing any losses caused by the banning of driven grouse shooting, and would not represent a drain on public funds.

Grouse shooting has other damaging impacts on the uplands, as heather burns, designed to artificially create habitat and food sources for unnaturally high numbers of grouse, has an appreciable impact on hydrology and may increase the risk of flooding. Too high a frequency of burns can also damage the peaty upland soils and peat bogs, vital carbon sinks in the fight against climate change, and can damage floristic diversity in these scarce, and distinctly British habitats.

The Hen Harrier is an inspiring sight whether in summer in the uplands or in the lowlands during the winter, as it ghosts over the reed beds, and I hope one day to be able to witness it and not see the conversation with any other witnesses turn to persecution.  It would be a tragedy if it were lost so that frustrated city boys and foreign oligarchs with guns can blast barely flightworthy juvenile grouse out of the sky on the ‘Glorious’ Twelfth.  Only three Hen Harrier nests successfully fledged young in 2014, and in 2012 there were no successful nests.  Even the most optimistic estimates place the English breeding Hen Harrier population at around 12 pairs, while published estimates for the potential population, given the existing habitat, range between 40 and 200 pairs.  It is clear that action is needed now, and that the government should heed the public call for a ban on driven shooting during this parliament,  before the Hen Harrier is gone, and it is too late. 


The Epetition is available here:  http://epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petitions/65627

A special tribe of Butterflies.

As Summer moves into Autumn, the peak diversity of butterflies has past, but a few species persist in our gardens and in the countryside, even as September becomes October. Speckled Wood (Pararge aegeria, L.) can fly well into November in their sheltered woodland edge habitat. However, these are not the most spectacular of Autumn butterflies. This prize must go to the members of the tribe Nymphalini, sometimes referred to as “the Aristocrats” in old field guides, or rather, a subset of them, the bright, boldly marked and coloured butterflies which dazzle on garden Sedumand even on rotting fallen fruit into early October each year.

Red Admiral (Vanessa atlanta) Enjoying the riches of Autumn, September 2014

These stunning bugs are out and active so late in the year for a reason.  They do not spend the winter as sleepy larvae, hunkered down somewhere out of the way like so many temperate zone butterflies. While my Northern Brown Argus (Aricia artaxerxes) the lycaenid unrelated to the Aristocrats, with which I worked the summer of 2013, remains an unassuming caterpillar, seeking a warm spot among the scrub of its hillside habitat in which to escape the frosts, Red Admirals (Vanessa atlanta)  and Small Tortoiseshells (Aglais urticae) are preparing for the epic ways in which these species escape the cold.  Small Tortoiseshell  and Peacock (A. io) look for sheltered corners, often venturing into homes and outbuildings, in which to roost out the cold, dark months, avoiding the depredations of spiders and other predators and incidental predators somehow, whilst in a state of torpor. Red Admirals, and the closely related Painted Lady (V. Cardui) feed frantically to fuel their ascent to several hundred metres altitude and their long migration back to Southern Europe where they can escape the worst of the North European Weather.

Polygonia c. album at Roding Valley, Essex, April 2014

Aglais io at Two Tree Island, Essex, April 2014

 The Aglais nymphalids, and the related Comma (Polygonia c-album) which also undergoes hibernation as an adult, have larvae which grow and feed communally on stinging nettles (Urtica dioca) and sometimes on Hops (Humulus lupulus) in the case of the Comma.  All have more than one generation on the wing in a year, with large numbers of all three on the wing in July. Their offspring go on to feed, grow and ultimately hibernate as adults. They emerge and embark on a brief but frantic period of feeding. Their bodies are modified for this, they will have no interest in reproduction until the spring.  Their wings, whilst bright and gaudy on their uppersides, are all remarkably plain on the underside, closely resembling a dead leaf. Stationary, and with their wings closed, they can virtually disappear into their winter environment.  On the whitewashed walls of a building, be it a camp site wash block or the attic of a suburban home, they are more conspicuous, but perhaps have less to fear from predators. Peacocks will still flash their eye spots when threatened, in the hope of dazzling of confusing a predator, but in the main they remain still and silent, before, as the weather warms, they become slowly active, before heading out into a new spring, often somewhat faded, to regain their energy levels, and finally go about the business of courtship and reproduction, assured of blackthorn blossom on which to find nectar, and fresh nettles on which to lay their eggs.  All are among the first butterflies to appear in spring. As the weather turns I wonder if I must wait that long to see them, or if stragglers will yet grace my Sedums this year. Nymphalini butterflies, which like all North European butterflies are largely nectar feeders and cannot ingest pollen, in the active state, can typically live a couple of weeks as adults.

The Early bug catches the blackthorn blossom. Overwintered Aglais urticae. Roding Valley, Essex, April 2014.

The genus Vanessa, which includes the hugely widespread Painted Lady (V.cardui), resident on every continent except Antarctica, and the Red Admiral (V. atlanta) have evolved a strategy even more remarkable with which to face the ravages of the North European climate.   It was long thought that these species dispersed from Southern European breeding grounds to Northern Europe, erruptively, settling in Britain and other countries, and produced a brood of caterpillars which fed through the summer, pupated, and then emerged between July and September, only to perish in great numbers when the first frost set in. The evolutionary absurdity of this theory was not explored, and even after Southward movements of Red Admirals had been detected and their migratory habits acknowledged, painted ladies were still thought to colonise Northern Europe afresh every summer only to die in their millions.  This, of course, is not true. Painted Ladies can cross oceans, and they cross them far higher than human eyes can see. Tiny signatures picked up on vertical facing radars, such as the purpose built entomological ones at Rothamstead Research,   show butterflies climbing to altitude, up to a kilometre above the ground, including at night, and carefully selecting a Southerly heading and a Southerly wind back to the areas where their parents or grandparents were pupae.  Large and powerful amongst  butterflies, paper thin and fragile against seas and windy skies, Painted Lady and Red Admiral navigate the chill autumn skies in vast numbers and at altitude, their heights taking them free of bats and diurnal predators, some form of evolved internal compass guiding them to their destination.   If you read as I type, perhaps they could be up there right now. In the spring their descendents make the return journey to take advantage of the flowers and the abundant thistles and nettles of Britain and other parts of Northern Europe.

A world traveller. V. cardui, Arnside Knott, Cumbria, August 2013.

(All photos are original. Do not reproduce for profit. Feel free to enjoy, or use in your essays)